Search Engines go mobile
Date: 18/08/2006
There are about two billion people in this big old world that use mobile devices. Most of those mobile devices are internet enabled. Most people who use the internet use search engines to find what they are looking for. Getting the idea? That's right. We are not far away from mobile devices being used fairly often to search the internet.
There will of course always be differences. People will search differently using a mobile device as they would if they were using a desktop. For instance, when you are using a desktop you may be searching for anything and everything as there is a perception that you cannot do this for mobile devices. This in theory is not true but people are still using outdated non-cross platform web design techniques. Anyway, at the minute (August 2006) people do not use mobile devices for e-commerce - but they will in time.
At present, mobile device users search for very specific things such as bus and train time tables, movie times, football results etc.
Google is a big player in mobile search at present and is trying to team up with China who have a huge internet industry at the minute.
How does this affect you? Well, one thing you need to ensure whenever you have a website designed is that it is cross platform and future proof. HTML is being slowly phased out and replaced by its new and trendier cousin XHTML. XHTML is a cross between HTML and XML. XML actually allows computers to 'understand' what a website is all about. Websites designed using XHTML will work in today's and tomorrow's browsers. Websites designed using XHTML will also work in tomorrows new mobile devices such as mobile devices.
So, when you ask to have a website designed make sure that the website is future proof.
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