We live in an era where it’s no longer acceptable to be good at just one thing. One could say multi-tasking has become the single task we’re challenged with on a daily basis. Look at your personal life. It’s all about juggling your commitments, family or friends, and responsibilities. You shouldn’t have to pick just one. And let us not forget about how many hats most of us wear at our jobs. Your boss wouldn’t pay you to do the same one task all day long, so why would we let our gadgets get away with that?

Look at the iPod. Sure, it started off simply as a music device. But then it evolved. Into a jukebox that also does games, video, is a virtual picture album, and gets you on the Internet, too. It adapted to its environment. Technological Darwinism.

Mobile devices are no different. Take your cell phone, for example. You could argue that the phone aspects of mobile devices almost feel like an after-thought, these days. Just look at how the new iPhone – with the word PHONE built right into its name, might I remind you – has issues with its reception if you don’t hold it correctly. Because of where its antenna was built into it. Oh, but its display is so crystal clear, the T1000 would ooooh and ahhhhh over its resolution! Ahem. We use our phones as much for texting, gaming and Internetting (is that even a term?!) as we do to make phone calls.

The Kindle was, or should I say is still, a great reader. But then the iPad came around and was an e-reader, computer, jukebox and social media device rolled into one. All for just a little more than that of a single-purpose Kindle. I was an English major in college. And still an active reader. Yet, as much as I love how the e-ink looks on the Kindle, it’s hard for me to justify spending my hard-to-come-by “fun time” money on a device that does just one thing when the Swiss Army Knife of gadgets is available for nearly the same drop of coin.

If single-purpose devices hope to survive, they better have been built with flexibility for future expansion. Otherwise, in this nation of multi-tasking and “Oh look, bright shiny object!” short attention spans, they run the likely risk of finding themselves on the Island of Misfit Toys with Charlie-in-the-Box and his Microsoft Kin.

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

• I have to do a significant amount of resizing, scrolling and scanning to find the information I’m looking for. Sometimes, it’s just too much work, so I leave before I get your message.
• Every time I load a new page, I have to go through that same process of resizing and searching and scanning. I’m starting to get frustrated.
• All of your functionality doesn’t work in my mobile browser. (How many mobile browsers did you test your friendly website against? My guess is one, Safari. Maybe.)
• Your Contact Us form (or some other form) isn’t working properly in certain mobile browsers. Do you know which ones they are?
• Oops! Your videos aren’t compatible. Dang.

Often, my feedback is met with, “We don’t think our audience is visiting our site on mobile.” I generally reply with three things:

1. Check your analytics and get back to me.
2. If you are sending links to your website via Facebook, Twitter, or other popular social media websites, you can bet that the folks clicking on those links are often on a mobile device.
3. What planet are you from?

I’m not trying to harsh anyone’s mellow here. But if your competition is providing an intuitive, easy-to-use mobile experience, I’m going to go hang out with them. Consider this, in 2011, mobile search will surpass PC search rates of 2007. Your target audience will be looking for you on their mobile devices, and some of your competitors are already providing outstanding mobile user experiences.

The reality is, soon your mobile friendly website won’t have many friends at all.

Later Gators.

SS

Sara Santiago is the President of Roll Mobile. She doesn’t think that mobile design and development should be hard to understand or hard to implement, and if one more person insists that it’s more important for their website to support IE6 than mobile browsers, her face might just melt off.

Follow Sara on Twitter: @SaraSantiago

These days, the Fail Whale has become the most recognizable whale since Free Willy. And over at Foursquare, BlackBerry users who couldn’t log in found themselves creating #Fauxsquare posts with their locations on Twitter, instead. That is, when Twitter was actually up long enough for them to tweet. But usually, the Fail Whale gobbled those up before they could make it out to the mainland.

Services that amassed a loyal, near cult-like following because of their simple, easy, and reliable interface are now going through an awkward pubescent stage filled with growing pains and angst usually reserved for a 90s show on the WB.

Companies are always going to look at tweaking the formula, in order to improve their revenue product. Does anyone remember New Coke back in the mid-80s?! These “improvements” often result in more backlash than praise.

But listen. Users will put up with minor inconveniences during the upgrades, as long as the end results are greater than the disturbances caused in the interim. It’s why we, as commuters, will deal with the headaches of road construction and detours all summer long. Because when it’s finished, that smooth, extra wide stretch of road is so much better than the pot-holed death traps that even cause NASCAR drivers to white knuckle into work.

