A tale of descent into madness, the collapse of self and ultimately submission and through that redemption, the character, Pink, of whom the story is told, sings of the realisation that his relationship with his wife is finally over. While travelling, he continuously calls on the phone only to find that there’s ‘Nobody Home’.

Of course, back in 1979 all our phones were just there – home. Probably in the hallway, maybe by the bedside too, but certainly not in our pockets wherever we went.

Pink’s interpretation of the ringing out is the realisation of what he already knows. This isn’t simply a case of unfortunate timing, it’s really over. He has [sarcastically] “amazing powers of observation”.

The reality back then was that if you called at the wrong time, you wouldn’t get an answer. No call log, no voicemail, no sms. Catch someone or try again tomorrow.

Not so today.

If you call someone on their mobile you expect to reach them. No call can be missed, no message unheard. We can make direct connections with people wherever they are in the world, instantly.

And this is true of customers connecting to brands. Customers are using their phones right now to reach out to the businesses and brands that matter to them. But they aren’t always getting through. Often, there’s nobody home – and that can be the end of that relationship too.

Now you probably know that I’m not going to keep talking about voice coms today. In 2012 consumers are using their mobile phones for a lot more than that.

I’m not talking about dialling a number and having it ring out, I’m talking about consumers hitting a url only to find that the page doesn’t load, fit or work on their phone. That’s when, in the case of mobile web, there’s nobody home.

Prompting this piece is the news that among 100 leading brands in fashion, beauty, hospitality, jewellery and retailers, only two-thirds have mobile-optimized websites, and few of those are set up for users to shop, according to a survey by digital think tank L2.

This should be shocking, although with my own ‘amazing powers of observation’ it comes as no surprise. The brand manager and marketers that should be listening to this are letting the phone ring out.  Those that ignored mobile web and invested purely in native apps are finding there was no point, the apps stores are not where the customer is calling.  They are missing the customers and the relationships they had are breaking down.

With an increasing amount of organic traffic hitting websites from mobile devices now is the time to make certain that mobile web is firmly set as part of digital strategy. It is cold hard fact that this is how users want to interact and if they are shut out they go elsewhere.

The solution is easy. Mobile web is not difficult when you work with people like us at Wapple. We can help you answer the call of mobile web. Sure, there are some challenges but we’ve been there many, many times.

In Pink’s case, he makes the wrong choices and descends into madness. Now that cautionary line may be a little too strong for this tale but I think that we can all agree that not answering the call of consumers who want to connect is madness in itself.

I’m done now. Kind of a different post to normal this time. I’m certain that there are plenty of you who have never even listened to Pink Floyd. I guess I really am that old now but it’s never too late you know. Just, please, if you buy it on iTunes, play it in order not on shuffle!

I have been asked by many in the industry what my predictions are for 2012, and those of you that know me will be aware that I love making predictions. I’ve had plenty of practice since we saw the potential of mobile web around the turn of the millennium. So, here we go!

More Mobile Web, Less Apps

Having spoken at a number of conferences recently I have been surprised to see how well this topic is received. Maybe it’s because Mobile Web got its buzzword in HTML5 (which does not mean what you think it does but serves as our ‘Mobile Web 2.0’ description of services made well for high end devices) or maybe it’s because people are so damn tired of Apple trying to own the universe through iTunes.

Whatever it is, nobody can deny that Mobile Web can now create experiences that are comparable to apps. And the velocity of the trend towards services to all devices, directly, without an app store is amazing. Just look at the FT – an amazing experience where they keep all of their revenue.

Windows will work again, Apple get tired.

Love it or loath it (I love it) Metro UI is coming to the devices that people use every day. From Windows 8 to Windows Phone via Xbox and the inevitable integration of Skype you’re going to be using tiles, voice commands, gesture and Bing search. Don’t discount Microsoft’s ability to put their operating system in front of most people on the planet and this wholly integrated and common interface is going to be huge.

Windows Phone 7 is awesome. Everyone who actually tries it loves it. Now imagine that it’s chosen UI shares visual and functional metaphors across the screens that you encounter at the office PC and the home games console (and let’s not pigeon hole the Xbox as just a games console because frankly it’s a complete media hub and entertainment system for the living room, bedroom, home office and more.

