Russell Beattie

MediaPost is running a story summarizing a new JupiterResearch report about the Mobile Web. It's got some interesting details in it which relate directly to what we're doing at Mowser:

• 40% of websites have a mobile version
• 22% plan to have one in the next year
• 29% of mobile sites have user profile info for advertising
• 3% of advertisers were advertising on mobile web sites
• 4% of advertisers were advertising on carrier portals
• 33% of mobile sites enable you to purchase something

And at the end they state that sites should budget $20k to $100k, and making them search engine friendly and enabling people to get links via SMS.

Very interesting numbers - whether they're accurate or not, we'll never know. But taken at face value, what that means for Mowser is that 40% of the web sites out there that could benefit from our Affiliate Linking system in the next year alone, and there will be 22% of websites looking to go mobile for the first time. Since the cost for mobilizing through Mowser is *free*, rather than upwards of $100,000, there's a decent opportunity for us to enable a good portion of those sites.

We already support mass-market as well as high-end phones as recommended in the report. But enabling more user-generated content and user profiles is definitely a key point as well - which is something we'll need to focus on, as well as enabling mobile commerce. One of my core litmus tests for all startups (including my own) is the ability to take a credit card directly, and that's something we'll be looking into sooner rather than later as well. Sending out SMS links is always on the list, but since that costs bucco bucks, it'll have to wait until we have steady traffic and cash flow. (The cost of sending SMS right now without bulk pricing can't be justified yet by the amount of money recouped by traffic and ads - at least not yet.)

This is one of those reports that tells me what I want to hear, so of course I like it. There's probably other reports out there that say something like, "mobile users won't use the Internet unless they're on an iPhone" or whatever, so it's definitely to be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless, it's always nice to have some numbers to be able to repeat to potential partners and investors.

:-)

-Russ