Opera's new mobile statistics report

Top mobile sites in India

Mobile internet in India has been picking up fast and a recent report released by Opera reveals that page views have seen a 416.9 per cent increase during November this year, compared to last year.

Following are the Top ten mobile websites surfed in India:

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Orkut
4. YouTube
5. Getjar
6. Zedge.net
7. yahoo
8. songs.plk
9. wikipedia.org
10.vuclip

Mobile Web - Best Practices

Standards

* Use XHTML Basic 1.0.

Images

* Minimize the use of images. If you must use them, make them relevant and supply meaningful ALT text so that mobile devices can use the text descriptions.

* Make images smaller than 100 pixels. Specify the image height and width in the source code.

* Don't use background images on your mobile pages.

User Interface

* Set margins and padding to 0. Widths and margins are detrimental to good handheld display.

* Use one column layouts and avoid floats. Horizontal overflow can be a problem on handhelds, so make sure wide elements fit the narrow screen.

* Add skip anchors. 'Skip to content' and 'Back to top' anchor links are vital when using a mobile device.

* Be consistent. Use similar alignment, color, and layout on pages.

* Align content to the left.

* Place non-essential links and other marginal content at the bottom of the page.


* Take advantage of ordered lists of links and accesskeys.

CSS

* Use external style sheets to control presentation.

* Ensure that contents are readable without style sheets.

* Use the link element to link to an external style sheet. Some handhelds don't recognize @import or @media.

Some of the Top Mobile Sites in South Africa

1. SuperSport Mobi
2. News24 Mobi
3. M.iol.co.za
4. The Grid Mobile
5. Soccer Laduma Mobile
6. Junk Mail Mobile
7. DStv Mobile
8. JobMail Mobile
9. Webmail Mobi
10. Zoopy Mobile

India Ranks 3rd in surfing mobile web thru Opera Mini

Opera has released its State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 report, which shows India has 3rd most Opera Mini users in the world. Since the month of August 2009, pages-per-view of opera mobile users in India has grown by 397 percent, while unique-users have grown by 339 percent. The State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 report also states that the page-views per user in India has grown to 405 and the average data transferred per user is 7MB.

"Growth of the mobile Web worldwide accelerated dramatically in August. These numbers are not limited to smartphones alone. The mobile Web was, and remains, a global phenomenon for people all over the world, on a variety of devices and screen sizes," said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.

The State of the Mobile Web, August 2010 also reports many global trends. In August 2010, Opera Mini had more than 66.5 million users. As compared to July 2010, it has increased by 6.8 percent, and if you compared it from August 2009, then the number of unique users have increased 108.3 percent. In terms of number of pages viewed, Opera Mini users viewed more than 33.9 billion pages in August 2010, an increase of 14.3 percent since July 2010, and 143.2 percent since August 2009.

Tools for testing the sites on mobile devices

1. iPhoney
2. W3C mobileOK Checker
3. iPad Peek
4. Adobe Device Central CS5
5. Google Mobilizer
6. Gomez
7. MobiReady
8. DotMobi Emulator
9. Opera Mini Simulator

Top Plugins for improving the Usability of Wordpress Blogs

1. Lightbox 2: Images can make or break a blog as you well know from your experience with your own blog and from your perusal of other blogosphere stops. This nifty plugin uses Colorbox to overlay images in a lightbox. One advantage is that your users can view larger images without being taken to another page, streamlining their experience which they will most definitely appreciate. With this plugin you also have the option of auto-lightboxing all the images.

2. WP-Print: While going paperless is a great idea, sometimes your visitors will simply want to print something for easier access later. This plugin allows them to hit print and then go on to other parts of your blog, saving them time and perhaps encouraging deeper interaction with your site that may lead to the kind of conversions you want. This plugin is a freebie.

3. Akismet: Spammers are the bane of bloggers. This plugin will banish them and garner greater trust from those who read your blog. It’s good for nothing in terms of cost.

4. Smart 404: When a user gets a 404 error he or she might think your site is old, down or otherwise problematic when all that happened was a URL was miss-typed. Prevent click-aways by nipping in the bud many of these error messages. This plugin uses keywords from the requested URL to automatically redirect visitors to a page that matches most closely. It offers a very high success rate and it is yours for the asking.

5. WordPress Popular Posts: This will increase page reads and put your best stuff before your visitors by featuring it at the side of each page. This free widget offers great customization and usability.

6. W3 Total Cache: W3 Total Cache is the fastest and most complete WordPress performance optimization plugin. This talented plugin creates a static html pages from your dynamic blog and dishes out that page to users. This functionality allows pages to load faster because a static page is much lighter than a dynamic page and less expensive. There’s lots more this plugin will do for you.

7. Post Teaser: Rather than having to scroll below the fold to see a post this plugin allows them to see a preview of the post and provides a link to the full post. It costs nothing but will save your visitors hassle and earn you their appreciation.

8. Search Everything: Keep things smooth and easy for your visitors and they will continue coming back for more. Search Everything delivers additional search capabilities so they can easily find the content they want. The plugin accomplishes this by ramping up the default search on your WordPress blog so users can search every non-password protected page, tag, post, comment, category, taxonomy and much more.