Metro UI is refreshingly new. It’s elegant and supremely functional. In my opinion it trounces iOS which now looks dated and boring.  With the iPhone 4s failing to update the form factor and the UI showing its age, users will be on the lookout for something new. Windows Phone 7 gives them this.

QR codes finally come of age.

Everyone recognises them, but very few people use them. Its our fault, us in the business, and this year we’ll get it right.

In 2012 year we’ll embed QR readers into the native camera functions of devices. No more siloed QR code reader applications – just point and click so to speak. We’ll think about where people will actually want to get their phones out and shoot a QR. There won’t be any more QR codes in Gentlemen’s restrooms or between two heads opposite you on a subway train. Instead they will be all over products, point of sale, digital billboards and print. Each QR code, which certainly indicates that there is a mobile experience behind them, will also carry a short, memorable vanity url. A mental takeaway if you will, for when the camera phone just isn’t instantly available.  Oh, and we’ll see QR codes on everything. Every Thing. Not just one QR code for Walkers Crisps, but a QR code for each flavour.

And then the rest.

There’s also going to be a lot of convergence, more acquisitions by agencies wanting a part of the action and a lot of small app-centric companies going by the wayside. This is a natural occurrence of a rapidly evolving industry, there will be winners and losers… and the losers will be those that don’t evolve.

I’m done now. Only a few meeting and calls away from putting my feet up in front of the fire and keeping my head down throughout the madness that will be Christmas through to New year

See you in 2012, either in the mobile marketplace or in Jurassic Park.

The overriding reason for this has been the spread of smartphones and much has changed over the course of a year. According to research company IDC, 100.9 million smartphones shipped in the final quarter of 2010, a figure that was up 87.2% on the previous year.

Eleven months later and a seminal report from data analysts Neilsen showed how things had moved on in 2011. In the US the vast majority of those under the age of 44 now have smartphones and usage was significantly up across the board.

It’s not just the 40% of teenagers who own one, but also the 18% (up 50% on 2010) of people over the age of 65 who have them. Just as importantly not only do they own them, they are using them and the UK is as enthusiastic as they are across the Atlantic in the US.

Research last month from EPiserver reported that 59% of UK consumers now own a smartphone and 18% have a tablet device… and more than a third have used them to make a purchase, a figure that will undoubtedly rise as the Christmas season approaches.

These are exciting times. At Wapple we have been predicting these numbers for years – sometimes in the face of opposition that didn’t believe that mobile could ever stand against the bigger brother that is desktop internet.

But today many people reach for their phones before opening up a laptop or even moving to a desktop PC.

So how did we get here? What were the events of 2011 that caused the mobile web to hit critical mass? Naturally when it comes to tipping points there are multiple factors but Google’s advances in the mobile space have ignited the sector and consequently caused mobile marketing to explode.

Google’s Android is now the dominant operating system after finally taking over from Apple in 2011 and the company has thrown its weight behind several initiatives to support the industry. In Q2 Google launched ‘Google Sites Mobile Landing Pages’, aka Google Mobilize, a new tool to help SMEs launch mobile websites.

This provided simple, template-based sites for customers and was free for them to use, although this was not a philanthropic gesture on behalf of the company. This was all about mobile advertising revenue with SMEs signing up for the AdWords platform, not that SMEs seemed to mind too much.

The company followed this in Q3 with the launch of Google Wallet as it joined American Express Serve, Mastercard Paypass, Visa Wallet and Isis in offering mobile payments services. According to mobile analyst G + (not related) this market will be worth a whopping $670 million by 2015 of which 40% will be ‘digital goods’.

Last and not least the company recently announced GoMo, a significant signpost in the natural development road of the mobile web. Google had previously announced that 79% of advertisers had sites that were not optimised for mobile devices, a truly extraordinary figure. The GoMo initiative helps agencies and companies by using 12 mobile web experts to create mobile-friendly sites.

For example, mobile ad networks serve billions of page views so this is a huge opportunity for their advertisers but often they waste this by linking their banner ad to their website, rather than a mobile optimised version. GoMo will help prevent this and the unwanted 80%+ bounce rate that comes from a non-optimised mobile web site.

Google know that mobile web services represent the future of our connected lives. The browser is at the heart of their devices, both mobile phones and the new Chromebook laptops. Wapple once suggested that entering a URL on a mobile would be easier than dialling a number. Today we see the Google bar on the homescreen and the dialler stored away like any other application. Interfaces like this from Google have subtly influenced users to further the journey that already started – a shift towards consumption of digital services through the devices they carry in their pockets and places on the bedside table every night.

