The new iPhone 4S will have the updated iOS software, a better and faster camera, a more powerful processor and gaming capabilities, and the device supports both GSM and CDMA and an antenna that reportedly competes with 4G. Those changes only seem incremental from the iPhone 4. Apple hopes people will break contract for the Siri application that will be included with the iPhone 4S.

Siri started out as a standalone, speech-recognition app. Apple bought Siri and it will now be the heart of a new iPhone interface that aims to provide a completely frictionless user experience: Tell your phone to do something and it will follow your command.

If Siri works as well as it did during the demonstration, it could possibly change the way we perceive what a phone is. Here is what happened on Tuesday when senior VP of iPhone software Scott Forstall did a four-step vocal show-and-tell with an iPhone 4S (paraphrased here):

• Forstall told Siri to, “Read my messages,” and the phone read back a SMS (from Phil Schiller) that asked if he wanted to do lunch on Friday.
• Forstall asked Siri if he had any appointments Friday at noon, and Siri brought up the calendar and said something like, “Your schedule looks empty Friday at noon.”
• Forstall asked Siri to text back to Schiller, “I can do Friday…”
• Forstall says, “Schedule a lunch Friday at noon with Phil Schiller,” and Siri responds in the affirmative to these commands.

Siri has the potential to change the way we use our phones forever. With its intuitive nature, forgetting/missing appointments, scrolling through your playlist for the perfect traveling music and texting at red lights will be a thing of the past.

After using Siri, it would be a shame to dilute the user experience with the absence of a mobile site. Have you made your site mobile friendly?

Marion can help. We will transform your current site into a fully functional mobile friendly version that people can access anywhere and with any smart phone.

On behalf of all the “Macs,” our condolences go out to the friends, family and fans of Steve Jobs. May he rest in peace.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a new study that shows 35% Americans now own smartphones. That means more Americans own a smartphone than hold a bachelor’s degree.

The statistics only get more interesting from there: of those that own smartphones, 87% said that they use it for email or to browse the internet.  68% said that in a typical day they use their smartphones to access the web.  And fully one quarter of those surveyed said that they access the internet mostly on their smartphones. That’s right, for 25% of Americans, the smartphone has essentially replaced the personal computer.

Obviously smartphones have become a huge part of our society in a relatively short time which means that having an easily browsable, functioning mobile site is more important than ever.  If your business doesn’t have a mobile site, your competitors could be scooping up those 25% of customers who exclusively use mobile devices to research products and services, read reviews and make purchases.

Keep the following in mind when designing your mobile site:

• Content should be simple and to the point (i.e. location, hours, contact info)
• Graphics and animation should be minimal (so the site loads quickly)
• Side scroll bars should be avoided whenever possible (difficult to navigate with touchscreen)

Contact the mobile web design experts at Marion to learn more. We’ve created numerous mobile sites and can give you expert advice on how to make the mobile web work for you.

Take a look at Marion’s quick and dirty bird’s eye view of what strategies you need to consider going forward.

Business Strategy

• Branding Strategy
  • Market Research
    • Customer Definition & Understanding
    • Customer Benefits
    • Competitor Understanding
  • Market Plan
  • Creating Brand Experience
    • Integrated Marketing Mix
    • Brand Identity
    • Company

• Goals

• Sales Strategy
• Marketing Strategy
  • SEO/ Internet Marketing Strategy
    • Company Website
    • Mobile Website
    • Google
    • Bing/Yahoo
  • Social Media Marketing Strategy
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • Blogging
  • Public Relations Strategy

So what’s the forecast for 2011? Being the nostalgic person that I am, I wanted to look back at the predictions made earlier this year and the latter part of 2010 to determine if they held water, while taking a glance at 2010 buzzwords as well. After a little research at the international, highly esteemed research library Wikipedia, this is what I discovered…

2010

…When someone turned off the lights.  In this year, words like caution, recession-proofing, budgeting and downsizing became the operative words for business.  However, 2010 also brought new importance to terms like relevance, reassurance, value-added, social media, and SEO as firms searched for alternative methods to preserve (or improve) customer retention.

2011

This year we’re finding our chi and thinking happy thoughts. Transformation, revitalize, creativity, emergence, reinvention, comeback, and reenergize are the keywords many business owners believed would set the pace, with ongoing emphasis on SEO, social media and now mobile marketing.

Our deduction?

We say these predictions are right-on. While seeking to recover from 2010, many firms are more aggressive about SEO and use social media and mobile marketing as vital resources to retain relevance and visibility. Meanwhile we notice evolving business strategies and management systems to bring new life to company.

Want to contribute your two cents? Join the conversation on Twitter. #buzzwords2011

Find out what we think and give us your business buzzwords.

However, according to a June 2010 survey from Gomez, a web performance monitoring firm, one-third of US mobile internet users’ most common complaint is site formatting. Slightly fewer complained of slow load times and nearly a fifth said the worst problem was functionality. Although many users anticipate some degree of connectivity problems, they expect on-the-go web accessibility, and unfortunately, it’s just not happening. Therefore, it’s up to the publishers of these websites to accommodate. [Enter Marion, stage right.]

Marion designs mobile-friendly sites, formatted specifically for mobile devices. If you are a smartphone user, pull out your phone and visit www.marion.com to experience our mobile website.

This mobile formatting facilitates an ease of navigation and readable content. Users no longer have to zoom in and out incessantly or scroll from one end of the page to the other searching for buttons.  Site content is condensed, leaving only essential text and removing the flash (because some phones aren’t compatible).

As an added benefit, users can contact you with a single touch. The phone will automatically dial when users press your number, email you when the email button is clicked, or display a map when “Map” is touched. AND IT GETS BETTER. It will also show the user where they are in relation to your business. If for any reason visitors wish to view the classic version of your site they have that option as well.

Let Marion help you better accommodate your customers with your own mobile-friendly website. And for impressive custom web design to boot, contact us to develop a site that turns your brand message into visual success. [Cue fireworks and tap dance number.]

* Some information stated above is provided by eMarketer.