Your mobile website is – in some fundamental sense – just another website and thus can support Google Analytics. You should probably create a new “website profile” on Google to ensure your mobile site analytics are independently tracked. Note that a few older mobile phones – especially BlackBerries – don’t have JavaScript turned on and thus won’t be reported in your results. So it goes.

For your apps, Google provides Google Analytics for Mobile. The reporting in mobile analytics is radically different from website reporting, being based on “events” which are essentially “stuff the user did in the application” – looking at the events calendar, looking at a particular listing, dialing a number (from within your app), etc..

Note that ongoing disputes between Apple and Google may mean use of mobile analytics may be curtailed at some point in the future – or it may not be.

There are other mobile analytics packages available, though at this point we have heard no compelling reasons for learning a new reporting system. Please send us an email if you’ve had a different experience.

• listing information – hotels, restaurants, sites to see, etc.,
• event information – things to do right now, and
• coupons & special offers.

If your destination is big enough for a brochure, it’s probably big enough for a mobile website. People are going to be looking for information on the mobile web; it’s your job to make sure they get that information.

The reasons you should do an app also?

• it’s generally only a small incremental cost difference to do both,
• the experience of an app is way beyond what can be offered by a mobile website, and
• having an app provides additional marketing features, not the least of which is “buzz”.

Note: by “mobilizing your website”, we mean making your current website “look good” on mobile web browsers.

You should mobilize your current website – there is a chance someone is going to need to use your current website from a mobile phone. In fact, if your website is of a modern “correct” design, this can probably be done for a few hundred dollars simply by introducing an additional “CSS” file — ask your web designer.

However – and this is a big however – you really should create a proper mobile website. Why? Because your “normal” website is primarily for people wanting to find out about your destination, your “proper” mobile website is primarily for people who are in your destination.

When people are in your destination and looking for something to do, they don’t need to be sold on coming there – they’re there! Instead they need to get (from your “proper” mobile website):

• listing information – hotels, restaurants, sites to see, etc.,
• event information – things to do right now, and
• coupons & special offers.

Because they’re on a small mobile phone, they don’t have the time or patience to explore your site (even if it’s “mobilized”) to find this information – it needs to be front a center.

At eTail in Baltimore today, Abhi Dhar, CTO Walgreens provoked the crowd saying, “Consumers have changed because of mobile. Deal with it.”

[...]Retailer after retailer asked the question, “Should I do mobile web or native apps?” It was deja vu all over again. It’s the same debate mobile bankers had early last year. Abhi Dahl said “BOTH are very important.” I agree.

In mobile banking, we’ve found that banks must offer all three technologies: Mobile web, SMS, and native applications. Many retailers are still resisting hoping to avoid the fragmentation bankers have resigned themselves to.

David Siegel of 1-800-FLOWERS said, “Don’t try to change customer behavior, market to where they are.”

Customers look for brands using their mobile browser. Retailers should have a mobile site. Customers look for brands in their phone’s app store. Brands should have an app.

Companies resisting building a strategy addressing channel fragmentation are just wasting time and ceding market share to their competitors. Many retailers, including 1-800-FLOWERS said that mobile web accounted for over half their mobile sales. The many mobile web proponents I spoke with seemed to consider this evidence that mobile web is the “right” way to do mobile.

My opinion on this stat is that companies only offering mobile web are potentially missing out on 50% of mobile sales. Maybe these users would buy on mobile web if the native app weren’t available. Maybe. Remember, Apple had to create the App Store in response to overwhelming jailbreaking of the iPhone because Apple insisted mobile web was all we needed.

[...]As Jeff Dennes of USAA said, “If you don’t have enough [mobile] budget, get a bigger budget.”

Now is the time for companies to aggressively commit to mobile and emerge the market leader.

Customers are making decisions using their mobile phone. It’s up to retailers to decide to serve their customers.

Your mobile site should be designed to be as usable as possible – it’s for people that are in the destination, not for people planning to visit your destination (that’s what your “normal” mobile site is for).

Because of the poor quality and slow speeds of mobile networks around the United States (and generally elsewhere), your primary design consideration must be getting data to users as quick as possible, and this means keeping things as small as possible by cutting out everything but the most critical data.

A secondary but important criteria is making sure your site runs on as many types of phones as possible, which means avoiding using advanced features of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This need will fade over the next few years as greater numbers of people transition from simple feature phones to advanced smartphones.

Finally: as a rule of thumb, if your mobile site “looks amazing” on a normal desktop browser, it’s probably a lousy mobile site.

If you do charge for your app, do realize that sales for “paid” apps are only a fraction of free apps. Since every visitor using your app is more likely to spend money in your destination (and in particular more money on your members), that’s where the money is to be made.

If revenue generation is required to pay for the app, consider premium placements within the app, banner ads, and charging for access to features such as Twitter.

