Portability Isn't Always What You Want
In yesterday's Mobile Insider, Steve Smith blogged that "Portability is Not Mobility." He stated that too many companies are creating mobile phone apps to satisfy thier own brand desires as opposed to fulfilling the needs of a mobile consumer. In particular, many news sites try to cram all their web content into a mobile phone, and viola, it's portable! The problem is, that is not what a mobile consumer usually wants.
His most illuminating example was, "Both (Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal) iPhone apps are admirable attempts to make much of their massive Web sites portable and manageable. But that doesn't mean they are necessarily mobile. I have to think twice before I open either because I know I am in for a deep dive. ... I know I will have to wait almost 20 seconds for the data to update. Portability is not mobility. "
His best "mobility" example was "People.com, which wisely brands its app not as People.com but as a "People Celebrity Tracker." This app only has three tabs for news photos and an encyclopedia of celebrities that the user can customize. this targeted provider has taken the daring but necessary step of serving my needs rather than their branding fantasies.
I commented that the first year of web apps is similar to the first year of many new communication modalities:
- The first years of TV had many shows filmed with one stationary camera -- similar to the feel of performances in a theater, instead of taking advantage of a camera's mobility and a production team's editing capabilities.
- Decades later, corporate web pages started out as online brochures -- which didn't take advantage of the interactivity or customization features of the Internet.
- Now today, the advent of mobile applications is taking the form of a portable Internet, instead of taking advantage of the mobility and voice features of a mobile phone.
We need to quickly get to "Mobile 2.0" where the intrinsic value of mobility is the core value that developers build applications for.
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