Continued from The Mobile Conundrum - Part 1 of 2...
Let me throw in the last bit of complexity to this one. Is it really bad if we can’t solve the entire problem today? There are people, we know, who research online (“this one has cool reviews”) and buy offline (“I know the guy”). There are others who research offline (“I like the feel of the phone”) and buy online (“better price online”). And of-course there are people who do both online, or both offline. Think for a moment about a similar framework around mobile. There would be people who research on the mobile (e.g. quick-price-check) and buy on the PC. Why not build out something for them? There’s more to this.
Lots of us were brought up on plain-jane information-only websites - text and a few images. Now the mobile adds multiple dimensions to this.
a) Now almost all mobiles have GPS. Users will share geographic information when there’s a proposition (e.g. the now much touted local-deals thing). Does our website leverage this information? Have we thought about propositions here?
b) Now many phones have inputs like the accelerometer. Have we thought about how we could leverage that? If I could shake my phone to navigate, it could be cool. It could even be, like the Wii, ground-breaking.
c) We all know the app real-estate is limited, we still expect the consumer to install one app per retailer. Maybe we can start thinking about platform plays, where the front-end is built by whoever knows the user-segment best.
d) It could be time to move on from what my facebook friends like to what my phone contacts like - most of us have our closer people there, and at least some junk contacts on facebook.
Are we thinking hard on this? Or we’re opening up the field for a new breed of mobile-first operators to walk in and cash in? We should start thinking about pure-engagement providers on the mobile who may move into eCommerce and for all we know, provide a better experience than us eCommerce guys.
Lots of us were brought up on plain-jane information-only websites - text and a few images. Now the mobile adds multiple dimensions to this.
a) Now almost all mobiles have GPS. Users will share geographic information when there’s a proposition (e.g. the now much touted local-deals thing). Does our website leverage this information? Have we thought about propositions here?
b) Now many phones have inputs like the accelerometer. Have we thought about how we could leverage that? If I could shake my phone to navigate, it could be cool. It could even be, like the Wii, ground-breaking.
c) We all know the app real-estate is limited, we still expect the consumer to install one app per retailer. Maybe we can start thinking about platform plays, where the front-end is built by whoever knows the user-segment best.
d) It could be time to move on from what my facebook friends like to what my phone contacts like - most of us have our closer people there, and at least some junk contacts on facebook.
Are we thinking hard on this? Or we’re opening up the field for a new breed of mobile-first operators to walk in and cash in? We should start thinking about pure-engagement providers on the mobile who may move into eCommerce and for all we know, provide a better experience than us eCommerce guys.
