This year is starting to look like the mobile space is reaching critical mass. And here's the blasphemy part:
Bigger than Jesus.
Yeah, I said it.
According to our friends at Wikipedia, Christianity worldwide touts about 2.2 billion followers. About 242 million of these are in the United States. Now, I'm not going to make any kind of claims to the validity or how devoted to their beliefs a certain percentage are. We're going to take these numbers and say, they're about right or at least close enough.
Now we check the latest market shares in another theological debate. Mobile OSes and we see something interesting ComScore - February 2012 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share
Android is leading the way, with iOS not far behind. RIM still falling and Microsoft struggling to get any traction. But, here's the bit that I found interesting.
For the three-month average period ending in February, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices
More than 104 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in February, up 14 percent versus November.So though they may not be at epic fan-boy level, some 234 million Americans prayed at the alter of consumer web-enabled electronics with over 100 million being, effectively, the mobile evangelicals. And these numbers are continuing to grow. The tide isn't slowing, more it is gaining momentum.
Mobile is quickly becoming the elephant in the room the way the internet was in the late 1990s to early 2000s. You can no longer avoid it as a "fad". If you aren't looking to spark interactions with your customers in the mobile space, you are losing out. More importantly, if you break your users mobile experience, you may lose them for good.
Sure, we all get geeked out at the announcements of what carrier is getting 4G coverage in what towns or iPhone 5, or Jelly Bean, or maybe even Windows Phone 8 (just me?). But, its all moot unless we're actively looking to make mobile experience part of the overall web experience.
