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.
Mobile takes center stage at the 2010 South By Southwest Festival Interactive Track, which runs March 12 through March 16 at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, USA. The following is a partial list of seminars and training on the schedule.
What’s Hot in Mobile at SXSW
- Maps 2010: How iPad Impacts the LBS Market
- The UX of Mobile
- Touch + The Holy Grail of Delight
- Organizational Pitfalls on the Path to Multichannel Experience
- Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences?
- Mobile – the Great Channel Equalizer
- iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators
- The Real Mobile Scoop – Agency, Manufacturer, and Carrier
- Web Evolution: The Rise of Mobile, APIs and Runtimes
- Is App-vertising the Answer
- Augmenting Your Brain With Android
- Google Hackathon: Mobile Maps, App Engine, Chrome Extensions
- What If Your Phone Had Five Senses?
- Cross Device Accessibility: Is This For Real?
- Building Mobile Games on the Windows Phone Platform
- Mobile Computing and it’s Contribution to Technology’s Exponential Growth
- The Final (Mobile) Frontier: Battery Life in Africa
- How We Built the SXSW Mobile App
- Convergence 2010: Ten Cool Things That Could Happen This Year
- Mobile Development with the Flash Platform: iPhone and More
- Augmented Reality – Gimmicky Trend or Market-Ready Technology?
- Pass it Back! Kid Apps on Grown-up Devices
- Location Beyond iPhone: Locating 100+M Phones
- Location-Based Marketing and Advertising: Targeting the Mobile Consumer
- Mobile Content is Social
- Mobile Advertising in 2010: How to Pay the Bills
- QR Codes and 2D Barcodes: Bridging Physical & Digital
- Mobile Commerce
- Mapping and Geolocation: Turnkey Approaches You Need to Know
The full SXSW Mobile schedule (may not be viewable on some phones) includes information on presenters and a summary of what each session will cover.
While you’re there, check out the updated SXSW.mobi site for mobile access to the South by Southwest Festival.
Today in my inbox, I received information about a free, one-day virtual developer conference by Research in Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry company. It’s happening on December 3, 2008, and for any mobile developer or wanna-be mobile developer, it sounds like it’s not to be missed.
According to RIM, whether you are an administrator, emerging developer or seasoned pro, this virtual conference has something to offer. All tracks includes seminars, a keynote speech, and on-demand presentations from the virtual exhibit hall. There will also be product experts on hand to answer questions. Here’s some information from the brochure:
BlackBerry Developer Track
- Learn how to develop innovative BlackBerry applications that solve problems, or enable mobility in ways you may have never though possible
- Explore new development options and frameworks
- View the latest rapid application development tools
- Explore BlackBerry smartphone user-side APIs
- Discover new and easy testing and debug methods
BlackBerry Administrator Track
According to RIM, “You will walk away with a bigger picture understanding of what you need to do now to leverage the power of your BlackBerry® Enterprise Server.”
- Advance your application management skills;
- Discover the latest in deployment methods;
- Experience breakthrough technology in action;
- Learn how to streamline and customize your BlackBerry solution;
- See what you can gain from BlackBerry Administration APIs;
BlackBerry Virtual Conference Logistics
There are two separate agendas, one for emerging developers and one for seasoned developers.
- What: BlackBerry Technical Seminar Fall 2008
- When: Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 9amET – 5pm ET (1:00pm GMT, 5:00pm India, 9:00pm China)
- Cost: Free – this is a virtual seminar, so there are no travel costs and you may attend from your office
- Register Here (Computer Link Only, not mobile)
