Michael Myers

25% of US Internet users are mobile-only . . . no really

In #mobile
12/16/2010
2 Min read
2

At first, this stat makes one pause. And then rabidly deny it. But . . . when you think about smartphone adoption and the differences in how people define “Internet usage”. It’s completely plausible. I have several family members that have told me that email usage only is Internet usage. Uh. . . . Ok.

It’s easy to imagine a large number of people who don’t have access to the interwebs at work, turing to their mobile device to get “real work” done. (So easy, I posted about it here.)

Anyway, it’s also easy to imagine the many faces of the web as you go from place to place/device to device. This already exists and can look like this:

  1. iPad at home in the morning. Reading news, etc. (iPad peak usage is early morning and late at night. Surfing as entertainment and evidenced by the announcement yesterday that adults are online as much as they watch TV. Tweens have done this for 2 years but the adults have finally caught up.
  2. Smartphone on the way to work. Texting on the way in; yes while driving but hopefully on the train. Checking email and even making a call or two! (Of course you check-in on Foursquare when get into work.)
  3. Laptop for work related activities and also to partake in social media throughout the day. If your company blocks social media like many raving lunatic-run companies (unless you’re an air traffic controller) then it’s smartphone time.
  4. Smartphone round 2 (or 3) for the journey homeward. (I personally wear my headphones and make calls on the way home.)
  5. iPad (round 2) back at home to check-up on news, social happenings, watch a movie on Netflix, etc.

Now . . . if you’re not liquid enough to buy an iPad, have a laptop at home or either, most of this is done on a smartphone. (Especially if your employer is blocking the social webs.)

Take those things into consideration and it gets pretty easy to see how this could happen. I’ve personally been working on a way to post (text, video, images, etc ) and manage my blog entirely from a mobile device. I will be doing this as soon as I can, once the toolsets are where they need to be.

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