However, it’s arguable that Twitter and Foursquare’s modifications have or will be worth the diminished UX (user experience) over the last couple of months. Aside from the addition of Lists, Twitter hasn’t added a whole lot during this time that’s made the user experience that much better than before. Then add in a celebrity death or event like the World Cup, and suddenly you’ve got one giant traffic jam on a road that’s already under construction. And it isn’t just the average Twitter-addicted user who is impacted by this.

For many businesses, a percentage of their business is reliant upon the traffic on these mediums. When Twitter is down or Foursquare isn’t allowing check-ins, there’s a trickle-down effect for these businesses. No different from a business that resides on a stretch of road closed down from construction.

How long will users remain loyal enough to hang around? Many will suffer through it for now, but that’s only because something better isn’t available. Yet. But the voice of dissent has been snowballing across these social media platforms, and even reaching the Facebook and Tumblrs of the world.

Will Twitter or Foursquare listen to the growing grumbling of their users and address their UX issues? Or will it take someone else to appear with a formula of their own that has all the taste, but half of the empty calories?

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

Agassi marries Brooke Shields.
Sampras marries Billy Madison’s hot teacher.

Agassi cuts off his mullet.
Sampras, well, never had a mullet of his own, but responds by winning eleven of the next seventeen head-to-head matchups.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

How will the Android respond? At this point of the mobile match, Apple and Google’s App stores are on Centre Court with everyone else essentially on the sidelines, watching these two battle it out.

Apple’s App store has been the Studio 54 of its time, as everyone with an app wanted in. Sometimes Apple allows you past the velvet rope, while other times they ask you to change your shoes and the color of your belt and to try again. Meanwhile, the Android Market is the newer club that opened up down the road and boasts that it won’t turn you away for wearing that piano keys tie. The problem though, is that sometimes you’re stuck amongst those wearing piano key ties. Even despite this, Apple’s store boasts more than 200,000 apps to Android’s 50,000. But still, the Android continues to grow at a fast pace.

Now, during his keynote address last week, Steve Jobs reported that for mobile browser usage, iPhone has a 58% market share. This compares to less than half that – or just under 27% – for the Android. Of course, the iPhone had more than one year head-start on the Android platform.

Make no mistake, Apple is winning the war right now, between the two.

But Android continues to put up the biggest fight, even winning one of its battles earlier this year when it outsold iPhones in Q1 of 2010. Each side has their loyal, dedicated backers. They won’t decide the victor. It will be the “regular” consumer who doesn’t have a fanatical allegiance to either, but wants the smart phone that does more of the things they want and need them to do.

How Apple and Google react and respond to those, will determine whether the Android continues to accumulate more and more set-wins, or if the iPhone eventually wins the match.

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

Still with its 8-bit graphics and midi sound. And no need for WiFi headsets. No triggers. Just two button controls that allow you to set the controller down one evening in 1991 and nineteen years later pick it back  up and still remember how to play the game.

It appears that for every step we take toward a new breakthrough in technology, we simultaneously – and quite willingly – take an equal step back and resuscitate the simplistic methods we thought we were improving upon.

Think about it. What are some of the most popular apps available on the iPhone? Or the games people spend hours upon hours playing on Facebook, like Farmville or Mafia Wars. They’re the 8-bit throwbacks to the games we grew up on. Just look at Google on Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary. It was such a phenomenon that offices were about as productive as the day following the Super Bowl or the first day of March Madness. There was so much chatter about the game, that even Pack-Man – the misspelling – was a trending topic on Twitter.

In a society where everything’s becoming more and more complex, it’s their simplicity that’s so endearing and keeps people coming back decade after decade. And it’s something that app developers or businesses looking to launch an app of their own must take note of. These games are intuitive. I lost my Super Mario Bros. booklet within days of getting the game. Do you think that mattered? After a minute of gameplay, we knew all we needed to know about how to play the game.

Your iPhone app should follow a similar pattern. It should only take thirty seconds for a user to get to where they want to go in your app, no matter where that is. Your app isn’t your website. Let your flash-heavy website be tailored to the Red Dead Redemption crowd, if that’s your wish. Those visitors may have more time to find their way throughout your site and discover all it has to offer. But your app user is a person on the go, and this means they’re easily interrupted or using it while at a red light, in line at the grocery store, or while waiting for their friends to sign into Xbox Live.

Make it as easy and intuitive as possible for them to pick up the app and get to where they want to go, whether this is the first iPhone app they’ve ever downloaded or just their first one today.

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

Hey, let’s muddy the waters even more and throw something like the iPad into the mix! At this rate, you’ll be able to solve “If two trains leave at 11am traveling 50mph, and one is from Chicago and the other Seattle, where and when do they meet?” in less time than it takes to answer that other question.