But it wasn’t all down to Google. Other companies jumped into the space with their own positive statements on mobile. Global brand Unilever announced that it would use mobile as its primary marketing channel within ten years, in a strategy that includes covering mobile data charges for those interacting with its brands.

Moreover clothes retailer Gap claimed in 2011 that its investment in mobile had helped the company treble its online conversions, citing its new mobile commerce platform, targeted mobile ads and a GPS-based store locator as the elements behind this surge.

Then there’s the automotive industry. Every week eBay sells more than 2,000 cars on mobile web and innovation is this sector is rampant. In some cases, QR codes have been used to take the customer from a brochure or TV to a test drive and AutoTrader recently reported that in 2011 45% of its customers had accessed AutoTrader Mobile while ON a dealer’s forecourt to research a car.

Significant dates have also pushed mobile web through the last 12 months. Mothers Day purchases of gifts and especially flowers have seen mobile become the platform of choice for many and the recent Thanksgiving Day celebrations in the US has seen a similar spike. Christmas, as already noted, will push mobile transactions via the mobile web to a new level.

Of course, there’s more to come. At Wapple we’re busy getting the message out to those businesses and brands that haven’t yet caught the wave. There are plenty more verticals still to bring their services to the mobile masses. Thankfully, with great technology platforms like ours it’s no longer the daunting task that it once was.

Acquisitions and mergers have also driven the market. The recent acquisition of Mobile Interactive Group by Velti and the  merger between iLoop Mobile and Lenco Mobile is testament to this. Expect further market consolidation in 2012.

But there are also grounds for caution and it might be propitious to return to Google for the numbers. Its 2011 study that only 21% of its biggest advertisers had a mobile-optimised web presence.

Google used 200 diagnostic points to measure each advertiser’s mobile readiness, with criteria such as load time, device detection and mobile optimisation, so this is an in-depth study.

There is still work to do. With at least 10% of web sites now accessed by mobile and rising daily, this state of play shows how important imobile strategy is. Sub-standard mobile experiences damage brands and send customers away. Companies, big and small alike, need to treat mobile with as much as respect as they do for all traditional channels. Perhaps even more so – after all this is the platform of the future, the platform that connects with consumers wherever they are.

In-store payment on mobiles is simply not here yet. Maybe one day but have you even performed a contactless technology transaction with your new fangled credit card yet? No? Me neither. So based on that, paying for something on your mobile is some WAY off. Maybe a nice idea could be dreamt up – a mechanism for making it happen. But standardising the technology and then installing it in a number of retailers enough to achieve critical mass is a pipedream in 2011.

Mobiles are with you at the point of purchase. Sure, they are there when you make purchasing decisions. But that doesn’t mean we have to default to making users pay through their mobile devices. Why does mobile HAVE to become a payment platform to be judged a success? Surely a brand /retailer is happy if the consumer commits to purchase – cash, CC, hell – cheque! As long as mobile has contributed to that purchase then it played its part.

Maybe to take that point to the next level – when I watch an advert on TV and I like the product so much that the next day I go out and buy it then ‘Job Done’ marketing team. Well done. Just because I didn’t press the red button and have it posted to me a week later doesn’t mean TV failed. It worked. Really well.

Oh, and I never press the red button by the way.

According to research company IDC, 100.9 million smartphones shipped in the final quarter of 2010, a figure that is more than 18 million higher than PC sales of 92.1 million.

While the media seems obsessed with the latest iterations of the iPhone and the iPad and which tablet computer will challenge the existing, and ephemeral, hold of Apple on the market, it is the smartphone market where the revolution is taking place.

The figures from IDC show that the 100.9 million figure is up 87.2% on the previous year and according to the company, the driver in this extraordinary increase is Google’s Android: “It has become the cornerstone of multiphone vendors’ smartphone strategies”, says a senior research analyst at the company.

The data from IDC is backed up by a recent report from IMS and underscores further how Android is becoming integral to the smartphone experience. According to the company Android was present in nearly 125 million Android devices that were shipped in 2010 and there will be an installed base of 140 million Android devices by the end of 2011 and most of these are in smartphones.

