Driving Miss Daisy (to adopt the mobile Web)

SAN FRANCISCO — So, many mobile subscribers remain wary of the cost of monthly data plans and their failure to “get it” is making the industry’s voice-to-data transition agonizingly slow for everyone banking on it.
“Adoption” is the name, “driving” it is the game. But first you gotta define it.
The various ways in which disparate members of the ecosystem perceive the mobile Web, however, could itself be a bit of a hang-up. And articulating those disparate perceptions was the first step for a panel discussion Tuesday — part of the day-long Mobile Web Strategies session — on driving broader adoption of what many see as inevitable, wide-scale reliance on a ubiquitous Web.
But is there just one Web? Or have markup languages, species of infrastructure and various browsers created separate, parallel universes of desktop and mobile Webs? Panel moderator Barbara Ballard, president and founder of Little Springs Design, wanted to know.
“The only difference between the mobile Web and the desktop is the user’s location and the device’s screen size,” said Sean MacNeill, VP and general manager for global services at OpenWave.
“We’ve been working hard to make it one Internet, but a personalized Internet,” offered Patrick Lopez, chief marketing officer for Vantrix.
“When you hear ‘mobile Web’ we like to say ‘mobile access to the Web,’ ” said Nitin Bhandari, CEO of start-up Skyfire.
“It’s a point of discovery for goods and services online,” said Michael Chang, CEO of Greystripe. “Primarily, that means entertainment, communications and social networks.”
“These panels are the most fun when someone disagrees and I have to disagree on this point with the rest of you,” said Jason Spero, VP of marketing at AdMob. “We believe the unique excitement lies in the mobile nature of the access point. You’re under-serving your customers if you don’t take advantage of that.”
After this revealing exchange, Ballard prompted her panel on what was driving the bulk of mobile Web use and revenue.
“The challenge is, the Web is a big place and there is a wide selection of devices,” said Vantrix’ Lopez. “Much of the content is designed for a broadband world, not necessarily for a mobile environment — and users want that experience on the go.”
(Lopez’ remark neatly illustrated the benefit of serving on a panel at CTIA conferences: Vantrix, Lopez reminded his audience, offers device-agnostic access to mobile broadband content.)
OpenWave’s MacNeill said his company was focused on the mobile handset now, but reminded the audience that a plethora of Web-connected gadgets was coming. The top 100 or so Web sites — familiar to all from the desktop — still drove 75% of the mobile Web traffic, he added.
Skyfire’s Bhandari said “no broad brush is possible,” because his firm deals in “downloadable product” and with 3 billion devices in service worldwide, companies must segment the market to make it approachable.
AdMob’s Spero, ever playing the gadfly, insisted that the mobile Web is “time dependent” that offered an “absolute explosion” in certain segments — but was not a PC environment on the go.
“We have to focus on compelling, localized content, like a timely offer for a nearby coffee shop,” Spero added.
Remember, Vantrix’ Lopez said, not everyone has a high-end phone, most mobile subscribers are not tech-savvy and carriers must provide quality-of-service (QoS) for all, not just the heavy data users among us. Mobilizing the Web, he implied, might not be the carriers’ role.
And what advice would panelists give to content providers? Ballard asked.
The industry has “failed” to coalesce around a universal standard for access that would deliver a consistent user experience, Lopez said. In the interim, content providers should work with individual carriers to address the latter’s specific subscriber base.
“Build to a (Nokia) Series 60 device,” blurted Spero, of AdMob. “That’s the world as we know it.”