Historically (and I would say that with air quotes) mobile has been seen as always-on devices which, obviously, make calls.

But the iPad is considered by many to be a mobile device. Yet, it doesn’t make phone calls. And it doesn’t fall into the “always on” bucket, either. Or the iPod Touch. Or the Nintendo DS, even. Everything seems to come with WiFi capabilities, now. And taken on-the-go.

Mobile. Portable. How long until the two merge into Mobilable devices?

Our society’s interest in, and reliance upon, Social Media has really fueled the need to be mobile and portable. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to one friend on an iPhone while playing Xbox against another friend on the other side of town, you still want to know what’s currently happening on your Twitter stream.

Who ever thought you could be socially mobile while sedentary, huh?

The distinction between mediums is shrinking with the production of every new generation – whether that’s people or gadget.

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

The thing is, if the iPad wants to remain the next must-have and not just another Segway, it has to be useful whether you’re at home or in the office. I spend at least a portion of every work day, stuck in meetings. It passed its first test, as I found uses for it in both, internal meetings and those with clients. Using its WiFi, I was able to quickly bring up and reference websites and apps in meetings, to show – rather than tell – what I was getting at. Not to mention, the convenience of passing around an easy-to-view tablet.

While you won’t find yourself writing the sequel to Moby Dick on your iPad, the Notes app works well enough for keeping brief  notes during a meeting. The virtual keyboard will still slow you down enough that you’re probably going to just settle for the regular pen and pad in any fast-paced meetings. But the click to turn into an email feature is handy, should you need to quickly send something to a colleague in the middle of a meeting, while not wanting to get caught by the teacher, passing notes.

Now, over the last few months, my interest in a Kindle has grown. A colleague of mine brought hers in, and the Kindle’s use of E Ink is – like Zooey Deschanel – easy on the eyes. Debates have risen about the iPad putting an end to the need for a Kindle. After using the iBook and Kindle app on the iPad, I disagree with this. Is it nice to be able to read books on the iPad? Of course. But I did so sitting next to a window, and the glare on the screen made for an uncomfortable reading experience. What’s nice about the Kindle is that you forget you’re looking at a tablet. The E Ink looks like “real” text on a page. And uses less strain on the eyes. I would only consider using these features on the iPad under optimal viewing conditions. Otherwise, no thanks.

One reading app that does get it right, though – and I am shocked to say this – USA Today.

For me, USA Today has always felt like the elementary school Weekly Reader of newspapers. Yet, their app gives you a genuine newspaper experience, in a digital form. And I love it. Almost enough-so to look past their paper’s often times less than edgy content. Their app goes the extra mile to make the page resemble a newspaper, down to the look of the right edge of the paper. I can actually envision myself walking down to my local coffee shop in the morning, ordering a coffee, and sitting at a table with a Cup o’ Joe in one hand and the iPad USA Today in the other and not thinking anything of it. By sweeping your finger across the page, you can turn pages to additional stories. Or, you can click on the icon in the upper left hand screen to take you back to the homepage and choose your section there. It’s the actual newspaper experience, in tablet form.

If more newspapers created apps like USA Today’s and brought in some of the NPR app’s features such as accompanying assets like interviews, audio and social media sharing layers to every story, it would once again become an experience for your readers.

Finally, I just wanted to have some mindless fun with the iPad. I downloaded the Shazam app, knowing how well it worked on the iPhone. I tested it out on a somewhat-rare Elvis Presley album I had playing on my computer. Sure enough, just like the iPhone app, the iPad app picked it up and recognized it. The little microphone that could.

I saw YouTube videos with people using the SketchBook app and uploading their drawrings. Yes. That drawrings is for the one person who remembers the early 90s SNL sketch. SketchBook is like an Etch-a-Sketch, but without giving you the jitters and HULK SMASH rage. You can choose between pencils, pens, chalk-like features and more, while using your finger to draw, sketch, and smudge your way toward all the happy little trees your Bob Ross-like heart desires. I may have left one of my drawings on there, just to see how long it takes my boss to stumble across it.

Lastly, the eBay app. Personally, I wish their hard-wired site worked/looked more like their iPad app. It’s simplified just enough, and puts your results right in front of your face in a manner that makes it way too easy for me to drop a quick $25 on a used Mike Tyson’s Punch Out cartridge for the original NES. On second guess, I’m glad their website isn’t as streamlined.

Could I survive without an iPad? It still has a ways to go before I find myself needing to have one, in the same way I feel about my laptop and my cell. But I have the feeling my want can turn to a need, after another generation of iPads roll out with a few more features.

