BlogHer - Mobile Phones poised to overtake PCs in 2006 - Comments

demographics and geographics for mobile

mobilejones — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 04:17:34 -0500

I don't mean to play down the reality that older users aren't being catered to by the mobile industry. The reality is that too many of the older population see mobile devices as phones. That's an inaccurate view of today's devices many of which contain computing power equal to the PCs of only a few years ago.

If you watch teenagers and young 20 somethings, they rarely used their mobile devices for voice calls. The use them differently as they also use the Internet differently than older members of the population.

Equally, many regions of the world are skipping the PC althogether and their only experience of the Internet is and will be from a mobile device. In Africa, for example, it is cheaper and more feasible to deploy wireless towers than to lay cable through the mountains and jungles. There is so much happening in my industry these days that it's hard to stay informed on all the newest developments.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media
Feed your mobile jones

Voice Interfaces

mobilejones — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 04:05:53 -0500

Grace, there are a number of mobile devices that already come with voice interfaces for dailing numbers, navigating menus and even composing text messages. I anticipate that those will continue to develop and be common place over the next 18 months.

Browsing interfaces are also changing. Rather than try to replicate the PC based browser experience companies like Nokia and others are developing browsers that use zooming or fisheye UIs which also help with amplifying the relevant or "in focus" information from the screen for easier viewing.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media
Feed your mobile jones

Hey Grace....

Denise — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:22:58 -0500

Have you seen this??? It's not perfect, obviously, because it doesn't come with "all of the bells and whistles" but it is an improvement for those who have trouble with the small screens and the tiny numbers.

~Denise
Daily Dose of Denise

From an "older user"

Grace Davis — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:11:08 -0500

Fascinating and promising - except for one very obvious thing to this 51 year old user:

Even with the best of reading glasses, it's a bitch to read the text on a tiny cell phone/mobile unit screen.

Until presbyopia is cured, I will stick with my laptop monitor.

I'm not being glib here. This is a huge practical issue that is overlooked continuously by product developers. How do you make these technologies useful for the truly aging (50 plus) population?

It's more than just the weeny screen, it's also the key pad on a cell phone. An older person with arthritis in their fingers will not be able to manipulate those little keys for any reason. And a good reason would be for sending out an emergency message/email.

I can only surmise that the "some markets" referenced in your leading paragraph does not include my demographic.

Your thoughts"

Grace Davis State of Grace
BlogHer Blog Contributing Editor
BlogHer 06 Advisory Board

Mobile Phones poised to overtake PCs in 2006

mobilejones — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:15:43 -0500

Mobile Phones Poised To Overtake The PC As The Dominate Internet Platform In Some Markets, According To Ipsos Insight's Latest The Face of the Web Study

If you blog, you're already a mobile publisher.

Mobile Surfing Becoming Mainstream

Globally, just over one-fourth (28%) of mobile phone owners worldwide have browsed the Internet on a wireless handset, up slightly from 25% at the end 2004. Interestingly, growth in this behavior for 2005 was driven by the older users (age 35+), indicating that surfing the Internet on a mobile phone is emerging as a mainstream activity, no longer dominated by the traditional early adopter segment - young males - typical of many new consumer technologies.

If you're keeping score, 28% of the 2.5 Billion mobile phone scribers equals 700 million people. Compare that number to the 1 Billion Internet users.