Mat Diss, founder of bemoko explains why apps aren’t always the route to mobile marketing success.

one-billion-apps-hero-20090418Mobile content consumption has driven the spectacular success of mobile apps. With the Apple iTunes store heading towards 200,000 apps, the growth of Nokia’s Ovi app store and the Android Marketplace, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only way to go mobile is to create an app, deliver it to Apple and sit back and enjoy the rewards.

Unfortunately, as always, life is not that simple. Despite Apple’s success to date, the iPhone constitutes less than one in ten of all smartphones sold.

Creating an iPhone app will only cover a small proportion of people who can access the mobile internet and with the other phone manufacturers rapidly catching up with the iPhone’s functionality and usability, there is a real risk that compelling brand content created only for iPhone will become more and more niche, hidden amongst hundreds of thousands of other applications, difficult to discover and ultimately unrewarding.

An alternative is to create apps for every different kind of phone: Nokia; Blackberry; Windows Mobile; Android.  The problem is this is expensive and time consuming.  Imagine having to build different PC websites for Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer, IBM and every other brand of PC.

The reality is that the vast majority of apps are effectively mini mobile websites.  The app simply accesses the relevant information from the server and renders it within a template on screen. So why can’t web designers simply build one site that works on every internet enabled phone?

To date the problem has been the sheer complexity of the mobile environment.  Not only are there several different browsers and operating systems to consider, there are multiple screen sizes and a vast array of functions and standards supported by different phones.  This has created a vastly complex environment in which to deliver content.

Web designers need to know that the content they are creating is delivering, not only on some, but on all devices.  It is astonishing but true that some of the most popular destinations on the web still render content in a manner that it is almost illegible on a wide range of phones.

The solution lies in creating mobile websites using a development framework and delivery  service that intelligently assesses the properties of each phone that accesses the server and only delivers content that the device can display effectively.

This creates a meaningful user experience for every device, delivering an app-style experience for advanced touch screen devices but also providing an effective mobile presence for internet enabled, but less capable phones, and ensures your customers have access to the best brand experience on their device.