Google’s decision to invest in Android is reaping just rewards and this month (March 2011), its Director of Mobile Partnerships Chris LaSala publicly called for online publishers to see 2011 as the year they decide to invest in mobile.

“Now is the time to take the plunge and engage users on mobile, yet many of these content providers have barely scraped the surface as their mobile teams are constrained by minuscule budgets and are low on companies’ priority lists”, he said recently.

LaSala not only calls for companies to remove their budget constraints and port content across to the channel, he advises them to take risks and ‘act like a start-up’, and to re-evaluate the mobile strategy every three months.

He also illustrates only too well how the smartphone market is more important than the PC market when he says that “we’ve found that mobile usage peaks when desktop wanes making it additive to your existing business.”

Google’s attitude is similar to us here at Wapple. Businesses should act to define their mobile strategy and review as Google’s LaSala suggests as things move very quickly indeed. BUT the first critical action to take is to make their web presence mobile friendly using true mobile web optimization technology to take advantage of the huge opportunities in mobile. Right now!

Consumers expect to find their favourite brands on the mobile web and if they don’t find them, or the experience is bad, it is unlikely they’ll try again.

However, it must be remembered that the smartphone is not a small PC, companies cannot merely transfer their fixed-internet websites over to mobile. An integrated mobile strategy will mean that businesses will be able to prosper in this New Jerusalem.

For many, the smartphone is a new channel and in many respects that is true, but it is also the convergence of the mobile internet and the existing apps market that means the mobile channel has hit tipping point. The adoption curve is becoming steeper by the day as ‘hockey-stick’ economics dominate and mobile be the main channel in the future for companies to do business.

In two years’ time, those smartphone sales figures of 100.9 million that look impressive now will look small as the market embraces late adopters and laggards. For businesses who need to make mobile work for them they have to adopt earlier… or it will be too late, as Google surely attests to.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28744c96-176a-11df-87f6-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=4dce8136-4a24-11da-b8b1-0000779e2340.html?nclick_check=1

So, lets be clear once again. Installed apps are OK but they’re expensive, tied to a particular OS, distributed through crowded and controlled channels, hard to spread virally and, well, so 2009.

Web Apps for mobile are cheap to develop, OS agnostic, browser independent (if you build them using Wapple technology), free to distribute and easy to spread. Oh, and this really IS the year of the mobile web so if you want to live in the now then mobile Web Apps are the only place to be!

I am pleased to say that since my recent rant, the BBC have started to render correctly for my Android handset. I have the mobile version again. I am happy.

There’s an ongoing debate on the subject of mobile web transcoding, so here’s our take.

Let’s be clear on our language here though. Transcoding videos for mobiles is essential and very good, but doing it to your web output is bad. Really bad.

A reliance on an automated process that takes HTML output and reformats it to mobile markup is a deluded one. Computers are really bad at recognising diverse visual patterns (that’s why we all use CAPTCHA to protect from bots) and you don’t get much more diverse than web design. If a transcoder has been taught your web layout, you’ll find yourself tied to that web design or face losing any learning invested in the system.

The core point however is that mobile users have different desires and demands to you normal web audience. They don’t want to search for information – they want it served to them. They want access to services that are typically mobile, not those that are more comfortably engaged in while sat in front of a 19inch monitor with time to spare.

The solution is to write mobile applications for mobile from the heart of your server outwards, sharing logic and data.

With this approach you can utilise all the logic, models and controllers (if you’re that way inclined) from your existing web services but present them using view layers that are ideally suited to mobile devices. You can omit features that are simply not made for mobile and include new ones that would mean nothing to a web audience but are essential to visitors on the move.

Wapple Architect allows you to output a single markup language for every mobile device. The process will automatically adapt your WAPL markup to each and every mobile device – but this isn’t transcoding – it’s taking the output, layout and data described in WAPL and returning the correct markup for any particular device.  Watch this video to understand more.

Wapple Architect beats automated transcoding

Don’t be fooled by the sirens singing the song of transcoding. They will bite you in the backside sooner or later. Transcoding is at best a quick fix but as an enterprise level approach to catching the mobile web wave it will ultimately disappoint your users, create an extra layer of work for you over and over and simply glosses over an issue rather than addressing it entirely.

Code, don’t transcode.

If the BBC don’t start recognising my Android handset as a mobile browser again, I’ll go elsewhere. I’ve had enough of navigating their full website through my small screen and I want the mobile experience back.