9. Outbound Links: Users won’t leave your site when they click on an outbound link because this plugin will open it in a new window leaving your blog window open and available. Its free and easy.

10. Subscribe to Comments: Build community around your blog by inviting readers to choose to be notified by email when someone adds a comment. It offers your commenters a tailored approach to staying in the discussion. Download it for nothing and gain quite a bit.

Hospitals having Mobile websites to reach pateients

Middle Tennessee hospitals are investing in mobile versions of their websites in hopes of attracting new patients and building loyalty with existing patients in the region’s highly competitive health care market.

The mobile movement seizes on two converging trends: More Americans are turning to the Internet as a source of medical information at the same time an increasing number of consumers are using hand-held devices to access the Web.

According to a recent study by the Pew Trust, 59 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and older now access the Internet wirelessly using a laptop or mobile device, up from 51 percent in April 2010. Of those, 61 percent are searching for health-related information, the study found.

Some of the best Mobile websites

* Amazon Mobile - http://m.amazon.com

* BBC PDA - http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/pda or http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile

* CNN Mobile - http://m.cnn.com

* Facebook - http://m.facebook.com

* Flight Stats - http://mobile.flightstats.com

* Microsoft Live - http://wls.live.com or http://m.live.com

* Gmail - http://m.gmail.com

* Joystiq - http://m.joystiq.com

* Mobile MSN - http://m.msn.com

* MSNBC - http://www.msnbc.msn.com

* Alarm.com - https://www.alarm.com/pda

* Twitter - http://m.twitter.com

* Wapedia (Mobile Wikipedia) -http://wapedia.mobi/en

Find Usability Issues Using Crowdsourcing

Find usability issues by using new crowdsourcing services like uTest.com. If you want to mimic the behavior of your site's users, there is no better way than to use a large pool of everyday Internet users. Crowdsourcing platforms like uTest give you the ability to send lots of users to your website and quickly see where they have problems and give feedbacks for improvement.

TIME Magazine Selects Kongregate as One of the Best US Websites of 2010

TIME Magazine has included Kongregate, Inc. on its annual "50 Best Websites 2010" ranking in the newsmagazine's current issue. San Francisco-based Kongregate is a leading social gaming destination and community for core gamers representing the fast-growing free-to-play gaming market. Currently www.Kongregate.com hosts 10 million monthly players who spend a combined 23 million hours per month on the site, which places it among the most popular online gaming sites.

TIME Magazine's complete 2010 top-50 list,includes Kongregate.com as one of only five game sites. Other categories represented on the Top 50 list include such topics as music and video, news, shopping, family, sports, finance and health.

TIME Magazine also recognized Kongregate.com for its Android-based mobile application that delivers more than 150 quick and simple mini games that are playable from an Android phone's Web browser.

Increasing mobile websites over apps

Some 80% of businesses across a wide range of vertical industries are planning to or already have developed mobile websites as their predominant vehicle for conducting mobile commerce in the next year, according to a new survey by Adobe Systems. A downloadable, application-only mobile commerce strategy was the preference of only 8% of respondents in the Adobe Scene7 Mobile Commerce Survey, released Thursday.

Businesses' mobile strategies were highlighted in four main areas: promotions, commerce, product information, and branding. The latter was deemed the core mobile strategy for 75% of respondents, reinforcing the importance of the mobile channel to drive traffic and support different types of commerce, Adobe said.

"Multi-channel shoppers tend to purchase more; therefore, companies must effectively engage customers by delivering consistent, rich experiences across all channels -- including mobile -- to maintain and fuel current double-digit e-commerce industry growth rates," said Sheila Dahlgren, senior director of product marketing at Adobe, in a statement. "The survey results demonstrate the opportunities that exist for companies to fully leverage rich visualization features to improve their emerging mobile presences and drive cross-channel sales."

Full-screen image zoom and videos are the most effective way for mobile users to browse or display products on their devices, Adobe said, citing 55% of respondents who called both "indispensable viewing features." In addition, the most effective visual merchandising features were catalogs and brochures, alternative images, and zoom and pan, according to 96% of respondents.

The survey also revealed that presently, rich visual merchandising features are used by 18% of respondents for mobile commerce, however, up to 81% said they plan to deploy these features, "thus implying richer mobile experiences will be created and offered over the next 12 months," the company said.

Source: Various websites

Mobile Website makes travel easier

Commuters will find it easier to access public transport information on the go through Australia's most comprehensive mobile public transport website.

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan unveiled two new mobile phone compatible websites from TransLink and QR in response to customer feedback.

Ms Nolan said more than 100,000 people accessed TransLink's main website for public transport information every month via their mobile phone.

"Both mobile websites have been designed for commuters who have web-enabled mobile phones and want easy-to-read public transport information at their fingertips," Ms Nolan said.

"Both sites are free and easy to use so commuters on the go have all the information they need to travel on trains, buses and river services."

