The cost of mobile internet access continues to be a serious impediment for many consumers and is still too high for mass adoption.
A couple of months back, Apple’s iPhone was all the rage, and I wrote a column for iMedia asserting that its introduction heralded the dawn of a new era in mobile web access. The focus was not on the Apple device per se, however. After pausing for the obligatory admiration of its rather striking form factor and feature set, the main point I emphasized was that devices designed around the consumer experience of using the web stand a better chance of spurring adoption of advanced mobile web services. In turn, I suggested that a lift in consumer usage of the mobile internet and satisfaction with the experience could benefit marketers looking to use the medium to reach consumers with highly personalized content and messages.
Working with research partner Opinion Research Corporation (ORC), iCrossing recently fielded a survey that adds some interesting proof points to the argument in my earlier column. Specifically, our goal was to find out mobile users' attitudes toward and behavior around searching from their mobile devices. Of course, because searching is largely dependent on internet access, we inquired about mobile web usage as well.
What we learned is that several specific impediments stand in the way of mobile internet access and mobile search becoming mainstream activities, only some of which will be alleviated by a device with a more consumer-friendly interface like the iPhone. Assuming they work as advertised, Apple's mobile device and other contenders and pretenders of its ilk will go a long way in resolving common complaints like small screen size and difficulty of use. These are not insignificant hurdles to overcome.
However, as we know, the mobile ecosystem is crowded, and the device manufacturers are just a small piece, albeit a very important one. The cost of mobile internet access, a problem to which I alluded in my iPhone column, continues to be a serious impediment for many consumers, and currently it's simply too high for mass adoption. The mobile users we surveyed cited it as the No. 1 reason why they do not access the web from their mobile devices. Similarly, when asked what factors would encourage more web usage, cheaper data plans was far and away the No. 1 answer.
This is a problem that only the carriers can resolve. And while cheaper or free always sounds appealing, our research suggests that advertising-subsidized access is not necessarily the panacea.
Responsibility for removing the barriers associated with devices and data plans has clear owners. As far as improving the quality of the experience is concerned, the picture is murkier. Devices and reliable, fast connections play an important role, but so does properly formatted content, in particular, the types of content that users are seeking.
Consumers' search habits extend to a fairly wide range of categories, much as they do with the wired web, and the expectation of the overwhelming majority is that the sites they visit frequently have a version specifically formatted for mobile devices. With the exception of sites in the weather category, most content has a ways to go before it is sufficiently and satisfactorily findable on mobile devices, according to the users we surveyed.
As garden walls come down, content owners -- and by this I mean publishers as well as search engines -- will have greater leeway in pitching their wares to consumers. Yahoo! has taken some interesting steps with the second generation of its Go application, but it is still a downloadable application available only on certain handsets, making it in an imperfect solution. Google is in the process of developing faster, more intuitive technology specifically for mobile applications, and perhaps, if rumors are to be believed, for its own mobile device.
Even so, carrier decks will remain important real estate, meaning that partnerships will continue to be essential, and competition for gaining prominent on-deck positioning will persist.
The bottom line is that as nice as an iPhone might be, there are many pieces that still need to fall into place before mobile internet access, and with it, mobile search and other forms of mobile marketing, gain widespread acceptance and use.
Stay tuned for a more complete look at the results of our survey.
Noah Elkin, Ph.D., is vice president of corporate strategy at iCrossing. Read full bio.