Beta 6 Mobile Discussion

[TNCclubman]

can no longer view pictures with slideshow on the iPhone.

thumbnails open to a new page to show picture. slideshow doesnt show up at all.

 

[Tigratrus]

Desktop 96.23%
Mobile 3.76%
Kier: what software is that ?

Google Analytics, almost certainly.

Dang... Too slow!

 

[Digital Doctor]

Google Analytics. You can deploy it in XenForo with a couple of clicks.

Google Analytics, almost certainly

Thanks !
Google Analytics thread.

 

[Tigratrus]

A good case in point: Our site which is pretty painful to use on mobile, has well under 1% of our traffic coming from mobile sources.

Kier's chart shows about 3.5% of the traffic is coming from mobile, and that's BEFORE a mobile skin goes into effect. I know folks that are looking to move to a mobile app for their site and several of them have mobile traffic in the 5-7% range before they roll out the mobile app.

Mobile ads also pay pretty well, and there's a lot of competition because the advertisers figure you're already on the move, maybe they can get you to stop by their place! .

 

[Mike]

Hence why the main focus should be on the product haha . Kier do you by chance know what Mike was referring to in this post

It seemed like it could of been a fix for my mobile style when switching from phone to desktop.

I am allowing you to set the style cookie directly and then redirect (ie, you can create a page that sets the style_id of the mobile style into the cookie and redirect to the forums). The cookie will be respected when you're logged in (wasn't the case before).

 

[Grover]

You don't SEE mobile users on your site, if your site sucks at the mobile user experience, it's that simple.

Amen.

 

[cmeinck]

Over the last month, 15% of my traffic was from the iPhone, 2.83% from the iPad, 2.5% from the iPod. I'm not sure if TapaTalk is reflected in those numbers. That's also on an iPhone forum, so obviously skewed. To say that mobile is important to my users would be an understatement.

 

[Cooper]

You don't SEE mobile users on your site, if your site sucks at the mobile user experience, it's that simple.

Some stats of my own vbulletin 3.8 site (with Tapatalk) by OS:

July-Sep 09:


Jul-Sep 10:


Last 3 months to 12 Jan 11.




Mobile browsing is a big deal for me. I actually wonder how many users in that 12% or so have a desktop as well? How many people go out to buy a smartphone these days to use facebook etc? No phone line/DSL/PC-headaches for our non-tech friends. And the better the mobile experience the more they will come back.

Nothing you don't know already, but certainly a consideration I have as when to move from vB (and not if ).

Keep up the good work.

Andy

 

[TNCclubman]

Thanks for showing the spike in the past 3 months alone. 2011 usage graph is going to be a sloping curve upwards.

Oh ya, Facebook, its 200 million mobile daily users. Or 40% of their active members.

I also wasnt aware of Mike and Kiers commitment to an included mobile skin so Im going to pipe down and let the powers that be work their magic. Hope I didnt come off as an ass.

 

[Tigratrus]

Some stats of my own vbulletin 3.8 site (with Tapatalk) by OS:

Mobile browsing is a big deal for me. I actually wonder how many users in that 12% or so have a desktop as well? How many people go out to buy a smartphone these days to use facebook etc? No phone line/DSL/PC-headaches for our non-tech friends. And the better the mobile experience the more they will come back.

Nothing you don't know already, but certainly a consideration I have as when to move from vB (and not if ).

Keep up the good work.

Andy

Excellent job on the stats Andy, Thx!

That totally shows the point we're making, that if your site SUPPORTS mobile well, the mobile users ARE there. Who *wouldn't* want to pickup an additional 5-10%? And those numbers are going to climb *sharply* as TNCclubman has been pointing out.

 

[Tigratrus]

Thanks for showing the spike in the past 3 months alone. 2011 usage graph is going to be a sloping curve upwards.

Oh ya, Facebook, its 200 million mobile daily users. Or 40% of their active members.

I also wasnt aware of Mike and Kiers commitment to an included mobile skin so Im going to pipe down and let the powers that be work their magic. Hope I didnt come off as an ass.

Nah. You've been making a point that many folks need to know! If you want your site to succeed in the future, planning for the best possible mobile experience now is important.

 

[jmurrayhead]

Anyone who thinks a good mobile experience is not important for any web site is sadly delusional. I can't count how many times I've used my phone to browse a web site while I'm on the go. Hell, I even order pizza from my phone. And yes, I browse forums from my phone when I'm waiting at the doctor's office or something similar. Mobile browsing is very relevant right now and is only going to become more relevant in the future.

 

[kingston]

I am allowing you to set the style cookie directly and then redirect (ie, you can create a page that sets the style_id of the mobile style into the cookie and redirect to the forums). The cookie will be respected when you're logged in (wasn't the case before).

Is this documented anywhere? I was gonna set this up for my current mobile style based on how you get to my site.

m.forum.com loads the mobile version, forum.com loads normal version so people dont even have to think about switching.

PS - Love the forum. I think all is developing in the right direction. And whatever pieces are not covered by you guys the software is flexible enough to be tweaked by the community. I have already shut down one competitors board because this software is so much more likeable.

 

[fattony69]

If the majority of my members want mobile support, I shall give it to them.

 

[MGSteve]

Any forum admin who ignores the needs of mobile users is an idiot I'm afraid.

My own stats bear this out.



The scale of the graph doubled by the way between the first value and second value. The point is, the tail of this graph going back into 2009 continued the downward trend going back in time. Values on the mobile devices report started in October 2009, so I can't do a direct comparasion.

But one thing's for sure:

Mobile readers...
* Spend less time on site
* View less pages

This is on a VB 3.8x forum with no mobile specific tuning, hence why I'm keen to do it when we switch to XF.

But the usage of forum by mobile devices has jumped from 1.89% in November 2009 to 6.9% over the last month. That's a more or less a 300% increase in 12 months. If it continues this, it will be getting on for double digit % for visits this year.

That is a huge market & user base to be disregarding!

 

[Digital Doctor]

Does this Mobile App help people ?