Ms Nolan said the TransLink mobile website included an improved mobile journey planner, timetables, service updates and disruptions, fares, information on go card top up locations, favourite links and a feedback section.

"One of the best features is that you can save regular journeys, timetables or even service changes - so you don't have to retype your home and work address each time you travel," Ms Nolan said.

"The new website is very easy to navigate, minimising clicks and allowing commuters to connect with TransLink via Twitter, under the contact us section."

Ms Nolan said both the new TransLink and Queensland Rail mobile website worked on most web enabled mobile phones made in the last five years.

"The Queensland Rail mobile-friendly website is being trialled and includes links to the TransLink journey planner as well as news, events and lost property," she said.

"Mapping and positioning technology will be incorporated into future upgrades of the TransLink mobile site.

"We believe a new group of go card users joining the network in coming weeks from the big go card giveaway will benefit from this new service for customers, showing where to top up their go card."

Ms Nolan said TransLink had also made its main website more accessible for multicultural communities by translating important travel information.

"Comprehensive travel information is now available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Serbian, Spanish and Vietnamese at the bottom of each web page of the TransLink site," she said.

"Information about go card will also be available soon. This is all part of our community service obligations in making travel easy for all people in the community."

Access the mobile TransLink website at: mobile.translink.com.au or visit translink.com.au

Mobile Shopping by Tesco

Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, is aiming to take the mobile commerce sector into the mainstream by launching its first transactional mobile app.

It has scheduled to launch the app on Nokia’s Ovi Store next week. It lets Tesco.com members browse a full store and update their shopping lists.

The retailer, which generated £136m in profit from online sales last year, is looking to lead the fledgling mobile commerce sector, which is seeing investment from rivals Asda, Ocado and Waitrose, while Amazon has also launched an online grocery service.

Kony study: Companies give high priority for offering mobile web

Kony Solutions, did a survey in 119 large corporations and it inferred that 61% of the respondents planned to incorporate sales and commerce capabilities into mobile offerings.

The companies also helped in giving an insight apart from the sales and commerce functions.

Informational resources were 75% of the whole, brand awareness was 61%, and customer service and support was 56%-were components of their mobile strategy.

There were also clear cut strategies that were demonstrated by various segments. For example, retail companies clearly were the respondents who chose mobile commerce capabilities, and was at the higher end at 82%, travel and hospitality businesses came in second with 58%.

The study also highlighted that companies consider offering a mobile website to be the highest priority. Around 73% of the respondents agreed to this. Downloadble mobile applications came a close second and messaging as a VAS was another close contender.

Raj Koneru, founder and CEO of Kony Solutions says, "It's clear that the mobile landscape has created a unique, complicated and costly problem for consumer-centric organizations; however, it also offers lucrative opportunities."

He also adds, "Companies are unclear as to how best to balance the cost of developing and deploying mobile offerings across multiple devices with the need to reach the widest range of consumers. Consumers facing businesses need to implement mobile solutions in the near term or risk disengagement. Additionally, the potential revenue stream and brand awareness from mobile offerings is too great to be ignored."

Importance of usability in e-commerce websites

According to the “Revolutionizing Website Design” report from digital marketing agency Oneupweb, Web users expect a lot from shopping sites, but their focus is on the fundamentals that facilitate purchasing.

Clearly presented pricing and shipping information, for example, is the most important feature of e-commerce sites, followed by indications of credibility and trustworthiness. Visual appeal and functionality like cost calculators and search were also relatively important. But advanced features such as live chat and social hooks were important to but a small minority of respondents.

While Facebook “like” buttons may facilitate viral sharing of product pages, online retailers concerned with conversion rates, failed transactions and shopping cart abandonment will have other priorities.

Oneupweb found those problems were relatively big ones for e-commerce sites. Task completion failure rates were higher than on travel sites, business-to-business properties or higher-education Websites.

Further, while e-commerce abandonment rates were relatively low compared to the other categories studied, their failure rates were highest.

iPerceptions found in 2009 that while overall task completion rates on e-commerce sites were high, they dropped significantly when visitors went to the sites specifically to buy. Those just looking to learn about products were better able to accomplish their goals and ended up better satisfied.

Also in 2009, Web performance monitoring firm Gomez reported that just one or two bad experiences could turn online shoppers off forever, making these usability concerns a priority for online retailers.

dotMobi launches goMobi, mobile website creation tool

dotMobi, the company behind the “.mobi” domain, unveiled goMobi, an easy to use mobile website creation tool. The company argues that the new solution brings together the breadth of traditional content management systems with the speed and simplicity of mobile website builders. In other words, you don’t need to be an expert in order to create and maintain your (your company’s) mobile website.

Among the cool features included in the solution is the ability to detect website visitor’s mobile phone and serve appropriately formatted content. By default, goMobi produces easy to use, icon-based websites, but there are also options to make further customizations.

For more experienced developers, there’s a “powerful suite of tools” which allows them [developers] to control the automated transformation of desktop website content to mobile-friendly content as well as accessing HTML metatags for site items, along with a mobile/desktop switcher and advanced device detection capabilities.

