Mobile internet – most of us don't use it
Virtually all new mobiles and PDAs on the market feature a web browser, but new research suggests that, for most us, it’s just another add-on we don’t need.
The research from Hostway has found that although many people can access internet services from their mobile phone, three quarters (73%) are not taking advantage of it. Amongst the reasons for not using mobile internet were being frustrated by slow-loading pages (38%), problems with navigating websites from a phone or PDA (27%) and some websites being completely unavailable on mobile phones (25%).
"At the moment, most websites just aren’t flexible enough to be accessed on mobile phones," said Neil Barton, a director at Hostway. "There’s nothing wrong with having a flash website with all the bells and whistles you can muster, but you’ve got to be aware that mobile users simply aren’t going to be able to access it. The research illustrates that even if people do wait for sites to load, quite often it’s impossible to actually get at the content itself because of the way that sites are built."
However, the survey suggests that if these problems could be remedied, people would be more enthusiastic about using the net on the move. 90% of the survey said that they would use mobile internet if they could be sure that pages would load faster and they wouldn’t incur high costs from their mobile operator. Accessing email on the move (71%) and the latest news and sport (47%) were highlighted as the most desirable services from a mobile.
The research, commissioned by Hostway, was conducted by independent research body TNS and surveyed 1484 consumers in Great Britain.
2 comments
It’s for reasons such as these that businesses should be thinking about the mobile internet. Studies show that people DO want to access the internet from their mobile, there just need to be more businesses building sites specifically for mobile.
This is where Wapple comes in. Anyone can build a mobile internet site using the Wapple CanvasTM platform. All coding is built in so you don’t need to be an html wizard.
Check it out at: http://wapple.net
It’s a bit about “the chicken and the egg” don’t you think? As a user I also find it difficult to get mobile-ready content, but most webbuilders don’t see mobile accessibility as a top priority due to (still) low penetration. Is techdigest mobile-ready?
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