It turns out my prediction was totally right! I mentioned in a previous post about MWC Barcelona (Mobile World Congress) that we are going to see some motion in the direction of a light rich mobile internet, and Adobe and friends did not disappoint with the Open Screen Project

In retrospect, it was not that hard of a call to make. Between the iPhone, Palm Pre, Android, and refreshed Symbian phones the Western World is finally seeing some great multimedia prowess in their phones.

The premise behind this movement is to assure that users have a seamless experience between their various devices. Makes sense: I don’t want to go to a rich flash site and then see a dinky WAP site when I go to the same address on my mobile browser.

What I have to mention though is that we are a few leaps away from this dream. Standardization is major issue. Its hard enough for a developer to have a site look identical on every single desktop browser available, much less their mobile counterparts.

2009, then, will not be the year of ubiquitous seamless experiences on mobile platforms. What I hope we will see is an increasing amount of resources behind enabling rich content consumption on mobile platforms.

It is this humble gent’s opinion that entities that will want to be forward with mobile engagement will do is create customized experiences depending on the platform. In essence, create different sites for every platform. We are already seeing this with the iPhone. There is a fantastic plug-in that allows Wordpress admins to generate wholly different sites when iPhones visit their domains. It is called WPtouch and it is a harbinger of mobile content.

Those online destinations with a bit more oomph (development resources) actually build custom iPhone apps that allow the user to have an optimized experience on their iPhone. The Boy Genius Report is a perfect example of this. This is the way it should be… the iPhone does not have a 15-inch screen and optimized layouts allow for the most user friendly way of consuming data.

If I was to build a site I wanted to attract mobile users to, I would essentially create multiple sites. One would be for the desktop audience and others for the different kinds of mobile browsing platforms available.

That’s right. If someone is using mobile Opera, the Nokia S60 browser, the BlackBerry browser or (in the near future) the Palm Pre browser, they would each get a different site that is optimized for screen size and performance of the device they are using to access the site. Why shouldn’t they?

The point is that creating a pleasant mobile experience will draw users to your destination since they will enjoy consuming content on your site more than a non mobile enabled competitor site.

Are there any out-of-box CMS systems that are optimized for mobile users? I haven’t seen any. Shoot me an email or leave a comment if you know of some!

I love that post big conference period when keynotes and studies hit the web. Mobile World Congress  in Barcelona is starting this week and is looking like a riot. New devices, further web integration, and a decrease in bulging pockets are all welcome. Most importantly though, I am interested in what 2009 will hold for mobile marketing.

I will definitely follow up the conference with some thoughts, but here are two predictions that I look to hearing most about:

1. Light rich content is going to step up hard. Mobile bandwidth is not free (sorry, State-side readers) in most parts of the world and as more phones ship with powerful web browsers there will be a need for a 3rd kind of mobile site. Currently we can zoom and pan around full sites with Xed out media, plow through text on a WAP site, or buy an iPhone and hope that the site has an optimized interface for the iphone. With Nokia, Samsung, and Palm pushing hard into the connect multimedia phone space it will be interesting to see how developers optimize mobile experience for those users. I have more thoughts on this that I’ll write in detail about later (really, I will!).
2. SMS will reign supreme. Yes, some of us can now email, chat, tweet, stream, and listen to music from our phones. That great and all, but most users can’t and SMS will remain as a cheap, fast, and convenient way of reaching people. SMS is also the least complicated and most reliable system. When my BlackBerry shows “GSM” on the top right… I can still text a few friends what my plans are. As such, I see further innovation with opt in direct marketing using short codes. I was a notorious Google Text user when I lived in the States and I believe that these capabilities will trickle down to smaller sized businesses.

I would say #2 is for sure, #1 is a toss up with how much progress has occurred that we don’t know about already.

For those who are attending, I am hugely jealous. Barcelona is amazing. Enjoy.