You can access goMobi’s website from your computer at goMobi.info and at go.mobi on mobile devices.

Mobile web users in China

According to eMarketer there will be more mobile Internet users in China than the entire population of the US by the end of this year.

For your reference, the 2010 estimate of the size of the United States population stands at roughly 310 million people according to Wikipedia, so that’s a whole lot of people browsing the Web from their phones right there.

The report, which you can purchase here, also says the number of mobile Internet users in China will grow fast to reach a staggering 957 million, and that the country will count approximately 1.3 billion mobile subscribers by 2014.

eMarketer points out that those mobile Internet users do not currently monetize as well as smaller mobile audiences in, say, the States, which means that mobile advertising spending levels in China are still low relative to the size of the mobile Web user base. Also, the company highlights another key trend in China, which is that mobile subscriber growth is actually slowing while mobile Internet user growth is accelerating.

U.S. Open Golf Site Draws 500 Percent Increase In Mobile Site Visitors

Mobile Web usage continues to grow by leaps and bounds as smartphones with large touch screens become the new normal. One quick data point comes from the United States Golf Association and IBM, which runs its Websites. During the 2010 U.S. Open golf tournament last week, 1.7 million people visited the U.S. Open’s mobile site, a 518 percent increase from last year. In contrast, the regular site saw only 4.2 million visitors, during the week, up 8 percent.

In other words, nearly 30 percent of traffic to the U.S. Open site was from mobile devices. The fact that golf fans didn’t need to fire up their laptops or turn on their TVs to find the latest scores and keep up with the play was enough to make the mobile site take off. And the mobile site was pretty stripped down—there was an all-text news feed, scores, tee times, and some video.

Really, that is all you need. Mobile sites should still be built for delivering quick bursts of information. When you are on the go, you probably don’t have time to wait for a busy page to load with graphics you can barely see anyway. But before touch-screen phones, the mobile Web was too difficult to navigate. Remove the friction of getting on the Web, and people will come in droves.

Tools for Creating a Mobile Version of Your Site

1. MoFuse (from $7.95 per month)

MoFuse is one of the most popular mobile website builders around, which is unsurprising considering its excellent customizability. Visit the MoFuse website, click “Launch a New Mobile Site”, choose a mobile domain and insert your URL. Next, click on “Add Elements” to add dynamic and static content to each page. Click on “Layout” to transfer elements to your live site, dragging and dropping them to create the optimal visual arrangement before, finally, previewing your new site using MoFuse’s emulator, which brings up a mobile phone screen on your computer’s monitor. For bloggers, MoFuse is completely free and even easier to set up.

2. Mippin (free)

Mippin is an absolutely fantastic tool for those who want to mobilize an RSS-driven site. It doesn’t offer the same level of customization as MoFuse, but it’s much quicker to use and the results look great, every time. What’s more, your site will be optimized to work on over 2,000 handsets and the service is completely free. It provides users with basic analytics in reports, as well as the ability to earn money through mobile advertising.

3. Mobilize by Mippin (free)

Mobilize by Mippin is a terrific WordPress plugin, which automatically displays your blog to mobile visitors from your normal URL. Once installed, everybody accessing your site from a mobile phone will be automatically redirected to the mobile version. Photos are scaled to fit the horizontal dimensions of a phone screen and videos are converted to the 3GP format, commonly used on most 3G, 2G and even 4G phones.

4. Wirenode (free basic package)

At last count, 31,912 websites had been optimized for mobile phones using Wirenode, a tool which lacks the customization potential of MoFuse, but offers slightly more in this regard than Mippin. From Wirenode’s dashboard, users can configure their domain name, upload pictures, track visitors and page views and preview their site on an emulated phone. Wirenode’s simple Editor interface lets users personalize their mobile site with colors and images, and create, edit, rearrange and delete individual pages.

5. 2ergo (contact for a quote)

2ergo has mobilized huge organizations like Rightmove and The National Guard, creating mobile-friendly websites for them which look great and load quickly. 2ergo’s customers can choose to use the self-service mobile publishing and content management tool, Mobile Site Builder, or let 2ergo design a custom site especially for them. The latter, obviously, is the more expensive option of the two. 2ergo’s service includes automatic device and carrier detection, data capture and collection forms, an integrated ad service platform, real-time tracking and top-notch technical support.

6. Zinadoo (free)

Zinadoo is a really slick, free tool, which lets users build a mobile site quickly and easily. Users can make the most of Zinadoo’s web and mobile widgets, as well as its text and email services, to promote their site to an online and offline community. Furthermore, they can optimize their site for Google Mobile with keywords and tags, and upload videos using Zinadoo’s Mobile Video. As if that wasn’t enough, users can also gain access to Zinadoo’s online Business Directory and Mobiseer, a Web 2.0 service for organizing, tagging, sharing and managing favorite mobile sites.

7. Winksite (free)

Winksite is an excellent W3C mobileOK and .mobi standards-compliant mobile website builder which focuses heavily on the community element of website promotion and social interaction. It’s packed full of mobile-community-type features like forums, chat and polls. Users can use Winksite to create their own mobile portal for communicating with friends, sharing feeds and favorites. Users can also divert all of their texts, emails and Twitter messages to one mobile destination which people can interact with.

