Prediction for Windows Phone

I predict Microsoft is going to go after the Blackberry userbase Read more »

Mobile Web Award 2012 Deadline Extended

Does your mobile website have what it takes to be named Best of Industry, Outstanding Mobile Website or Outstanding Mobile App from the Web Marketing Association? If so, you best hurry up and enter the competition. The deadline is April 16.

Judging criteria includes:
Read more »

Why QR Codes Work in Japan and Not Here (Mobile Marketing)

Debate continues on whether or not QR codes are worth the effort, and this article surfaces in the debate every so often: “Why QR Codes Won’t Last,” a blog post by Jon Barocas on Mashable.com.

John brings up some great points about the limitations of QR codes in favor of what he proposes to be its replacement, visual mobile search. The main problem with QR codes is that not very many consumers seem to know how to use them.

Before we jump into the future, though, let’s take a look at the past to find out why QR codes are accepted in their home country of Japan. Read more »

mobiEnthusiast is Anti-Piracy and Pro-Internet Freedom

Posting pictures of celebrities as a profile picture… linking to a scene from a favorite movie on YouTube… Quoting a movie line… all of these things seem pretty harmless, but without owning the copyright, they’re infringing on someone’s intellectual property. And, if SOPA / PIPA passes, if someone visits your site and does any of those things in a comment, dear webmaster, you can be sued and your site taken down without a trial. Apparently, some people think DMCA doesn’t go far enough, and neither do warnings at the beginning of DVD’s.

Read more »

Do you check restaurant menus from your phone?

Now that so many people are using mobile phones to decide where to eat, I wonder – how important is it for a restaurant to have a mobile-friendly menu?

So far, it seems pretty important, according to a LinkedIn poll conducted by mobiEnthusiast’s author, Holly Kolman. Have you voted yet? Read more »

Mobile Site or App?

What’s Better for Your Business: A Mobile Site or an App?

It seems like every day I encounter small business owners and developers who are having trouble deciding which would be better, a mobile site or an app.

Earlier this year, the general consensus was that apps were the way to go, with very few people recommending mobile sites instead. Apps were still shiny and new, and iPhone commercials led the way. Most people reasoned that since you could see a website on an iPhone, there was no need to do anything differently. Read more »

iPhone Developer Jobs: Geography Matters

Mobile Site Identifies Cities Where iPhone Developer Jobs are Plentiful… and Not

Detroit, the Motor City, may be the best city to look for a job in the automobile industry, but if you are an iPhone Developer you are going to have a hard time finding work. If you don’t live in Detroit, don’t get too excited because there a few other major cities that have very low iPhone application developer jobs per the city’s population.

Beginning this year, mobile job board FoneGigs has been compiling a list of America’s easiest and hardest cities to find mobile developer and marketing jobs. Surprising, Read more »

Mobile Infographic: Embrace the Mobile Web

My new hobby is collecting infographics about mobile marketing and mobile development. Today I heard an astonishing figure that 55% of Twitter users are visiting the 9th-ranked Alexa site using mobile devices. If you are posting links that don’t go to mobile pages, there’s a very good chance that you’ve wasted the time it took to post the link.

I’ll be talking more about Twitter and mobile in the future, but here’s an infographic from Marketo that might put mobile marketing and development into perspective. Hopefully my mobile plugin will squish it down for you – if not, let me know in the comments and I’ll make a compressed version of it.

Here you go: Read more »

Mobile Marketing Webinar with Mobile WordPress Sitebuilder Demo Today

Editor’s note: The webinar has ended and all links go to the product page.

As many of you know, I am very very picky about mobile sitebuilders. I get pitches to write about them all the time on mobienthusiast.mobi, and I have so far turned every one of them down because they are clunky and don’t work or make you use a subdomain or make you pay for the service every month without removing the company’s branding.

Yesterday I attended a webinar [edit: the webinar is over and now links to a product page with a how-to video from the webinar] hosted by my friends and mentors Jason Fladlien and Wilson Mattos. I know them personally, I have been coached by both of them and have paid a lot of money in travel fees and conference fees to see them speak because they are that good. Those of you who know me, know that I rarely attend conferences because I have small children at home and the investment had better be worth it for me to leave town.

The first half of the webinar is all about mobile and marketing and stats. The host, Jason Fladlien, gives slide after slide of marketing tips and techniques for why your clients should buy a true mobile site and not just one that has been modified for mobile with a WordPress plugin. I plan to use these strategies personally, as they make total sense to me.

The second part shows a mobile sitebuilder that has an emulator inside the WordPress dashboard, allows you to create icons on the fly without much editing, and has an interface that looks like the home page of an iPhone.

There will be a second webinar today at 12 noon Pacific Daylight time, and if you are interested in working with local businesses (or online businesses) without mobile sites, there are a lot of strategies here that you won’t want to miss. I would urge you to register for it even if it is the middle of the night in your part of the world, because they will email you a link to the replay.

I don’t remember everything I saw, but here are some of the things Jason touched on in the webinar and will likely cover again in the webinar today:

• Mobile marketing
• How to find clients
• How to build a mobile site (he does it live)
• Importance of keeping a site lightweight to load quickly and keep data costs low
• Why not to use video and how to do it if you insist on using it anyway
• How to make a header for a mobile site quickly and easily
• Where to find icons
• Q&A

I am sure I am forgetting something, but the overwhelming feeling I got looking at this mobile sitebuilder is that it has what I need and what I have been wanting personally for a long time. Let’s face it, it is very difficult work to make a mobile site work on a phone, and when you add tablets like the iPad into the mix, it’s very easy to throw your hands up in frustration and say, “ok, it’s just going to look like this.” Well, as a professional web designer, you can’t afford to do that when your reputation is on the line.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for the product because I believe in the team, their customer support, and their refund policy. I only post products with affiliate links here if I have personally tested them or if I know the developer and have experienced their customer support and refund policy to be valid.

If you see this post after the webinar, contact me and let me know.

How to Make and Sell Simple Mobile Sites

Editor’s note: This webinar has ended. Please subscribe to mobiEnthusiast.mobi to be informed of future webinars in advance.

My friends and mentors Jason Fladlien and Wilson Mattos make a lot of software for WordPress, and I’ve bought most of it. Not only that, they are world class sales pros, and really know how to put on a webinar.

Now they’ve created a product that uses WordPress to make simple mobile sites, and that could be just what you’re looking for as a mobile marketer, mobile developer, digital media agency or web developer.

Please join me for the mobile webinar and see for yourself if this would be a good way for you to add mobile marketing and mobile sites to your repertoire.

Bonus: mobile sites made with WordPress are a great small business alternative to pricey apps.