When I got my first smartphone (an iPhone 3GS) I couldn’t imagine myself reading news, articles, blog posts and watch videos on it. But that was mostly because it required a lot of pinching and zooming and the general reading experience was pretty horrible (and no flash meant no video), and the few sites that had an ok mobile experience, only offered short versions of it’s content – at least that was how it was in Denmark.
But thanks to responsive webdesign, html5 video and mobile apps the experience has since become a lot better. And now I mainly use my smartphone or tablet when it comes to consuming media, and my laptop for reading short articles or finding stuff I’ll read later, and work stuff of cause.

But what if we started to consider mobile media as a completely separate media category, and started to focus on making the mobile experience completely tailored for mobile devices, and the way we use them, and not just a scaled down (and some times optimized) version of the experience we have on a desktop.

Mobile-first approach is a step in the right direction

Mobile-first approach is a step in the right direction, but i think we could take it so much further if we focused just om mobile media alone.

I know this seems like a step in the wrong direction from a web development point of view, where mobile first and responsive webdesign has become the standart and best practice way of approaching digital media. Don’t get me wrong I’m a big supporter of mobile first, responsive webdesign and progressive enhancement ect. and I believe that for now this is the best approach.

But what would happen if we tailored the mobile media to be just that – mobile? What if we made the media much more aware of the users surroundings using input from gps, watch, camera, accelerometer, microphone ect. providing a much more contextual media experience.

“Content isn’t king, context is. Give users what they want, when they want it,
in a relevant way. That’s where the money is”
– Cliff Cluet

A couple of examples

1st scenario: Imagine that you are walking from your home towards the train station, your device detects that you are walking so when you check your favorite news site you only get very short versions of the stories, they are displayed in a way that gives you a great overview of the stories, and you have the ability to save them for reading later. Then when you have bought your ticket and is sitting on the train, your device detects that you are sitting down and are on a train. It presumes that now you have time for reading, and gives you a list of the news stories you have saved and when you see them now, you get the full story.

2nd scenario: Or you are walking down the street and enters your local record store, book store or whatever store, and as soon as you enter the store, your device gives you a list of new releases from your favorite artist, author or brand and with related offers that the store has.

3rd scenario: Or imagine you are visiting another country and you are at a restaurant but the menu is in some language you do not understand. Your device knows your language. It translates the menu on the restaurants website and delivers it to you. And when you order, your device listens to what you order and tells you the total amount, and gives you the option to pay the bill.

Final thoughts

Some of these examples might be a bit advanced for now, or they might not be?! But they are just examples of what could be possible if we start thinking a little bit diffrent about mobile media, and start focusing on the (almost) endless possibilities of this new media. And stop treating it like just another digital media.

To some of you, maybe a lot of you reading this on medium, this might not seem like something new, and might be the way you think of mobile media today, but I still encounter a lot of people who still sees mobile media as a low priority media.