Mobile – Page 7 – Chris Schweppe | (877) 638-0827

August 31, 2011

HP Is Done With The Computer Business

10 Years ago in 2001, HP bought Compaq making Hewlett-Packard the #1 computer vendor in the world. Fast forward to 2011 and both Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are reporting the HP is about to sell it’s entire computer division.

When I read that, I asked myself, why on earth would a large corporation that spent countless time and money to become the market leader, give it up? Just throw it away. To me, i think it’s clearest signal that the computer business is no longer going to be a profitable business to be in.

Steve Jobs declared in March of this year the the “PC era is over.” A declaration that at the time, I thought was ridiculous. My knee jerk thought was that computers aren’t going anywhere. Every office needs them. But after doing some research and re-considering, I can see why HP is doing what they’re doing.

Basically, the computer manufacturing business has become so competitive that the only way to make money off of them is by doing a massive amount of volume. Companies make little money off each computer sold. And over the last 10 years, business has been great doing it that way.

But now the computer has competition. Smart phones and tablets are becoming more and more popular. Less computers are being sold because of this. And I’m betting that HP is betting that this isn’t going to change. That from this point going forward, there will be less and less computers being sold because of all the new mobile devices coming down the road.

The most startling thing I found was Mark Cuban predicting that this would happen back in 2005. Stunning. He hit the nail right on the head.

This is just another example in business that companies need to evolve when the environment around them changes.

May 19, 2011

Newspaper Creates iPad In 1994 & Drops It Because Print Is More Profitable

Yes, you read that right. I came across a jaw-dropping story from Business Insider saying that a newspaper called “Knight Ridder”, created a prototype that is very iPad-like in 1994. There’s a video about it on their website.

It was called a “tablet” and the “electronic newspaper of the future”.

Then Knight Ridder was sold to McClatchy. Word has it that the “tablet” was dropped because at the time, print was so much more profitable that this electronic contraption wasn’t worth their time.

How sad.

May 18, 2011

Mobile Search Will Surpass PC Search Sooner Than You Think

Being busy on running Customwave Internet Marketing, I haven’t had as much time to blog as I’d like, so I’m getting to this story a little late. Fashionably late ; )

The New York Times, who is by far, not the foremost expert on internet related matters, actually had an interesting story on how mobile internet use is growing and what Google is doing to take advantage of it. No earth-shattering news there, right?

But the article actually gets interesting at the very end quoting Scott Huffman, a Google engineer, saying that “Mobile search is definitely going to surpass desktop search… and I think they’ll pass before anyone thought they would.”

So in other words, what he’s saying is that as more and more people get comfortable with using the internet on their cell phone or tablet, that these devices, which you can take anywhere, will become more popular than the standard desktop computer. And as a matter of fact, my last blog post was on a survey that said people prefer shopping on mobile devices more than regular computers.

It seems to me, the big take away from this, is that mobile websites are going to become way more important than regular websites built for desktops. And making sure that your website shows up properly on ANY device that gets internet access is going to be critical and essential.

May 3, 2011

People Now Prefer To Shop On Mobile Devices More Than PC’s

PRNewswire says that according their survey, shopping on mobile devices has become more popular than shopping on regular computers. The numbers are actually pretty staggering. 49% say they still prefer the in-store experience, however 35% say they prefer shopping from their mobile device and only 16% preferring shopping on regular computers.

For companies selling product on shopping carts, it would appear already that having an e-commerce website optimized for mobile devices can no longer be ignored. Let me state once again that based on the #’s above, any company that does not have a shopping cart tailored for cell phones and tablets is missing out potentially on 66% of the audience.

Other alarming mobile news:

Surprise! 89% of people use mobile internet inside their home. Well, you might not have been surprised, but i certainly was. With pretty decent internet access on our cell phones, i figured that surely these devices would be most popular with people outside the home. But low and behold, Nielsen and Yahoo are reporting that people say they’re more likely to use mobile internet in the home than outside of it. Out of the 89%, 71% say that they use mobile internet in the home as a “second screen” while watching TV.

Then emarketer writes that tablets are becoming household fixtures. 77% of people say that because of the tablets, they’re using their personal computers less. And with the looming threat of “internet tv”, cable companies like Time Warner are now giving subscribers with tablets them ability to watch content from their TVs on their tablets.

March 3, 2011

The Future Of iPads And Other Tablets In Mobile Marketing

Emarketer has some interesting info on how tablets are starting to effect the internet marketing landscape. I think the most important survey in the article is the satisfaction in tablets for internet, email, and social media use versus satisfaction in smartphones.

On the surface, it might appear that the future of mobile internet is in tablets. The tablets do have an online experience almost exactly the same as a pc or laptop. But i think these results have more to do with companies not having websites optimized for smartphones. It’s impossible for me to believe that if the online experience was equal, people would rather lug around a tablet than just use the smartphone already in their pocket.

Another factor is the day when most people have 4G smartphones. The 4G will make a gigantic difference in playing video and downloading large files. The only difference between the tablet and the smartphone will be just the size in the screen.

Tablets are definitely here to stay, but i don’t see them in being as prominent and generating the traffic smartphones will.

February 28, 2011

Bing Says 50% of Restaurant Searches Come From Mobile

Bing says 50% of restaurant searches are from mobile devices. If there’s any restaurant that doesn’t have a mobile-version of their website, they are seriously missing out. Like missing 50% of potential website traffic-missing out.

2 Screen Cell Phone! Sweet!

Sprint has a brand new “dual-screen” phone coming out called the Echo. It also folds over into a tablet like the ipad. Pretty innovative stuff from Sprint. Here’s hoping other manufacturers follow suit. There’s probably many multi-tasking opportunities to be had!

2011 Will Be The Year Of The Smartphone

According to Business Insider, only 26% of Verizon subscribers, have smartphones! (For those, like my dad and other older people, who don’t know what a smartphone is, it’s a cell phone that has internet access) But yes, only 26%! AND 75% of contract subscribers that are due for upgrades, are currently upgrading to smartphones! AT&T’s has a bigger smartphone customer-base percentage wise, but it’s still only 35%!

Nielsen is also chiming in that by the end of the year, there will be 150 million-160 million Americans with smartphones! How do these #’s compare to how many people who the internet on their computers? The U.S. has a little bit above 200 million users! 200 million pc internet users! 150-160 million smartphone users! Get the picture? Well, if you still dont, here’s a visual:

Let me be unequivocally clear here. THESE NUMBERS ARE CRAZY!!! If you run a small business and your website is not optimized for smartphone users, you’ll be MISSING OUT! In the next year, in my humble opinion, every small business that has a website should have a mobile website. The difference between a mobile website and regular website is that the mobile website is narrow, vertically. The link buttons are especially big. The overall navigation of the site is so easy 5 year-olds and people over 60 alike won’t get lost on it : ) (No offense to those over 60 lacking internet know-how. I, myself for instance don’t even know how to change the oil in my car. Everybody has their skill-sets)

One last thing to keep an eye on is how media buying, aka pay per click is effected. Google is already experimenting with “pay per call” for smartphone users. So in other words, instead of Google charging anytime someone clicks on the link to your site, they charge for every click on the phone # that causes your phone to start dialing the #. There have been a lot of people trying to figure out the right business model for pay per call, but i could totally see it working extremely well with smartphone users. Hopefully other publisher networks will follow suit in doing what Google is. Keep an eye on it.