Over the years television seems to be able to hold my attention less and less – especially during the ad breaks with their shameless plugging of ringtones, videos, mobile dating and generally irritating cell phone content.
But while staring blankly at the tube over the weekend I happened to notice this ad for the Nokia N96 and, in particular, its approach to the public.
The mobile web has been around for quite some time, being a major selling point for cell phone manufacturers for almost a decade – but it was the following statement by the narrator that really sparked my interest: “Now we can all contribute to the Web, from the palm of our hands”.
The ad covers the other usual sales angles associated with emerging mobile technologies such as multimedia entertainment, GPS navigation and of course mobile connectivity - but culminates in notions of blogging and user generated content.
It features the crowd holding up these elements and suggests not only that the Web belongs to us, but also that it is our images, videos, opinions and discussions that make up the backbone of the Internet. This is something we've obviously discussed in online circles for quite some time. What is interesting here is to see the cellphone as a portal to content creation used as the main selling point.
What do you think will be next in the world of mobile promotion?
I don't think it helps to speak in terms of the mobile Web as being distinct to the Web we browse on our laptops and desktops. It is probably safe to say that a large percentage of mobile phones can access the same Web we access through our desktop browsers and the issue is more that the mobile experience is often too limited to be very appealing.
I have been using my E71 to browse the Web on the fly a lot more lately and I find that I can update most, if not all, of the services I use on the Web using my phones powerful little Webkit powered browser or some or other mobile app. I am sure this is becoming pretty common (at least the ability to do this) and will become more common.
Perhaps we should drop the distinction between the mobile Web and the conventional Web and rather focus on how to better present content and services on the Web on a mobile screen?
Posted by Paul Jacobson on 2008/11/17