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.
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:
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.
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.
From our good friend Andy at mobiThinking, we’ve just been made aware of a contest that is “ridiculously easy” for UK Mobile people. Hurry, though – the deadline is 31 May 2011:
BLN Money in Mobile Award: it’s free and ridiculously easy to enter, deadline for entry May, 31 2011
Here’s a great opportunity for a young UK mobile company to get some free exposure and see how you measure up to your contemporaries. As part of the Money in Mobile Forum (London, June 14 2011), 10 companies will given the platform to pitch their companies in front of the conference audience and the competition judges (who include 16 venture capitalists). These pitches will also be recorded and posted on the Web. The winner will be the company that the judges conclude will be the one that is most likely to make money in mobile for its clients.
The frustrating thing about most competitions is that the judging usually takes place behind closed doors so the only people that get to hear your pitch are the judges (some competition organizers don’t even bother to publish details on their Websites of why the winners won), so this is an attractive format.
This has also got to be the easiest competition to enter. All you have to do is fill out your details and explain in 100 words how your business uses mobile to make money for other companies. Any mobile company can enter as long as they are a) privately held and b) have paying customers.
If you are one of the 10 short-listed companies you receive a free pass for the Money in Mobile Forum. What do you have to lose? Plus you have the chance to win the best-in-show award, an iPad and lot’s of exposure for your company.
Nominate your company by 12 noon GMT, May 31, 2001.
The competition judges include: Balderton Capital, DFJ Esprit, Fidelity Growth Partners, Octopus Ventures, Advent Ventures, Highland Capital, Accel Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners, Angels Seed Fund, Intel Capital, Vodafone Ventures, Balderton Capital, m8 Capital, Pentech Ventures, PROfounders Fund, MMC Ventures, Doughty Hanson, The BLN, NextWomen.com, Mobile Marketing Magazine and mobiThinking.
Speakers at the Money in Mobile Forum include: Tesco.com, Out There Media, comScore, Handmade Mobile, Snaptu, Amobee Media Systems, Mobile Interactive Group, Golden Gekko, INQ Mobile, InMobi, GetJar, GAMESbrief, Volume, Groupon, Ixonos, BOKU, Eagle Eye Solutions and eBay Classifieds.
Closer to the time mobiThinking will be running a competition to win free tickets for Money in Mobile Forum, so stay tuned.
As the mobiEnthusiast, I purchased my first mobile (.mobi) domain name in 2007. It was an exciting day, and I had a vision for how the world would be able to access the internet from their phone and not be tied to a computer. I thought hard about the kinds of sites that would be worthwhile for people, and what kind of information they would need. Then I stopped in my tracks. I didn’t have the technical skills to pursue my passion for the mobile web.
Flash forward to 2010. I have more development skills, but my design skills are still lacking. My favorite development platform is WordPress, and yet, the options for mobile web have still been limited for most people by a brick wall of a learning curve for xhtml, php and css. WordPress is first and foremost a blogging platform, and so by definition, it is going to show dates for updates and require constant attention to keep it fresh for the search engines.
Finally, last month, I found a developer who has the experience to use device detection and the design skills to make the site look current. As of April 2010, there is a new WordPress Mobile Theme that will allow you to make a full mobile site without the constant updates required for blog posts. If you are a mobile domain name investor, this is a no-brainer. Yes, this is an affiliate link, because I believe so strongly in the product that I think my readers ought to have it, too. If you know me, I am very picky about what I will promote and make sure it works.
I worked very closely with the developer and have tested it myself on one of my sites that is in development. This is a very exciting day for people who want to build full websites for phones who are short in the technical and design skills department.
I’ll keep you posted.
The mobile web is officially open to the masses, as evidenced by all the mobile sessions at this year’s South by Southwest Party Conference. Plain old-fashioned WAP design is out. It’s time to step up the game on creating striking, captivating, eye-catching mobile design.
Need inspiration? Here are some mobile design showcases to get you going. These links are all desktop sites with rich graphics, so if you’re reading this on your mobile phone, consider yourself warned about huge graphic download sizes if you don’t have an unlimited data plan:
If you’d rather have a how-to manual, Nokia has produced a comprehensive mobile visual design guide for newcomers on their forum, Forum.Nokia.com. They also have mobile web templates and code that you are welcome to use at will, provided you follow the very generous terms of their license agreement.
Go develop, and tell us what you made.
Blogging as mobiEnthusiast, I’ve been nominated for a Champions in New Media Award for Blogger of the Year. Would you please vote for me? You don’t have to register or login or do any of that, just click the arrow next to my picture. When the arrow turns green, your vote counts. Comments are optional but appreciated. Voting ends 24 March 2010, so please vote now while it’s fresh in your mind. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
– Holly
