A World Without Mobile Browsers
At a previous job I designed a mobile channel for the brand. It was pretty introductory, just news and weather feeds, but a huge step forward in terms of entering the mobile space for a company which hasn’t really embraced change since they decided to switch from “paper boys” to “middle-aged men with cars”.
At one time, the trend in mobile brand advancement was to develop a really low resolution, graphically sparse, version of the brand’s web site. The idea being, I guess, that users could user their shitty mobile phone browsers to visit Google, or Yellow Pages, etc. and find the information they need to make horrible decisions while they’re drunk.
Personally, I wish those would just die off completely. I’ve created those creatively bankrupt web sites and I like to think that all of the trouble I manage to get myself into is my subconscious way of punishing myself for my creative indiscretion.
I have changed allegiances completely on this issue. I think the future is branded applications. Google, Blackberry and Apple (most famously) have all developed, or are in the process of developing, application marketplaces that allow users to easily download third party applications to their smart phones.
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