Random Gemini has a great post about the state of local news outlets and the state of the Mobile Web.
Many news web sites, especially those using platforms such as WorldNow and flash-hungry or proprietary video players simply aren’t ready for the Mobile Web. I think this is a great opportunity missed for many of these established media firms.
What will it take for us to get local news in a format ready for the iPhone, the Blackberry and other new “smartphones?”
There are native application solutions for the top markets such as Mobile News Network, but these simply don’t suffice for smaller markets.
The recent winter weather activity that crippled a good portion of the northern half of the nation has certainly brought some focus to this situation. I would have loved to have some recent traffic news or school closings available on-demand with smart location support.
With the iPhone closing on a 1% market share for browsing, maybe more outlets will pay attention to this segment in the future.
Small markets don’t have the human (and more often than not, the technical) resources to do this kind of thing, and therefore will always lag behind larger markets like LA/NY with leading edge technology.
Another discouraging factor for me anyway (since I work in web media), is the lack of firm standards and diverse platforms that the mobile has.
Plus, it’s hard to sell… and when it comes down to it, it’s all about the money.
I hear that commentary quite frequently, that resources are not available to implement technologies, but let’s be brutally honest with ourselves here. When all I have to do to get mobile support for MY website, is download a free plugin and install it on my blog, how many resources do you actually need?
The problem is not that it cannot be done or that it is difficult. The problem is that resources (in this case, money) are being inappropriately allocated to other things. Most often in corporate environments, and I am given to understand that our local news media outlets are no exception, an exorbitant sum of money is spent on one piece of software that is advertised as your “One stop solution to all of your internet ills” and the fact ends up being that this advertising was smoke and mirrors. But the corporate dingle berries at the top simply cannot abide the idea that they might have made the wrong choice and don’t know as much about technology as the people they pay to implement it. The IT staff is often left trying to make this “enterprise solution” do things that it was never designed to do in the first place and are not paid enough to fix everything that is wrong with these package deals.
I am positive that that’s what has happened here, and if the community doesn’t speak out, how will we ever change it?
Yes you’re right. Please send your comments to companies like WorldNow or FIM. They’re the ones that have prompted your complaints. Us measly web producers have no control over these platforms.