8. MobiSiteGalore (starts at $7.99)

MobiSiteGalore offers a mobile website builder, which can be used just as easily from a mobile phone as a computer. Its Quick Start Wizard, accompanied throughout by Help Movies, makes setting up a mobile website incredibly easy. Once you’ve added pages, chosen a color scheme, added content and checked your new site for compliance with ready.mobi standards, you can add items to your new site from the Goodies List. Goodies include click-to-call, add to phone book, Google search and links to PayPal.

9. mobiReady (free)

You can’t build a mobile site using mobiReady. What you can do, however, is test your existing site for mobile usability. Enter your URL and press “Go” to get free reports, detailing how well your site displays on mobiles and any potential problem areas. You’re even given information regarding how much people in different parts of the world are charged to view your site.

10. Google Mobile Optimizer (free)

Google Mobile Optimizer is the quickest possible means of transforming your website into one suitable for mobile user consumption. Navigate your way to google.com/gwt/n, enter a site URL and a lightweight version will appear, without headers, ads or images. It’s completely un-customizable and renders a minority of websites useless, but it’s a very useful bookmark for your phone.

British Airways Website is Most Usable Travel Website

User experience consultancy Webcredible’s 2010 Flights Online Report found BA offers the best levels of usability in the online travel sector, scoring an overall rating of 78%.

The report shows that budget airlines have made the biggest improvements online over the past year. EasyJet is now close behind BA on 77%, improving from 50% last year, while Ryanair has climbed 12 places from last year to 8th with a score of 66%.

Five websites – also including Virgin Atlantic, BMI and Travel Republic – scored over 70% compared to just three last year, while the average usability score rose to 64.4% from 55.2% last year.

The improved figures suggest that the online travel industry is beginning to recognise the value of improving the usability of their sites; however, this is not across the board with 11 sites scoring in the 60s and Opodo and Lastminute.com both dropping lower in the rankings that last year.

The report found that there are many areas that could still be improved such as support for comparison shoppers, making pages ‘share friendly’, providing airport information and providing progress bars and contact numbers during the booking process.

Trenton Moss, director at Webcredible, said: “Usability is essential so that site visitors can find the flights they’re looking for quickly and intuitively. A poor user experience could lead to customers going elsewhere and could make customers reluctant to complete other transactions online, such as checking-in.”

Webcredible scored ten airlines and ten travel agents against 20 best practise usability guidelines, which were each assigned a score of 0 -5. Capabilities that were tested throughout the report include searching for flights, search results and flight summary booking pages and errors and error handling.

Mobile Web usage in smartphones

Net Applications’ latest mobile web usage report contradicts an earlier survey claiming that the Android platform overtook the iPhone in terms of market share, at least in the US. According to their May web metrics released Monday, Google’s Android is indeed rapidly gaining usage share, but the iPhone still maintains quite a lead.

The survey, distilled in the included pie chart, is based on aggregated traffic data obtained from partner websites representing a total of 160 million visitors a month, the slice they claim is a representative sample of the web at large. However, note that these figures only indicate active smartphone platform use across those partner sites rather than the actual number of devices sold. According to Net Applications:

Both have been overshadowed,by Java ME – found mostly on low-end and older smartphones – which remains the leading mobile browsing platform with a 40.04 percent usage share.

The Symbian platform, found on most Nokia smartphones, was ahead of Android and behind the iPhone with a 13.98 percent usage share. BlackBerry and Windows Mobile came in fifth and sixth with a 3.59 percent and 2.97 percent usage share, respectively

The iPhone actually gained more global share than Android in May, going from 30.3 percent to 32.8 percent. In the same timeframe, Android went from 5.3 percent to 6.2 percent. Java ME (which stands for micro-edition) still maintains the number spot as the most popular platform for mobile browsing. This platform is in use on a large variety of devices and is rapidly losing share to both Android and the iPhone.

The survey revealed that the iPhone gained more market share in May than Android, although Google’s mobile operating system grew at a faster pace. More precisely, Android increased its May usage share over the previous month by 17 percent versus an 8.25 percent increase for the iPhone. This shouldn’t surprise you because a tinier user base like Android grows faster in percentage terms than a nearly 100 million-strong installed base of iPhone OS devices

Mobile phones to overtake PCs for web surfing by 2013

By 2013, more people will be accessing the web from mobile phones than from PCs, according to analyst firm Gartner's latest set of predictions.

The company says that there will be 1.78 billion PCs in use that year, outstripped by the 1.82 billion install base of smartphones and browser-equipped feature phones.

"Websites not optimized for the smaller-screen formats will become a market barrier for their owners," claims Gartner. "Much content and many sites will need to be reformatted/rebuilt."

The analyst's new report also predicts that context - including location, presence and social interactions - will become as important to mobile services as search engines are to the web.

"The most powerful position in the context business model will be a context provider," says Gartner.

