MW08 – Question #10: Is the market large enough to justify building mobile widgets and applications for clients?

Q:Do you think there is enough saturation in the market from pdas that support them to make branded widgets/applications a viable option for clients? How do we position this in a world where everyone watches tv but only a small percentage use PDAs?

A:The first thing you need to do is not think of mobile as a one to many medium. Because relevance and context are key, there are very few widgets or applications that everybody would want or need.  The closet thing i’ve seen to a mass appeal widget are the weather widgets. The Weather Network now has both a blackberry and iphone widget and they are doing really well

The key to developing a mobile widget or application is to first understand your target audience and validate that you would be fulfilling a need by creating a widget.  If your target audience is not primarily on a smartphone / pda device, chances are you would have better success building out a mobile website or even an sms based application… or maybe even something on the old desktop interweb!

Having said that, last month the new 3g iphone was the top selling mobile device in the U.S. – outselling the Motorola Razr for the first time. This is significant because the iphone is more expensive – and it’s offers the richest user experience for mobile web, widgets, and applications. 

What does this mean? Soon we will not be distinguishing between smartphones and others as all phones will come feature rich no matter what shape / form they take.

In regards to the comment about television – keep in mind that consumers are multitaskers. Chances are they are watching tv and checking their email or sms on their mobile device at the same time. Many also have their laptop open too.

If you’re an agency lucky enough to control the entire marketing mix, be sure to include a call to action in your television commercial to drive them to web, mobile web, or sms. This will make an old medium like television more measurable – and you get to start or continue a conversation with a consumer beyond your 30 second spot.