The Wireless New Media Revolution

Overall growth in Wireless New Media has been driven exponentially in recent times by the growth in Smartphones and their improved capabilities, by improved user experiences such as those seen in the iPhone, by the growing depth of content available to Wireless networks, by rapidly increasing data speeds enabling rapid access to rich content, and by carriers finally introducing data pricing that not only makes Mobile browsing more affordable but also makes it mass consumable.

Smartphones

From around 1996 Smartphone devices were being mass produced* capable of managing email, browsing, messaging, and most applications. Smartphones are generally defined as those running complete operating system software that standardise interfaces and platforms for developers. More recently Smartphone adoption rates have significantly increased with the introduction of iPhone and Android devices.

Improved Usability

Whilst the introduction of Smartphones in 1996 was heralded as an impressive innovation the true mass adoption of Smartphone technology largely took place only with the introduction of highly intuitive and usable technology. The respective launches of the Symbian OS in 1998, the Blackberry email work-horse in 2001, Windows Mobile devices in 2002, the iPhone & iPod Touch in July 2008, and the Android OS late 2008, have each contributed significantly to the rapid growth in Smartphone usability. More recently the iPhone smashed market records by achieving over 10% share of all new device sales within 6 months of launching, having never previously sold a single Mobile phone. The Usability innovation of the iPhone is sure to stand the test of time and continue to grow the Wireless New Media space rapidly.

Increased Content Depth

Increasingly brands and owners of digital content are taking their properties Wireless. In the past few years tens of thousands of Mobile sites have been created and content offerings introduced. In the early days Mobile content was largely produced by Carriers in their 'On-Portal' offerings. Today most new content is produced by the 'Off-Deck' market, or by brands that are seeking to Mobilise their products; examples include Citibank, BMW, Coke, Disney, NYTimes, Nike, all having rich and deep Wireless content propositions.

Enormously improved Carrier Data Speeds

Much of the early adoption of Smartphones was hindered for many years by the ability of Wireless Networks to keep up with technologies that deliver high speed data. Recently though Carriers have been upgrading their networks to 3G speeds and beyond, finally delivering page load speeds similar to that of high speed fixed connections.

Carrier Data Pricing

Carriers around the globe have been criticised for many years for failing to offer non-prohibitive pricing for Data usage across their wireless networks. Fortunately today (only a very recent development) Carriers have finally introduced data pricing plans that not only make Mobile browsing more affordable but make it mass consumable. Many Data pricing plan structures are now either set at small fixed fees for large amounts of Data usage or even slightly higher fixed pricing for-all-you-can-eat plans. Pricing is therefore no longer a limitation to mass adoption of Mobile Internet usage.