The Future of Digital Media: Implications for Responsive Design

BI Intelligence is a new research and analysis service focused on mobile computing and the Internet.

This massive, data-driven slide deck shows trends in device usage, advertising revenue, internet searching and more by market.

Some key findings, as I see them, for the business-to-business sector:

  • As PC sales stalled in 2012, sales of mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, soared.
  • Americans now spend more time on social networks than portals.
  • But social site referrals to commerce sites are tiny, about 1% for Facebook.
  • Google drives 80% of traffic to e-commerce sites.
  • As mobile usage increases, time spent with all other media is decreasing.
  • Google owns mobile search with approximately 95% market share.
  • Digital is turning into a four screen world: desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone.

I concluded after reviewing this entire deck that most businesses can no longer rely on web sites optimized only for desktop computers. Sites that do will simply not be useable on tablets and smartphones. Companies must either refer prospects to sites optimized for mobile devices or develop sites that dynamically reformat themselves depending on the access device.

The second option is known as responsive design. While responsive design programming is far more complicated (i.e., about a third more expensive than conventional), it pays off in the long run. Major benefits include improved site usability on a wider variety of devices and reduced maintenance costs.  Instead of supporting/updating three or four sites, you update one.

Google now estimates that 50% of all Internet searches will take place from mobile devices by 2015. That will make responsive web design the wave of the future. I’ll discuss that in greater detail in future posts.

Read the entire Business Intelligence report.