A new study from the UK says that just 11% of British mobile users have “browsed the Internet on a mobile”, compared to 28% worldwide. I find the UK stat pretty hard to believe, given the healthy mobile content market there, though it does appear to jive with M:Metrics’ usage figures from March. The survey also says a third of British users are interested in surfing the mobile Net, but “only if it is like the true Internet environment”.
What I’m wondering is if something’s getting caught up in semantics here, if people aren’t realizing they’re accessing “the Internet” when they actually are surfing carrier-linked mobile sites, or downloading games, or using a Java portal. The technical hair-splitting isn’t the point, but rather the idea that what operators are giving to users as “the mobile Internet” is falling well short of what people expect. When T-Mobile launched its Web’n'walk initiative, it made a big deal of using Google as its home page so users would “know” they were accessing the internet, making the distinction clear.
Of course, what many operators offer their customers very much isn’t the Internet. It’s not open, it’s not a place where the content one can access is limited by so many factors, or one where the network owner plays such a role in determining just what users can and can’t do. But mostly, it’s not a place where users can easily find content they’re interested in.
There are two important takeaways here. First, users should be empowered to access whatever they want. This means no walled gardens, and powerful browsers that can access full HTML sites. Second, operators should focus on adding value to users’ internet experiences by recognizing that mobile browsing is different than browsing from a computer and add to (not replace) the open access with more customized services and sites for users that want them. It should be an additive strategy that takes full browsing capability as a starting point, then builds on top of it, not a plan that throws the Internet that people know and love out the window, then opens up tiny holes to let only particular content through.
[tags]mobile, mobile internet, mobile web, t-mobile[/tags]
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