Written by Davin Broadbent

It was widely reported this week via an associated press release that in a recent Neilson Survey commissioned by Paypal, Australian shoppers in 2010 used Mobile devices to spend a generous $150 million online. This boost in newly dubbed M-commerce is a trend that is only set to continue growing with over 68 percent of those surveyed agreeing that they will (and expect to) use mobile devices to make all kinds of purchases, transactions and payments in the future. (source: AAP March 24, 2011)

It’s hard to believe that Mobile Phones have really only been mainstream for 15- 20 years. Some of us clearly remember the clunky bricks with their 5 inch antenna and 15 minute battery life. They were so big that you needed to hire someone just to carry them around for you. Then things started getting smaller, all of a sudden, the aim was to have a phone so small it was impossible to dial without first straightening a paperclip. Rationalisation evened out the bumps and apart from the odd design throwback, phones began to evolve into the feature packed devices that we know and love today. In fact it’s probably no longer appropriate to call these devices phones because in reality the telephone is such a small part of the device, it’s hard to say which feature if any is the dominant one. “Mobiles” have become an integral part of everyday life, they are fashion, status, media, medium, storage, recorder and PA. What most of us have in our pockets are powerful mobile computing platforms, so powerful in fact that if you compare the average phone to the computers used in the Apollo space program, most people will be surprised to learn that they are carrying at least 1000x more processing power in their pockets and handbags. Now with Tablets like the iPad growing in popularity pretty soon even the starving and underprivileged will be able to tweet about their plight from somewhere deep in the heart of the 3^{Article rd} world, using mobile technology. So what does all this mean? Are we going to have to have a whole new internet just for mobile devices, will mobile data and bandwidth become a new currency , will we all need to build apps or rebuild our websites for multiple platforms, how many different versions of Angry birds will I need to pay for? These are all very good questions (except for the one about Angry Birds).

There is no doubt that mobile computing is here to stay, barring any world altering Mayan catastrophe next year, we can only expect Mobile to grow in its uptake and diversity. The key to Mobile and its many applications is still really up to the end user. While applications are limited only by the imagination of developers, Mobile devices are still primarily for communication, phone, email, text. Most new “smart phones” have decent (forward and rear facing) cameras enabling the user to integrate video calls. Mobile’s are also becoming very popular mico gaming platforms, ebook readers and importantly Web browsers. As the user grows to depend on mobile internet (for more than email, facebook and twitter) we will undoubtedly see a rise in made for mobile web sites and ecommerce sites.

Some mobile operating systems (not pointing fingers at brands named after fruit) have taken a stand and do not support certain web content like flash. This means that for those of us who have elements of flash in their websites (about 80% of the internet) if you still want to engage with mobile browsers (using this platform) then you will need to structure your site accordingly.

This is not to say that there is a need for everyone to rush out and commission an app or redesign their website (although if you are thinking about it please give us a call). There are many examples of websites that wouldn’t really benefit at all from having a separately designed Mobile site, including, clubs, not for profits, local business like green grocers, hair dressers etc. That said there is no harm at all in having a site that caters to mobile, because hey Mobile is definitely the new black.