Top UK e-commerce website - JD Sports

JD Sports has been ranked as the top performing ecommerce website in terms of usability in the UK.The eRetail Benchmark study from eDigitalResearch highlighted the retailer's informative product pages, checkout process and various points of customer contact as standout traits.

Other websites that performed well in the overall usability rankings included Marks & Spencer (M&S), Amazon, John Lewis and Figleaves.

The top websites for search and navigation were M&S and New Look respectively, while Amazon, Ocado and ASOS were praised for their speed of response when interacting with customers via email.

According to eDigitalResearch co-founder and director Michelle Fuller, the study indicates that investing in customer contact can result in significant increases in satisfaction among online shoppers.

When customers shop online, the very least they expect is a simple, straightforward and easy-to-use experience, from clear navigation to detailed product information, good customer service and accurate delivery information.

Reliance Big TV Enhances usability of their website

Reliance Big TV, the leading direct-to-home (DTH) service provider in the country has enhanced their official website. The new site comes with a completely fresh and international look with free-flowing white spaces and fluid interactions. The new navigation interface adopted is simplistic and intuitive with the objective of increasing the average time spent on site. With a warm conversational tone, the content is aimed to provide enough info to category explorers to turn them into BIG TV customers while converting existing BIG TV customers into complete loyalists & advocates.
Sources state, the clear agenda for the site revamp was to use it as an effective marketing tool to garner new customers as well as to promote VAS to existing customers. The site achieves this by clearly directing 'seekers' vs. 'users' into separate sections. Interested customers can now order a new BIG TV connection online.

3G Auction

At the end of the 34th day and 183 rounds of bidding, the government had a bonanza in its hands, nearly double its initial estimate of Rs 35,000 crore from the sale.At an average of nearly Rs 1,300 crore per circle, Vodafone Essar emerged as the most ‘premium’ buyer among the seven firms that won the auction. Seven of its nine victories belonged to the top ten most expensive circles. Vodafone Essar will pay Rs 11,618 crore —- the second highest amount in the auction.
In a surprise move, Bharti Airtel seemed to have concentrated primarily on the top five circles, including Delhi, Mumbai and the three southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Among the notable absences in its wins were lucrative states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab.
There was no taker for a pan-India licence as operators cherry-picked circles.
Bharti will pay Rs 12,295 crore, about 3.5 times the starting price for all-India 3G spectrum and around 25% less than the Rs 16,751 crore that would have fetched a pan-India licence.
Reliance Communications, Aircel and Idea Cellular picked up 11-13 circles each, mostly from the second and third rungs. Chennai-based S Tel picked up 3 small circles for a total of around Rs 337 crore.

Expanding Mobile Web

Taptu, the search and discovery engine that indexes touch screen content, reveals in its second quarterly report that the Mobile Touch Web has grown 35 percent since last quarter, which represents a 232 percent annual growth rate. This puts its growth rate ahead of the App Store, currently showing an annual growth of 144 percent, but behind the Android Market growing at an annual rate of 403 percent, albeit from a smaller base.

The report, which covers January 2010-April 2010, also shows Mobile Touch Web sites rose to 440,100 from 326,600 in January. At this current run rate, the report predicts that the Mobile Touch Web will increase to 1.1 million sites by the end of the year, nearly twice Taptu’s original forecast, and nearly a full year ahead of our January prediction, fueled in part by the continued consumer love affair with touch screen phones, and even more importantly the rising sales of mid-range touch-enabled devices.

Key Findings From Taptu’s Quarterly Report Analyzing the Growth of the Mobile Touch Web:

1. The number of touch friendly websites is dramatically higher than just 4 months ago. At the end of 2010, we found 326,600 touch friendly websites. In April 2010, that number has increased to 440,100 sites. This represents a 35 percent increase in the quarter and an annual growth rate of 232 percent.

2. App Store numbers are up too, showing a comparative annual growth rate of 144 percent up to 185,000 apps. The largest growth has been in the Android Market, now showing 35,947 apps and an annual growth rate of 403 percent.
The iPhone is a strong platform, but it only accounts for 10 percent of the worldwide market of touch screen devices. If a company simply employs an iPhone application as their sole mobile strategy, they are only pursuing 10 percent of the market.

3. mCommerce/ Shopping & Services continue to dominate the Mobile Touch Web representing over 22 per cent of the 440,100 sites compared to the App Store where equivalent services represent fewer than 4 per cent.

Mobile Library Website

The mobile website at the University of Minnesota Libraries was optimized for iPhone users.Oregon State University Library created two versions of its mobile site, one optimized for smartphones and one for web-enabled cell phones, which have smaller screens. It’s easy to create an algorithm that will detect from what type of device a user is accessing a website and redirect the patron to the appropriate version for that device.

Other libraries have created mobile applications that allow users to search the catalog and selected databases, place holds, contact the library, check hours and more from their smartphone.The District of Columbia Public Library and the University of Houston both have created impressive library iPhone apps. DCPL has even made its source code available for others to modify.

