Following my last post, which was also headlined at www.bizcommunity.com, I have had some interesting direct and indirect reactions.

That is great because it was my intention to stimulate some debate and discussion around the potential for the mobile web.

I was struck though by how many commentators seemed to be stuck on my actual estimate of the size of the South African mobile web (WAP) user base with some expressing skepticism and seeming to suggest that I was over-estimating the size of the local WAP population.

I believe that my estimate of close to 9.5 million unique monthly users in September 2008 is pretty close to the mark and is more than likely conservative.

The estimate was calculated by using the Vodacom unique WAP browser numbers as a baseline and then taking a conservative view of Vodacom’s market share to project for the total market.

Additional sanity checks included referencing external data sources like published data from the global ad networks as well as authoritative studies like the NSN Pulse study and others.

I am very comfortable with my numbers.

Let’s say for argument’s sake though that the estimate is exaggerated by a million users or even two million users: does that in any way change the core argument relating to the massive opportunity awaiting publishers in the mobile web in developing markets and certainly in Africa?

I think not.

Another key observation from my last post which seems to have not received the attention it deserved because of the focus on the actual mobile web user estimate, is the fact that approximately 70% of mobile web users do not have access to the PC web.

Clearly this should alert existing online publishers to the fact that the core audience on the mobile web probably looks significantly different to the current PC web user base from a socio economic and lifestyle perspective.

This suggests that to be successful in this space publishers need to think differently about both the kind of content they prioritise for publication in mobile and the way it is presented, i.e. a clear first screen publishing strategy.

Even in the case of the segment of PC web users who also regularly use the mobile web (i.e. the extension strategy for publishers) simply replicating an existing web site to mobile is extremely unlikely to prove successful.

You cannot ignore the context of the users mobile state and in addition to a range of additional “touch point” integration (existing online and offline assets, alerts etc) publishers should also be looking to actually build mobile sites quite differently to web sites.

If you are going to be developing mobile sites here’s some great high level guidance from mobithinking.com:

Designing Usable Pocket Rockets!

Five rules for designing usable mobile web sites:

  1. The mobile web is mobile
  2. Context is king
  3. The devices are (very) different
  4. Forget your dotcom thinking: you need unique content and design
  5. Never forget rules one to four

Dowlnoad it.