About a month ago, my handset updated. At the time I was quite excited but it turned out there was no visible change anyway. Well, no upward ones.

We noticed through our own technology that the handset started to identify itself differently and adapted Wapple technology to suit. This happens from time to time after a firmware update (Apple are by far the worst for this), but for a vigilant development team and a good platform, adapting to such a change is pretty easy.

But the Beeb haven’t managed it so I just get their full website and not the mobile version.

It’s painful. Text is too small, images don’t fit, I have to scroll around like a madman and page loads are slow over 3G.

And now, after all this time I’ve had enough. I am giving them one more week to correct this, during which I’ll check periodically, then if they still don’t serve me the mobile version of their services I’m going to give up.

The frustration factor is immense. What was a great service has vanished to me.

Perhaps that’s what makes it so painful. I had a mobile friend in the BBC. Their great content was served perfectly to my device and now it’s just not. I feel like I’m in mourning. Actually, no, I feel like I’m standing by the bedside of a service in a coma and I have to make the decision to turn off the life support machine. I need to accept the loss and move on.

But there IS still hope.  So while my finger hovers close to the switch I’ll keep you all posted.

It seems to have attracted a lot of flames. Blimey! Time for Mobile Web Junkie to dive in…

Read the  article. It’s great.

If you’re trying to make money, dump your iPhone strategy

Then the comments but in case you feel too much pain before you get as far as my comment, here it is, just for you:

Wow, what a lot of hate in the comments. I really think that a lot of you need to read back what you’ve written and see if it’s truly in the spirit of constructive debate.

I would suggest that every single flame has been posted by iPhone owners. A trait I’ve noticed is that as soon as someone jumps onto the Apple train they feel they have a fight on their hands. I guess it’s a complex caused by Microsoft constantly trumping Apple in the OS battle.

Let’s all calm down a little. There really is no need for all this flaming.

I don’t like the iPhone but I do recognise that it has done wonders for educating the public that there’s more to mobiles than just voice and text. Finally we have a platform that can do so much more, but importantly it makes extra applications accessible and consumable.

My problem is that the worldwide market share that Apple has is actually a lot smaller than iPhone fans would have you believe. Given the amount of absolute trash that is available on the App Store I find it difficult to believe that enough people make money out of selling apps to maintain a sustainable environment.

This problem is not just Apple’s. I recently switched from Nokia to Android and I am inundated with rubbish and duplicate applications in the Marketplace and I am overwhelmed to the point that I cannot discern good from bad. It has become painful to find applications because of the distinct lack of editorial to filter the stuff that matters from that which doesn’t.

I am a mobile web expert – developing and delivering services for mobile web for the last 7 years at Wapple. I believe in the broadest possible publishing models and I believe in open markets not manufacturer-owned distribution channels.

The mobile web unifies all operating systems. Mobile web is the platform that we should all be publishing for as it is unrestricted and platform independent (provided you use the correct tools to overcome device variations).

A colleague of mine was a complete Apple head. He spent a lot of money on the App Store – then he had his phone stolen during a night out. Disgusted with O2′s refusal to honour the insurance policy he had paid for he bought himself a new Nokia, swearing never to return to iPhone again.

He lost all his apps. Those that he had paid for.

More worryingly for everyone in this forum, he was lost as a customer to those businesses relying on his ongoing custom through the App Store.

Though all the services that he engaged with through his mobile web browser were maintained as he moved to a new operating system.

Now the theft of a phone is an extreme example, although we can all relate I’m sure. But let’s look at our own histories. I am a Windows PC user and have been for 16 years. Sure I’ve used other operating systems fleetingly but I have worked with the same software and service vendors for years.

But when it comes to phones, I have used many different models from different manufacturers. Every 18 months for the last 10 years I have changed models and manufacturers.

I find it hard to believe that anyone will be an iPhone user for life. Right now iPhone is the ‘big thing’. All the decision makers have them (what about all the customers, though?). But it will not be the big thing forever.

Users will migrate. You will migrate. Then all the development and marketing you have put into attracting a small slice of the entire mobile audience will be for nothing.

Personally, I’ll keep developing for mobile web. It’s not a direct competitor to mobile apps anyway, but I do know that what I make will move with me, my customers and the market through all its twists, turns and trends.