January 29, 2011

Slowly Going Mobile - Poor Site Performance Is Holding Us Back

The New York Times - The mobile web is growing rapidly, but in stark contrast to the pace of the mobile web’s growth, the speed at which it performs has lagged behind most consumer expectations. The performance gap poses a great risk to mobile-commerce sites, as well as mobile sites that rely on advertisements for revenue.

So long as the astronomical growth in mobile web surfing continues, it’s quite possible that many will overlook the performance issues of their mobile sites and content. But a site owner can’t rely on the carrier networks to deliver a clunky, un-optimized mobile site at desktop speeds. If a company isn’t optimizing its site for mobile performance, it’s literally throwing money out the window.

How much money could mobile possibly be worth? Well, eBay reported $2 billion in mobile sales in 2010, up from $600 million in 2009, and eBay isn’t an outlier. Reports indicate that mobile commerce more than doubled in 2010 to $3.4 billion, and that didn’t include travel sales, like buying plane tickets online, which added another $1.5 billion.  more...