We get statements often when talking about MMM that people just don’t look at mobile in this light, but that it’s one that now they have to consider. You can’t blame this approach, much of our time is spent amongst people who live in such a way that faith and ethics plays an active role into most areas of their lives. That said, organizations always move slower than individuals, and so making a perception change on that level is a bit harder to broker. Then again, we do have folks like Tomi Ahonen, who tends to speak right to the heart of the matter for organizations:
…Despite the growing prevalence of mobile devices, Ahonen warns that the future isn’t going to be about mobile only, but about its role in cross-platform interactions. He says television, radio and other media won’t die, but that mobile will continue to grow as a complementary media channel that does other things like payments.
“US jewellers Tiffany’s e-commerce website wasn’t optimised for mobile. After optimising it, sales grew 125% from the website,” says Ahonen. He says this proves there isn’t going to be “one Internet”.
“The PC Web needs to be PC-optimised, the mobile needs to be mobile-optimised.”
Ahonen says in Japan all websites are designed for mobile first and that it should be the same in Africa.
In another example of the potential of mobile, Ahonen says in China mobile newspapers have converted 39% of their readers to pay for MMS news headlines. “’Tomorrow’s headlines today’ is the selling point.” China Mobile has 40m paying users on SMS- and MMS-based twice-daily headline services of branded newspapers’ headlines…
Kind of blunt, and frankly speaking, probably a bit further out there than most want to plan and work towards. Still, the facts about mobile are clear, and the implications of such a change on several aspects of society just can’t be ignored. We either see mobile for what it is, and what it will be; or, we wither under it hoping for some other kind of savior to communications and opportunity to live this faith we espouse towards.