In addition to creating a mobile website or application, there are many other resources and services libraries can mobilize for their users, including reference services, instructional content, and the catalog.With the mainstreaming of mobile devices, libraries can no longer ignore this important trend. By mobilizing our library resources and services, we make ourselves accessible to patrons wherever they are, from a device that fits in their pocket.

SEO Tips - Basic

The utilisation of alt and title text on images and title text on hyperlinks is not only good for accessibility but also for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Remember to use your keywords in the title, description and keyword tags within the head of each web page as this will greatly help search engine robots find your keyword phrases. Consistently use the same keyword text to link pages throughout your site.

Use the phrase that titles the page as your H1 tag and use it a further couple of times within the body of the page. Robots will pick up on this. Do not use the same title on every page as this is considered as spamming. Don’t overuse keywords unnecessarily. If search engines consider you are spamming your website may not perform well. Submit your website to search engine yourself as using submission software could result in a penalty or even a ban.

Top 10 Internet Languages in 2009

Mobile Web Usage Comparision 2008 & 2009

Source: Smartcompany.com.au

Reasons for having a mobile website

In 2009, $1.6 billion was obtained from purchases in mobile devices

93% of Americans own their mobile phones.

5% of the top 500 online retailers possess a mobile site/ iPhone app

Budgets for mobile marketing is expected to cross $6.5 billion in 2012

Internet users are using it on an average of 13 hours a week, which was just 7 in 2002

There are more than 2 billion mobile phones estimated worldwide

Google owns a separate mobile site index

Nearly 1/5 of Americans access mobile web daily

Mobile web is expected to surpass desktop web in just five years

Mobile Web Browsers

Opera Mobile

Opera Mini

Skyfire

Safari

Google Android

Microsoft IE for Mobile

Firefox Mobile

Bolt

Teashark

Blazer

Mozilla's Minimo

Bitstream's Thunderhawk

S60 Web Browser.

Ten Best Intranets of 2010

•Enbridge, Inc., a leader in energy transportation and distribution in North America (Canada)

•GE, a diversified technology, media, and financial services company (US)

•Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a nonprofit medical research organization (US)

•Huron Consulting Group, a consulting company (US)

•Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a NASA Center that manages robotic spacecraft exploration of Earth, the solar system, and the universe (US)

•The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit organization managing four federally funded research and development centers (US)

•SCANA Corp., a Fortune 500 energy-based holding company (US)

•Trend Micro, Inc., a leader in Internet content security (Japan)

•URS Corporation, a leading provider of engineering, construction, and technical services for public agencies and private sector companies (US)

•Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Walmart), a retailer with more than 8,000 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries (US).

Source: Useit.com

Ten Best Intranets of 2009

. ltran, a large engineering and innovation consultancy (France)

. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a developer of computer and graphics processors (USA)

. BASF SE, the world's leading chemical manufacturing company (Germany)

. COWI Group A/S, a consulting group focusing on engineering, environmental science, and economics (Denmark)

. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT), a global professional services network providing audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services (a Global member organization)

. Environmental Resources Management (ERM), one of the world's leading providers of environmental consulting services (Global)

. HSBC Bank Brazil (Brazil)

. Kaupthing Bank (Iceland)

. L.L.Bean, a vendor of apparel and outdoor equipment (USA)

. McKesson Corporation, a large provider of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and health care information technologies (USA).

Source: Useit.com

Mobile web usage

Bango – the mobile payments and analytics specialist – reports a 600% growth in traffic to mobile websites. The company analyzed traffic to a range of mobile sites over the last 12 months. Data was gathered by sampling across 50 million phone users worldwide who have accessed third party mobile sites through its platform.
The key findings from Bango’s annual mobile usage study record 6 times the number of visits to mobile websites, comparing December 2009 with the same month a year earlier. The average time on site is measured as 3 minutes, 21 seconds, averaged across user visits to all sites, compared with just over one and half minutes the previous year. The analysis also measured the average number of pages viewed per visit at 5 pages, up from just over 2 pages per visit twelve months before.

Over the last twelve months, these site-level figures have increased by an average of 230% compared to a year ago, with consumers visiting sites more frequently from their phones and browsing more pages over longer periods of time. The key categories for mobile browsing are news, sports and general media sites (including newspapers), mobile content downloads, social networking and retail sites.


Another key finding is that smartphones are driving the highest usage of the mobile web, with BlackBerry accounting for over 17% of the mobile devices recorded across sites.The number of visits by BlackBerry users also exceeds any other device.

According to Gartner, the top three devices for worldwide smartphone sales in 2009, in order, were Nokia, BlackBerry then the iPhone. Factoring in the relative sales growth across the different smartphone brands the data suggests that iPhone browsing has, if anything, slightly declined per user measured, which could be a result of consumers being directed towards apps instead of websites.

Bango’s analysis also reveals significant usage of Wi-Fi connections by phone users. Wi-Fi connections average at 23% of all connections measured by Bango, with some rich media sites averaging one-third of all connections through Wi-Fi. This suggests that consumers are increasingly aware of Wi-Fi on mobile handsets and will connect via Wi-Fi where available, motivated by speed and perceived cost benefits. Sites that attract high percentages of Wi-Fi connected users include those that broadcast video, music and other streamed content.

