I’m all thumbs this month.
Reflecting an unparalleled dedication to my audience, I’ve chosen to write about the limitless potential of mobile phones… on my mobile phone. I’m doing this to not only show that I’m terribly clever, but also to prove a point.
My point is: When many of us can, we do.
I’m a simple geek with simple needs. I was, until recently, vehemently and philosophically opposed to owning a telephone that doubled as a computer/ organizer/ personal assistant. Given that only on the rarest of occasions am I away from my laptop for longer than the time necessary to fetch a double-cappuccino, such a thing was entirely unnecessary.
Of course, no sooner had I recently upgraded my phone to the latest frill-free two-ounce option, than I found myself agonizingly trapped in one of those previously mentioned rare occasions.
For six increasingly painful hours, I sat in a meeting without my laptop.
With text messages making their way to me from the frontlines of cyber-smut I was aware that my absence had been noticed, people were starting to talk, I had been mentioned a number of times in online industry forums, and god only knew the state of my inbox!
After aggressively eyeing an associate’s Treo, he gingerly and silently picked it up and handed it to me. I immediately leaped into action! Actually, given the available connection, I crawled at the pace of a stoned, blindfolded turtle, but at least I was moving! I was online and could breathe once again.
That night I bought a phone/ PC/ mp3 player/ camera/ camcorder and gave it to Tony Rios (a far greater geek than I) to set-up. More securely connected to my world, I could now leave the house… and never leave the office!
There’s a funny thing about new technology: Some shun it because it’s unnecessary, while many others are compelled to use it simply because they can. (Eventually, the “unnecessary” becomes the standard by which future necessity is measured and we forget we never needed it in the first place.)
At any random moment in time many of us, simply because we can, are compelled to press buttons and look things up. What’s the latest CNN headline? What about the BBC? Does Google News have them both? I check my GMail and Exchange mail, view the top ten threads on five discussion boards, and periodically Google myself to see if I’m more popular than I was the last time I checked. I now find myself using my cellphone to do all this just a little more often, simply because I can.
Given my new sense of mobility, I recently accepted a lunch invitation with a friend and left the safety of my office. Sitting in the restroom at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood, I noticed a poster for a website. The message was vague enough to be genuinely compelling and when I returned to our table I immediately pulled my phone out of my pocket to get to the bottom of this latest mystery.
With Sprint’s EVDO-enabled wireless service and the Windows Mobile 5 operating system, this sexy little bundle of chips and wires serves up high-speed Internet access from anywhere there’s a Sprint signal. That hot!
So, having proved that I can now use my phone to Google myself in under 30 seconds over calamari salad and a virgin (I swear) daiquiri, I stopped doing that for a few moments and headed to the website promoted in the restroom (inSpotLA.org), much to the wonder and relief of my lunch partner, Jeff.
The website didn’t “work” on my phone.
I am in no way suggesting that inSpotLA.org has done anything wrong in not optimizing its website for mobile phones. They provide an excellent service. This was, however, a good example of how bad things can happen to good websites when navigated through miniature browsers.
With the rapid development and inevitable acceptance of new technology, an ad for a website on a poster in a West Hollywood restaurant is destined to experience an increasing number of users on mobile phones. It would be of immense benefit to all involved if the site were actually capable of serving those users.
Even technophobes who’ve read this far may remember when Starbucks added WiFi access at many locations and you witnessed those first few social outcasts checking their online horoscopes over a Vente Latte. Perhaps you even remember the first time you saw an Internet Café, filled with tourists (one hopes) paying a buck a minute to check their email. Well, while all of that was very impressive back then, “back then” was not very long ago.
Technology is advancing so rapidly that many of us are now only likely to step into an Internet Café if we’re stuck in the middle of Red Square without a laptop. Similarly, public WiFi access is increasingly measured by its limitations, which currently require one to be within about 45 feet of the nearest barista in most North American cities.
With public internet access being fairly limited, optimizing one’s website for cellphones has been a low priority for most. Be aware, however, that a rapidly expanding online crowd is approaching with cellphones in hand. A new Internet standard will soon be the norm and you’d be wise to prepare accordingly.
Any day now there will be far more people than this lone geek thumbing their way through the websites that work, all while pounding back daiquiris (virgin, of course) at one of their favorite haunts. Not because they need to, of course, but simply because they can.
Aly Drummond, a prominent and candid online adult industry veteran, is head of Webmaster Relations at online consumer guide, TheBestPorn.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
