Following on the heels of the latest release of the Mobile Internet Experience Update in October, Novarra  shared several bits of important usage statistics with the mobile industry.  Each on its own is interesting, but in whole they demonstrate an undeniable trend.  First, let’s recap some of the points:

• During the Major League Baseball World Series in the US, traffic from mobile devices to baseball-related web sites tripled on game days, as compared to off days.  More…
• In the UK, the wildly popular X Factor television reality dance conpetition drove mobile web traffic spikes of an amazing 15,000% to sites with show information and community on days when the eliminations occurred.  More…
• During the holiday shopping season, mobile traffic to retailer web sites on Black Friday - the traditional start of the holiday shopping sales in the US - skyrocketed as well.  More…

Much of this growth is driven by “traditional” Web 2.0 behaviors.  As noted earlier in this blog:

• Twitter ranked as one of the fastest growing sites for mobile web page views (not SMS tweets mind you, but browser-based page views).  From the start of 2009 to mid year, Twitter experienced 3500% growth according to Novarra statistics.
• Click throughs to URL shorteners such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com were up over 1000%.  This proves that the tweets we often receive via SMS drive many people to use the web (many who are not otherwise inclined to use their phone’s browser) when they click on a link in a received tweet.  More…

These are all intances of consumers transferring PC web and other media habits to mobile. Sports, reality TV, shopping are not unique examples.  It is clear to many of us that mobile can no longer be ignored as a viable media channel.  Another important conclusion is that when individual consumers drive the choice of web sites, and not “the industry,” it is ever more important that service providers enable a quality experience across any/all sites a valuable role to be played by the mobile network.

Tags: mobile internet, mobile web user experience, usage statistics
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For those of us who have not consciously chosen to begin using our mobile phones as an internet terminal, our more tech-savvy friends and co-workers are introducing us to this new behavior, whether we realize, and like, it or not.  We are being caught up - or more accurately stated, helping to create - a mobile internet traffic tsunami.

This is proven by a couple recent Novarra statistics:

• Twitter ranked as one of the fastest growing sites for mobile web page views (not SMS tweets mind you, but browser-based page views).  From the start of 2009 to mid year, Twitter experienced 3500% growth according to Novarra statistics.
• Click throughs to URL shorteners such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com were up over 1000%.  This proves that the tweets we often receive via SMS drive many people to use the web (many who are not otherwise inclined to use their phone’s browser) when they click on a link in a received tweet. 

Read more from Novarra…

Tags: mobile web user experience, usage statistics
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In the most recent Mobile Internet Experience Update, Novarra compared monthly  web data usage levels for three highly available feature phones, which have very different form factors and product positioning, to understand the correlation between handset capabilities and internet usage.

	Simple clamshell with striking design - but little else in the way of features for mobile internet
	QWERTY messaging phone with keyboard and landscape screen orientation that is well suited for mobile internet page viewing
	Music/media phone with touch navigation wheel, relatively high resolution screen, expandable storage and often marketed with larger data plan for music download service

Features like ‘fit to screen’ handheld view and single click access to search, main content and login forms, as well as fast page loads and up to 90% reduction of over the air data are all benefits offered by Novarra’s mobile internet and multimedia platform and mobile browser that help drive web usage across all types of mobile phones.

Believe it or not, the least expensive clamshell owners used 20% more data than owners of the messaging phone and 10% more than the music/media phone owners, demonstrating that regardless of form factor, a quality mobile internet experience will ensure mobile browser usage.

Tags: mobile browser, mobile internet, mobile web user experience, usage statistics
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At the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2009 show, BnetTV.com’s Michelle Sklar interviews Randy Cavaiani, vice president of marketing for Novarra regarding mobile web browsing, videos and widgets.

Cavaiani discusses the Novarra Vision^TM mobile internet & multi-media platform and the browsing benefits users enjoy such as speed, data compression, reduced payload, and access to mobile video. Utilizing the mobile browser, he references other advantages such as avoiding handset and content fragmentation.  Also noted are recent Novarra launches (Telecom Italia, Turkcell and Verizon) plus Novarra’s award-winning mobile widget platform that includes an open standards-based widget run-time engine and micro-browser, an in-network runtime engine for phones that cannot handle widgets alone and the ability to create widgets quickly and economically.

In addition, Sklar and Cavaiani talk about the role of app stores and what part the mobile internet will play.

Tags: app stores, Mobile Broadband, mobile browser, mobile internet, mobile video, mobile web user experience, mobile widgets
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