Tag Archives: Pew Internet & American Life

Using the Location Features in Mojaba

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A recent Pew Internet and American Life report shows nearly 75% of American’s are using using location services on phones. The year over year trend shows usage up from 55% to 74% – a 35% increase in use. The survey differentiated between those who used “location services” – getting directions vs. “geosocial services” – checking into FourSquare. A significant finding shows more use of location vs geosocial by a huge margin 74% vs 18%.
This increase in location services use directly coincides with smartphone penetration, which is now at 50% of US mobile subscribers.

Implications
What are the implications for mobile website content and design? Simple – people want to easily access location-specific information. We think those organizations that provide location information in a mobile form will be rewarded. Fortunately, Mojaba not only provides a number of location-based features, they are quick and easy to implement.

Mojaba Location Features
Mojaba supports one or more locations in a mobile website. When you think of mulitple locations, think of a business with multiple retail locations. (Take a look at one of the business sites with multiple retail locations created with Mojaba – Vogue Vision. Visit m.voguevision.com on a smartphone and try out the location features)

The Location screen in Mojaba. Completing this information enables reuse in a number of forms in the mobile website.

Each Location has the following data (as seen in the screenshot above):

  • Address (including country and county/province)
  • Time Zone
  • Special Notes (e.g., “parking in back”)
  • Open Hours

Location Element (l) provides mapping of locations on the phone. Location Info Element (r) shows the same data in textual form.

When building the mobile site, the Location Element provides:

  • Location or Locations plotted on a Map
  • Nearest Location Button
  • Nearest Open Location Button
  • Call a Location Button
  • Map the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
  • Directions to the Location using the phone’s mapping tools

The Location Info element provides a different view of the the following:

  • Address Text
  • Special Notes
  • Open Hours
  • Call a Location Button
  • Map the Location using the phone’s mapping tools
  • Directions to the Location using the phone’s mapping tools

All mapping functions tie into the applications of the phone. Here we see mapping the location (l) and getting directions to the location (r) using the built-in Apple iOS application.

In addition, Mojaba Analytics record and report a range of geolocation information:

  • Street-level location of end users accessing the mobile website*
  • Location of end-user when they used the Find Nearest, Find Nearest Open, Get Directions and Click-to-Call features of the mobile website

*All end-user location data recording is permission-based

 

One screen from the Mojaba analytics showing the street-level location of end-users when they accessed the mobile website.

 Using the Location Features

  1. Create the Client Record
  2. Create the Website Record
  3. Create all locations to be used in the website
  4. Add the locations to the website
  5. Build the website in the Mojaba AppBuilder
  6. Drag and Drop the Location elements to use for this site
  7. Preview the website
  8. Purchase the subscription and then Publish the mobile website

The location features are some of the most powerful and widely used aspects of Mojaba mobile websites. The Pew study referenced at the start of this post proves that people absolutely want to use their smartphones to help them locate, contact and get to places. With Mojaba, there’s no reason to not provide these compelling benefits to your clients today.

Watch for Growth in Mobile Payments

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Mobile payments will overtake plastic payments by 2020, experts say.

Pew Internet & American Life Project released a new report Tuesday about the future of mobile payments, and the results look pretty exciting.

Experts say that within the next eight years, mobile payments may beat out credit card, cash and check payments, becoming a primary way we transfer money. In the study, 65 percent of experts surveyed by Pew agreed that by 2020, ”most people will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart-device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards.” The study cited factors like convenience and security being a major influence to that shift to mobile commerce.

However, 33 percent of experts disagreed, saying that NFC (the technology that makes  pay-swiping possible for smartphones), won’t be accepted yet. They said “People will not trust the use of near-field communications devices and there will not be major conversion of money to an all-digital-all-the-time format. By 2020, payments through the use of mobile devices will not have gained a lot of traction as a method for transactions.” So cash and credit will still be primary payment options in the next decade.

There were only two choices in this study, so it’s not clear how much the experts think there will be a crossover between mobile payments and traditional payments, but the fact that so many experts see mobile payments as a near-primary way to transfer money is significant.

And though this study is an interesting look at using NFC as a payment method, it doesn’t take into account other forms of mobile payments. Currently there are a number of existing mobile payment options — or “mobile wallets” as they’re sometimes called. The new Google Wallet is getting rave reviews and more users every day; PayPal, the mobile commerce giant from eBay is the accepted standard for mobile payments; and our neighbors and friends, Dwolla, are picking up press and momentum for their credit-card-less methods. There are also rumors of a digital wallet from Apple coming soon.

It will be interesting to see the adoption of mobile payments in the coming years. What do you think? Do you use mobile payments often? Would you trust your phone to be your sole money-transfer device?

Pew Study Shows Smartphones Surpass Feature Phones

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Nearly half of American adults now own smartphones (46%), while a steadily decreasing American population owns a feature phone (41%), according to a new report issued by the Pew Internet & American Life project.

Pew is saying that this is the first time in history that smartphones have outnumbered feature phones.The study also shows that smartphone adoption is over 60 percent in some demographics, including college graduates, 18- to 35-year-olds, and those with an annual household income over $75,000. However, there has been little growth with the over-65 crowd, as only 13 percent are smartphone users.

Feature phone users dropped seven percentage points in the last year, while smartphone ownership leapt 11 percentage points. Even the number of people without a cell phone dropped five points last year. Only 12 percent of the U.S. population is without a mobile device, making it even more clear that mobile is quickly becoming an essential part of U.S. culture.

Interestingly, there’s still some confusion about what it really means to have a smartphone. Eight percent of mobile users don’t know whether their mobile device is a smartphone or not.

To see more mobile trends and learn how to sell mobile to your clients, download our free guide, “Make Mobile Sites for Your Clients and Profits for You.”