People will find your app – and your mobile website – through several different ways:

• they’ll find it in the “app store” via search. This means that not only should the name of your app has to be descriptive, but that you should also take advantage of keywords that people may using to find the types of experience your destination offers. If you use general keywords, there’s a lot more potential hits but there’s less likelyhood they’re looking for what you have to offer and there’ll also be many more apps competing for attention. The more specific the keyword, the less search hits you’ll get but the quality of those hits are likely to improve
• they’ll find it via your website. Make sure you mention your apps and mobile enable sites on your homepage (it’s amazing how many people don’t do this). If they’re coming from a smartphone, redirect them to your mobile website if you have one. If they’re coming from an iPhone, BlackBerry or Android and you have an app for these – make sure they’re told about this first!
• do press releases and normal marketing things to mention you have an app
• mention your app in brochures and visitors centres

If you go away on holiday this year, don’t end up like Calgary resident Jason Boutang. He used an application on his phone to translate phrases into French when he visited France last month. He also streamed a Calgary radio station for five hours.

The result? A cellphone bill of $7,763.70, according to [the] telecomblog.com. It’s easy to rack up huge roaming fees when you travel overseas because cellphone companies charge astronomical surcharges just to cross the border. But if you make a few preparations before you leave, you can keep your costs at a reasonable level.

“I recommend that if you go away and you want to use your phone, that you call your cell provider and get a travel package,” said Stephen Joyce, the CEO of the tourism technology company Rezgo.com.

Travel packages are a relatively new feature offered by cellphone companies. They charge different rates depending on the region. While the per-minute rate is still significantly higher than using your phone locally, it will offer travellers some savings. Otherwise, it could cost as much as $4 per minute for calls and $50 per megabyte for data usage, depending on where in the world you are. Text messages are also more expensive overseas, at about 60 cents per message.

Via story-mentioned @stephenjoyce and this topic has been previously covered here. Just as a general rule, even if you have a roaming package, don’t do streaming radio, watch videos and other bandwidth-intensive things on your smartphone unless you’re really sure you’re not going to be paying through the nose for it.

We do know however that tens of millions of iPhones, Android and BlackBerry smartphones are being used in United States, that sales are not only strong but increasing almost 20% every quarter, and that the demographics of smartphone owners skew wealthy and travel friendly.

From there you’ll have to extrapolate from the general population to who’s visiting your destination.

DiscoverPad is the first application to bring a destination’s listings and events to the iPad – the hottest new device on the market. DiscoverPad provides visitors with powerful travel and itinerary planning tools that they can use from home and on the road. Not only for use by iPad owners, DiscoverPad also allows for the deployment of pre-loaded iPads as easy-to-use kiosks in visitor centers, hotels and other places tourists need quick and relevant information. Trip plans can be uploaded to the Internet, sent via email or transferred directly to an iPhone or other mobile device. The iPad kiosk solution is an order of magnitude more affordable than conventional solutions and offers the added advantages of familiarity, flexibility, ease of use, customization and scalability.

DiscoverPad, as with all Discover Anywhere Mobile applications, is built using the live data you’re using today – there’s no need to rebuild or re-enter your database. Discover Anywhere Mobile does everything needed to maintain your DiscoverPad application, including ensuring the data is always up-to-date. DiscoverPad is fully customized to your destination’s branding, making sure your message is always on target.

Features

DiscoverPad features include:

• Your complete events calendar
• Your complete listings database, organized by Theme / Category
• Viewing of listings and events on a map and in “detail mode”, showing contact information, listing details, a photo album, integrated videos
• “Map locking” to explore what’s available in a particular neighbourhood
• The “My Trip” organizer, allowing quick drag-and-drop planning for multi-day trips
• “Send to iPhone”, allowing your visitor’s trip plans to be wirelessly transferred to their iPhones
• “Upload My Trip”, to allow visitors to store their trips for sharing and printing – each trip getting it’s own web page with listing descriptions, Google Maps and contact information
• “E-mail My Trip”, to allow people to mail their trip plans to their friends and also to provide opt-in capture email addresses for direct marketing
• “Kiosk-mode”, for optimal deployment to hotels and visitors centers
• Pre-planned trips, for getting your visitors started and to highlight exciting places in your destination
• Discover Anywhere Mobile’s “no CMS” solution, absolutely minimizing the work your DMO needs to do to maintain your DiscoverPad (and other Discover Anywhere Mobile solutions)

How to get DiscoverPad

DiscoverPad will be available for all new and existing Discover Anywhere Mobile customers in September 2010. More information about DiscoverPad is available on Discover Anywhere Mobile’s website: www.discoveranywheremobile.com. Video demonstrations of the app are viewable on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/discoveranywhere. To find out more, contact us via email at sales@discoveranywheremobile.com or give us a call at 416-785-4425.

About Discover Anywhere Mobile

Discover Anywhere Mobile is a Toronto-based software and services company specializing in location-aware travel and tourism applications for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and the mobile web. Our applications will ensure that people are always connected to the information they need when they need it: events, conferences, shopping, accommodations, transportation, restaurants and more. We provide almost complete coverage across all Internet-ready smartphones and take full advantage of advanced features such as GPS-location, itinerary planning, social media tracking, “Share My Trip” with Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, event calendars, thematic listings, featured listings, search, slideshows, augmented reality and mapping to deliver a simple and compelling user experience.

Videos

• Introducing DiscoverPad (1/5): Finding Listings
• Introducing DiscoverPad (2/5): Viewing Listings
• Introducing DiscoverPad (3/5): Organizing Your Trip
• Introducing DiscoverPad (4/5): Saving Your Trip
• Introducing DiscoverPad (5/5): Uploading and Sharing Listings (coming soon)

Screen Shots