Affordable and user friendly web browsing opens up the most important part of the global mobile service layer. Now web publishers need to convince users there is added value is accessing their websites on the move, in installing their mobile applications. Just like snake, tetris and other casual games have been relegated to the commuting slot, many web services and apps will find their place in users' mobile slots, but not without a fight.
New mobile services and their varying marketing budgets are starting to pour down on the user through the desktop PC, TV, print... their struggle is one of survival as they compete with handset pre-installed apps and popular web giants, striving to brake user behavioural inertia. "6:10PM, on the train home I check BBC Sports and play a game of solitaire. Convince me otherwise; Surprise me!" Mobile services must surprise the user in his line of flight, from home to work, from work to the gym... Mobile inertia is big, after all it's still a hassle to browse, install and try new services... so the successful ones will stay longer and have more user loyalty -- at least in the next year or so. Users employ google to search the web on a big screen and naturally want the same type of service on the little screen. Giants like Google have a huge head start even if they haven't done much to deserve it. In this forest of a few huge trees, hindering technology and behavioural inertia, new services are sprouting and struggling much more to reach the light of little screens than they have before for the light of big desktop screens.
Solutions (only to be used with very good ideas)
Let your service consolidate its users via the desktop and maximize your reach. In fact, if your service needs a little unappealing management time on the part of the user, push it to the big screen and let the little screen boast most of the fun. Yes, on the move people want to be surprised, to have fun, to get to the heart and fast... remember, they know where they're going and unless your service is maps, it's unlikely you will change that.
Be creative in the way you provision your mobile service, remember on the move users are quicker to distill value of a service than they are in their comfy chairs. With Mekwa one of the options was to disguise the application as a stand alone game that one can play just like snake. I'm not suggesting that every new mobile app needs to be disguised as a game (that would be stealing my idea;) but there are many ways to get the service onto users handsets -- and the way in which it is done will largely determine the mobile service's success, so explore. If your service does not have an app component and is purely browser based, then remember that little screens require intelligent hooks. There's nothing like syndication and simple subscription to help the little screen fish pragmatic users.
photo by JanneM