Tech Trends: Mobile Web Is Not Dead

Originally published at blog.swayy.co. by Tal Gurevich, Co-Founder/CEO errnio

This article is for us: the developers, content creators, media publishers and advertisers who are a bit confused about the mobile web. Mobile web is not dead, it’s far from it; it’s one of the biggest opportunities out there today. For some odd reason, it’s been systematically neglected. Only recently have big names begun to realize that it’s a treasure trove of engagement and potential revenue. Let me explain.

Back in April, Flurry came out with its take on the mobile revolution, which solidified app leadership ahead of a dwindling mobile web. This prompted a festival ( — or maybe more like a funeral procession) of mobile web articles with titles such as “The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App” and many more. The basic premise was simple: Mobile web traffic, as measured via mobile browser surfing, is decreasing. That is probably right, and the basic agenda pushed through this had a lot of merit for us developers, entrepreneurs, and content editors –

Where a mobile web promotes access for everyone to everyone, the app model hands the gatekeepers the power of access and discovery, leaving the service providers beholden to their policies, their platform tools, and their rules, which can change with little notice.

If you follow the principle that you need to be where users are, then you need to be building and distributing apps, which leaves you no choice but to accept that Google and Apple will always be the third party in any relationship with your customers.

(Evan Spence, Forbes)

So here we are, approximately six months after the article was published, and we’ve seen two massive steps taken by the our gatekeepers at Google and Apple (we’ll get to Facebook in a second). The first was the massive improvement in Apple’s web browser, which effectively made internal app browsers a better development tool; the second, the news fresh off the Google Developer Summit that “Google, like Apple, is investing heavily in improving the performance of mobile Web apps” (you can read all about this here).

It’s welcome news, and it comes as no surprise to us mobile developers and content creators, for two reasons:

Mobile web is far from dead. The Flurry report neglects to mention the Facebook factor of content traffic. While mobile web is 14% of traffic on mobile, Facebook is close to 20% of that, and with the entire social spectrum of apps, social content is even more of a player on mobile. Keep in mind that content browsed on social apps are opened within In-App Web Browsers, which are powered by the Safari webkit or Android native and Chrome. When adjusted for webkits, mobile traffic statistics are substantially higher than they would appear; I would personally bet it’s close to 50/50 split.

The main generator of app traffic is the gaming industry. Game apps make up over 30% of the app market, and app volume has spawned an entire industry of app discovery networks based on display banners and in-app purchases. While this will continue to exist and attract loyal users, it’s no place for advertisers of content and content based monetization models. For ad tech growth to continue on mobile platforms, content needs a better growth engine. Movile web will continue to be super relevant to this space.

Dear content creators and advertisers, don’t neglect your core users and their technological habits. Mobile web is not only here to stay, it’s growing and evolving to fit one if its primary missions — the content we consume and the information we seek on mobile.

Tal Gurevich is co-founder and CEO of errnio, disrupting mobile with the concept of Gesture Monetization. As global usage patterns move into mobile, errnio is pioneering a new approach to ad tech, conceptualizing monetization from a truly mobile-first perspective.