This is the third and final post in a series on how publishers should approach mobile development.
In the first post — Mobile Essentials, my 4 rules — I outlined four general topics publishers should consider as they develop a mobile strategy. In the second — Mobile Rules for Publishers, 1 to 5 — I reviewed the first five rules. In this post I’ll review the last five rules.
6. Learn how and when your customers use your content — There’s a mad dash to put everything on mobile — often driven by the people who want to charge you lots of money to help you with the task.
You have to ask why. Ask what’s “mobile” about the content or function you are considering. Is it something that’s even useful on a mobile device?
There are clear benefits to getting some content onto mobile devices. One of my co-presenters in Mobile essentials: making the business case mentioned a company that created text alerts for farmers. Of course many farmers spend their days outside, not in front of a computer, and a lot of them don’t have smart phones. A fancy iPad app isn’t going to help them at all, but a text-only alert, or an SMS message, could be of huge benefit.
7. Distinguish mobile web and apps — The lines between these two are starting to blur (especially with hybrid apps), but there are still important differences.
Briefly, an app is a program that a user downloads and installs on his device, while a mobile website is accessed through the device’s web browser. The app can offer additional functionality, like geo location, a better user interface, and offline storage.
But it can come with a price. You have to pay the app store, and sometimes they have onerous terms that mess with your business model — especially if you are a subscription publisher.
I don’t want to get into this too deeply here, but this is an issue you should study carefully.
8. Distinguish tablet and phone-sized screens — “Mobile” can be an unfortunate term because people might associate it with “mobile phone.” A laptop computer is a mobile device. So is a tablet. So is a smart phone. So is a stupid phone. And now we have Google glasses, and soon we’ll have cool interfaces in our cars.
It may be more helpful to think of screen size and functionality. Personally, I love the convenience of writing a short message with an on-screen keyboard, but I would never consider doing anything serious with one of those things. I prefer a real keyboard and a mouse.
Another thing — remember that many programs (like WordPress or Drupal) have mobile plug-ins that may be able to save you lots of time and money.
9. Don’t listen to the geniuses — Remember the paperless office? The PDA? The Segway? I’m still waiting for my flying car.
I recently heard a keynote speech that said the iPad was the most transformative invention in the last 100 years. Uh … more than the digital computer itself? Or the TV?
A lot of what you hear is ridiculous hype. Fire up your B.S. detector whenever you listen to somebody talk about mobile.
10. Remember where you are earning your revenue — Don’t get distracted by things that don’t contribute substantially to the bottom line. Five years from now I’m pretty certain that publishers are going to be laughing (or crying) about the money they wasted on social media experts. If they’d invested that money in fixing their renewal series, they’d have been far better off.
Will an investment in mobile pay off for your company, with your audience and your business model?
This series of three posts includes …