Does Your College Have a Plan for Mobile?

Michael Gray thinks Building a Mobile Website Should be Your #1 IT Project. He's focused on commercial websites, but the same is true for educational institutions (.edus). Have you even started?

If I had the ability to reach through the screen, grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye, and tell you that building a mobile version of your website should be your number one IT project this year, I would. While I may be on the bleeding edge of mobile consumption, the adoption of smart phones, tablets, and iPads into the main stream population can’t be denied. As Steve Wozniak said “The tablet is the PC for normal people.”

It’s easy for those of us who work in the tech sector to think that we are “different” or more “advanced” than the average person, but a recent survey of new moms showed that smart phone usage was exceptionally high.

• Smart phone usage rose 64% for new mothers.
  
• 51% of Moms considered themselves addicted to smartphones.
  
• The majority of Moms say their smartphone is the last thing they check before going to bed and first thing when waking up.
  
• Moms are 40% more likely to use social networks on their smartphones.
  
• Over 60% of Moms use their smartphones to research shopping or make purchases.

This isn’t just a case of technology growing and expanding, it’s that the technology we use is shifting from desktop to mobile devices like the iPad tablet. Business Insider recently reported that Windows PC sales declined for the first time in history, and this drop coincided directly with the launch of the iPad.