Mobile Web Sites' Growth Spurt To Continue

by Mark Walsh, Thursday, Jan 17, 2008 8:00 AM ET

SOME 40% OF WEB SITE operators have launched mobile sites and another 22% plan to do so in the next year, according to a new JupiterResearch study.

"This number is relatively large given that the experience is not yet mature today and likely reflects mobile versions that consist of frames and offer a kludgy user interface," states the report titled "Mobile Web Sites: Designing for Mobility."

Driving the growth of mobile sites are factors such as the expansion of 3G networks and smartphones and improving prospects for deriving revenue from mobile advertising. Jupiter estimates that increasing page views and usage will push annual mobile display and search advertising revenue to $825 million by 2012.

Still, the study found that only 29% of Web sites going mobile were developing the ability to provide user profile information to ad networks to monetize page views. Among advertisers, only 3% were placing display ads on mobile sites, and 4% on carrier portals.

M-commerce also has a ways to go. About one-third of Web sites surveyed let users make purchases via mobile phone. "Instant transactions and the ability to drive shoppers into nearby stores are opportunities for mobile site operators because mobile consumers are more likely to search for items they can purchase immediately through their phones," according to the report.

Web site operators are still more focused on improving the consumer experience than monetization. That's the right approach, initially, according to Jupiter Research Director Julie Ask. "First focus on the user experience. (Mobile sites) need to build page views before they're worth monetizing. They should have a longer-term plan in place, though, for advertising," she said.

To that end, Jupiter advises companies to optimize their mobile sites for both mass-market and high-end devices. That means designing both more WAP and HTML versions of sites, especially since most phones don't yet support full Web browsing. Given the limitations of the mobile screen, controlling the volume of site content is key--as is providing functionality that lets users share content like photos and video clips.

When it comes to budgeting, be prepared to pay anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 to build a basic mobile site. And since cell phones are well-designed for online search, promoting the mobile version on the wired site is also advised, along with pushing out links through text messages.

Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com