Remember the “early” days of the web? If you can recall the time leading up to the dotcom crash of 2001, everyone wanted a website, nobody knew quite why, and web companies from the best in the business to fly-by-nights were picking up work left, right and centre building sites, the vast majority of which of course cost a lot and delivered very little.
As the web has grown up, and businesses have attached metrics to web performance, the web has become a more stable and useful tool for delivering performance – whether that is leads, sales or “eyeballs” – all of which is ultimately full measurable. This way, businesses have learned where to spend their marketing “bucks” online.
Tomorrow’s web is portable
Fast forward to right now. The iPhone is the ubiquitous “cool” mobile, with millions sold. For many more people than that, Google’s Android smartphone operating system is powering their phone, offering much the same “mini-computer” functionality as the iPhone.
Applications like Facebook are exploding in popularity on mobile devices, as are news, accouting, calendar, recipe, sports and a myriad other applications. Add in to this the runaway early success of the iPad, and it’s clear that tomorrow’s web is portable.
I want one of those!
Businesses are thus eyeing mobile “apps” and sites in the same way they eyed the web way back when. And while iPhone, Android, iPad and mobile apps and websites have ther own pitfalls (just like commissioning websites back in the early days did), the fruit is there for the picking: If you can offer your customers something on their portable device that adds to or complements your website, product or service, it is a great idea to get started on building something along these lines for your company.
The key is to be sure you’re adding something, be clear about what you want, and then speak to someone who can help you make it happen, and who can show you a track record of building sites and/or apps for these devices.
That way you’ll get a modern, fresh online presence for your company in all the right people’s pockets – while hopefully avoiding the mistakes of the last internet boom!
By Phil Morse