Handcase Search engine for Mobile - Gune

Handcase has launched its mobile search engine, named Gune. The Gune solution is a system of meta-search. Handcase is a Brazilian software company.

Gune searches other websites and generates a single page of results. Search results are optimized for small screen phones and smartphones. Gune consults other search engines such as Google (News - Alert) and Bing to deliver the search results. Unlike traditional meta-search websites on the Internet that use the same principle, Gune displays 10 results each from Google and Bing simultaneously on the same page. Moreover, Gune offers the search box both at the top and at the end of each page.

Another factor that differentiates Gune from traditional meta-search websites that are based on the same principles is the fact that the search results provided are only from mobile search. According to Ricardo Garay, CEO Handcase, the goal was to optimize the time of the user. Gune aims to provide a superior experience with search. At present, Gune is available only in English. Handcase is working on Gune’s versions in Portuguese and Spanish.

The Gune offers a catalog of mobile websites. That is, users will be able to submit their mobile websites in Gune’s mobile website directory. It is not necessary to own a mobile website to submit it. If a user knows any mobile websites, he can go ahead and submit it. Garay added that since Gune is designed for everyone to contribute to the directory, whoever has, or knows a website mobile should just visit the website for the PC and give his tip. As soon as the website is checked and approved, it will be added to the directory.

Opera's Mobile Emulator for Desktop

Opera Software said April 22 it is "making mobile Web testing even easier" with the release of a new emulator for testing the Opera browser on Websites from Windows, Linux and Mac desktop computers.

"With Opera Mobile running on the desktop, developers are relieved of [the burden of] investing time and money in multiple phones for testing. Opera Mobile allows developers to resize the application easily to emulate the wide variety of mobile screen sizes. The Opera Widgets Mobile Emulator similarly helps developers test their mobile widgets directly from their computers. Both these applications can be used in tandem with Opera Dragonfly [a JavaScript debugger], significantly lowering the barrier to mobile debugging," Opera said.

"With more people accessing the Web from their phones, optimizing and tweaking Web content for display on phones is increasingly important," Bovens said in a statement. "By making a version of Opera Mobile available for normal desktop computers, [Opera Software has made it so that] developers are now able to create mobile optimized Websites and widgets quickly and efficiently, without investing in multiple testing devices."

Accessibility

Barrier-free design is beneficial for all users. Designing for universal access is not only good social practice, but in general, it is good business practice.

1. 1 in 5 people in the United States has some kind of disability, and an estimated 30 million people are impacted by inaccessible computer and software design.

2. The number of people with disabilities is only increasing, as it has increased 25% in the last decade, especially among those 50 years old and above.

3. Among the 31 million seniors aged 65 and above, 16 million reported some level of disability (Census Brief 97-5).

But accessibility actually affects a much larger percentage of the population, as many people who do not have permanent disabilities have temporary conditions that can affect the way they operate for a period of time. Beyond that, the very young and the very old can also benefit from more accessible design. With this in mind, accessibility in website design should really be thought of as part of universal design.

The Internet has the potential to broaden the lives and increase the independence of people with disabilities. For people who can be physically as well as socially isolated, access to the Internet can offer information about social interaction, cultural activities, employment opportunities, and consumer goods. But, as statistics demonstrate, not many people with disabilities are able to take advantage of these possibilities, in large part because their needs have not been addressed by the web design community.

Mobile web traffic in India

AdMob announced that mobile web traffic in India has crossed a milestone figure of One Billion per month.

Since the inception of its India Operations in June 2009, mobile web traffic in India has increased significantly from 502 million to 1.2 Billion in March 2010.

“We are thrilled to reach and cross this landmark figure of over One Billion and hope to continue contributing toward the mobile ecosystem in India. The reported growth of over a 100 percent in less than a year is a testament to the growing Indian mobile web marketplace, we look forward to what is next given improved data plans and enhanced device capabilities” said Jeff Merkel, VP and Managing Director for APLA.

India generates the second highest Mobile Web traffic globally on the AdMob platform following the USA. According to Mahesh Narayanan, Country Manager India, AdMob “Mobile ownership and usage far outstrips ownership of PCs with Internet access in India. In the near future Mobile Internet usage is going to overtake fixed line internet usage in India.”

The AdMob platform includes a network of premium publishers and high quality content. Advertisers have the unique opportunity to drive consumer acquisition and brand engagement on the mobile web using this platform.

W3CAG

W3C Accessibility Guidelines

1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and
visual content.
2. Don't rely on color alone
3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly
4. Clarify the usage of natural language
5. Create tables that transform gracefully
6. Ensure that pages featuring new technologies
transform gracefully
7. Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
8. Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user
interfaces
9. Design for device-independence
10. Use interim solutions
11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines
12. Provide context and orientation information
13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms
14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple

Mobile Usability Guidelines

Meet user's needs quickly
Design mobile friendly pages
Don't repeat the navigation on all the pages
Distinguish clearly selected items
Make user input as simple as possible
Show only essential information in the mobile