Despite our differences, every one of us quite commonly browses the Internet on our mobile phones. This is something worth thinking about, particularly as mobile phones are becoming more efficient at browsing the web and more accessible for the average Joe.

With this in mind, it might be worth thinking about how well your website displays on a mobile phone or other mobile device, such as an iPad. You can find out more about optimising your website for mobile browsers, as well as many other website design and optimisation tips, in our Website Resource.

But are there enough mobile Internet users in New Zealand for it to be worth considering how well your site is optimised for mobile visitors? Really this depends on the particular products and services that you offer through your website and how many of your target market are using cell phones to browse the web. To give you a better idea of the latter, Nielsens have provided us with some information on mobile browsing.

• 364,000 New Zealanders over 10 years old have accessed the Internet in the last 4 weeks using a mobile device
• This number has increased by 69,000 compared to a year ago
• 63% of these users are aged 15 to 39
• 83% of these users access the Internet on their mobile device daily
• Users that access the Internet on their mobile device are  more likely to have made an online purchase in the last 3 months (66%)
• 21% of these users have made more than 10 purchases online in the last 12 months

Source: Nielsen Panorama Q4 2009 – Q3 2010 (October 2009-September 2010)

What these figures suggest is that if you sell products or services online, it might be a good idea to look at ways that you can connect with New Zealanders that browse the Internet on their cell phones as these people are more likely to make purchases on the Internet.

With this comes an increase in the number of people that are using their cell phones to browse the web and a shift in how consumers are finding and using information.

The chart in this post shows the increase in the number of people using mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, Android Phones, Windows Phones, etc.) to visit the NZS.com website. As you can see, this has basically doubled in the past 6 months.

A typical outcome of this is that website designers need to be more aware of how their websites look when viewed in a mobile phone browser.

One advantage to New Zealand businesses is that consumers are more connected to the web and so this opens up new doors in terms of ways that businesses can communicate their message to their target markets.

Increase in Visits to NZS.com from Mobile Phone Browsers

One funky way to encourage interaction with a website or print advert through the use of a consumer’s cell phone is through the use of QR codes. QR codes have actually been around since the mid 1990s but, with application-capable cell phones becoming more and more mainstream, QR codes are starting to crop up in more and more places around the web and in magazines and other print media.

Overseas, QR codes are already in use in promotional advertising by companies such as Pepsi, Audi and even the police. Quirky ideas include using QR codes on large billboard advertising, on bus shelters, on take away coffee cups and even on cakes as edible icing.

In terms of functionality, QR codes are a very easy way to transmit information to a user’s cell phone. However, the magic of QR codes may lie in the mystery behind them. It’s difficult to look at a mysterious code and not wonder what text it might reveal with a code reader. Many successful advertisements overseas that have used QR codes have simply displayed the QR code image itself with no accompanying text!

Are QR codes in common use in New Zealand?

The reality is … no. Not yet at least. While there are certainly plenty of people using mobile devices to browse the Internet, QR codes haven’t caught on just yet in mainstream use.

At this stage, QR codes are more likely to be used by New Zealand businesses due to the novelty factor and to represent them as innovative rather than for any practical purposes. However, it may not be too long before we see this black and white boxes appearing more and more in modern day advertising.

You can find out more about QR codes and about how to read them and generate them for your business in the QR Codes Website Resource.

Flickr image credit: clevercupcakes

Today, I thought it might be interesting to also take a look at what mobile devices people are using to visit NZS.com. For a while now, we’ve had a fair few visitors using their iPhone to browse around the site as well as the many various mobile phones with Internet browsers, but recently there’s also been a significant increase in iPad users visiting the site. So here’s a chart to show the comparison between visitors using iPhones, iPads and Google Android mobile devices to visit NZS.com over the past 3 months.

It’s obvious from the chart that, of these three devices, the iPhone is still the most popular player and continues to increase in terms of number of visitors. However, the iPad has increased by a slightly higher amount over that same period and may be set to increase more rapidly over the Christmas holidays.

At this stage, Google Android isn’t quite managing to compete with its cousins from Apple. However, with more telecommunications companies retailing mobile phones with Android and Windows 7 systems, we may yet see a few more players in the mobile devices field in the coming year.

Is paying for parking via your cell phone account much used avenue for inner city parking payment in New Zealand? Or perhaps, do the transaction fees associated (50c and upwards) put Kiwis off?

Major banks in Mexico have just partnered with telecommunications corporations to launch a mobile charge service, a technological advancement tipped to go worldwide over the next year. Cell phone users are able to link their mobile phone accounts to their bank accounts, and pay for everyday things such as taxi fares and meals at restaurants, via text message.

This service is initially targeted at technophile teens, and has seen significant success already in the birth country of much of today’s technological gadgetry: Japan. Will New Zealand teens soon be able to spend their pocket money as easily as they would sending a 4-second SMS to their best friend?

Combining the Internet with mobile technology can now deliver a high speed - and high quality – wireless Internet service. This technology lets you browse the internet on your mobile, with the same ease and speed at which you’d surf the Web from your PC at home. Check your emails, download songs and ringtones, play online games, read news online…

The question is: Who will make the most of this opportunity in the global market? Which giant (take your pick from Google, Microsoft, Apple and Nokia) will be dominant? And will there soon be fierce competition in the New Zealand market?

The Gphone – a phone built on a Google open software platform – will allow the Internet heavyweight to extend the power of its online advertising into the mobile realm. Mobile phone giant, Nokia, is expected to introduce mobile Internet services for ‘entertainment on the run’ – from music and video sharing to gaming. Yahoo is pushing to refine its mobile search technology and team up with a telco operator.

Mobile Internet technology was top of the agenda at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona this week, where Telstra Australia emerged as a downunder forward-thinking telecommunications company. Faced with dropping market share and flat revenue, Telstra’s focus has shifted to mobile broadband capabilities. Download speeds of 21 Mbps (megabits per second) are planned for later this year, with faster 42 Mbps speeds from 2009.

And while there are currently few mobile phone devices on the market that can support the new technology, launching the A$1.1 billion Next G wireless high speed Internet service places them at the cutting edge – this is a gamble that will surely pay off. Look to Telecom and other New Zealand providers to take similar steps forward in the sphere of mobile phone technology this year.

Image from Flickr.

Kids today are increasingly dexterous with their digits – hours spent playing games on Playstations and Xboxes, feeding tamagochis and texting on mobile phones has brought new thumb strength to the younger generation.

Now a Dunedin teen has proved he’s the best at txt in the world. I’ve already proclaimed my love for the Guinness Book of Records, so I’m over the moon that we’ve made it with this latest record. Or should I say ovr th mn?

Seventeen-year-old Elliot Nicholls broke the world record in Dunedin, texting a 160-character message blindfolded and finishing in just 51 seconds on his second attempt and 45 seconds on his fourth try. Both times were slick enough to beat the standing record, set by an Italian at one minute 23 seconds. Elliot fitted practice around his studies, learning off-by-heart the phrase: “the razor toothed piranhas of the genera serrasal musand pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. in reality they rarely attack a human.”

Ah, I love quirky things.

So, what are you waiting for? Get txting on your NZ mobile phone!