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

Let me give you my Mac-ground. Four years ago, I made the switch finally from PC to Mac. This includes the purchase of a MacBook Pro. I’ve owned a couple of iPods. But my personal mobile device is a BlackBerry, not iPhone. I like Apple products. A lot. But I’m not fanatical, like some of its oh-so-loyal disciples. Prior to launch, I felt like the iPad was a cool idea, but I didn’t feel as though I needed to stand in line like a Star Wars fanboy. So I’m middle of the road. Like a James Taylor song. So I safely feel I can give the device an honest look.

The verdict? The iPad is a useful device and shows great potential, if viewed as being in its infancy, still. As a first generation device, it’s already a nice little bridge between the mobile user and the on-the-go ‘Net-user. Laptops are still bulkier, once you pack them into a case and add plug in devices. And it’s still difficult for everyone at a table to get a good look at something on your iPhone. As long as you see the iPad as that link between the two, rather than the replacement of, then you and your iPad will have a happy relationship. Because there’s still a ways for it to go. And I’m in no hurry to get rid of my laptop for it, yet.

The first weekend with it, I didn’t have the iPad case. Big mistake. I spent more time treating it like a rare, mint condition baseball card than a portable computing device. And when I’d sit on my couch attempting to tweet, I couldn’t find any comfortable way to place it on my legs or to hold it upright. Once I got the iPad case, the experience improved exponentially.

The iPad case provides not only a nice form of protection, but by folding the case backwards, it places the iPad at just the right angle that finally makes it conducive to typing so you don’t have to hold your arms like a Praying Mantis.

As a heavy Twitter user, I decided to test the Twitter applications and services, first.

On my work PC and home Mac, I prefer TweetDeck. The columns and auto-updates provide me with the at-a-glance, ease of use I need. When I saw TweetDeck made an iPad app, I was instantly delighted. Delight turned to fright upon first use, however.

The iPad app isn’t very intuitive nor user-friendly. Even clicking on some of the icons failed to work at times. Don’t even try to remove a Twitter account from it. I spent a half hour with it, and was beyond frustrated. I moved on to HootSuite’s website, to see what a web-based Twitter application was like on the iPad. I also use HootSuite at work, to manage our Twitter account. Scrolling through the columns takes the two finger approach, which isn’t ideal, but works.

For my money, however, Twitterrific is the way to go on the iPad. With regular refreshing, ease of use, and a crisp display, as someone who spends too much time tweeting I would almost buy an iPad just for the way Twitter looks and feels on this application.

How does YouTube look on the iPad? Is this device sure to be a Kindle-killer? What about iPhone apps? Look for my take on these and other iPad applications out there later this week in the next installment of ONE IN A MILLION PART 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

But let’s be honest. I’m able to do that as often as I’m afforded the opportunity to wash and wax my Jeep by hand, rather than running it through the automatic car wash.

The more plausible-scenario has me darting from an office chair, one arm through a jacket sleeve and the other fiddling through my mobile device, looking something up by pure necessity rather than choice at that point. I get the sense that I’m not alone, there.

Gadgets are being created one after another, to continue simplifying our lives. Yet, we continue to fill those saved minutes with more places to be and additional things to do, leaving our society regularly on the move.

And because of that, we use our mobile devices to look up information when we’re on-the-go and headed somewhere, needing a location or product information right there and then before it’s too late. So you better make what we’re looking for quick and easy to find. Chances are, I only have five minutes to find, decide and get to your restaurant. Do you want to make the cut or not?

Or maybe my connecting flight has been canceled and I’m stuck in Wichita for the night. Is your hotel a mobile click away while I’m trying to figure out my luggage situation? It better be or I’m going to carry on to the one that is.

The important thing to remember is that what’s appropriate for your regular website isn’t necessarily so for your mobile site. The bells and whistles that will bring people to your wired site are the very same things that would drive people away from your mobile site. Once you figure that out, you’ve just taken one giant step toward winning the battle on both fronts. So what is the purpose of your mobile presence?

Bruce is a Mobile Media Specialist at Roll Mobile. He is a lover of good music, bad puns and ugly sweater vests. Want to learn more about adding mobile components to complement your existing marketing strategies? Or have a BLOG@ROLL topic you’d like us to explore?

Contact bruce@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.

(*sigh* We just don’t question it anymore…)

More information on unGeeked Elite:

Milwaukee is hosting its first nationwide unGeeked Elite event. Guests from all over the world are welcome to attend this social media, marketing and branding event. For three days, May 13-15^th, you will have an opportunity to engage face-to-face in an open forum with eight social media super stars such as Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Sally Hogshead, Virtual Technologies, Scott Stratten, Hubspot, Dan Schawbel and Olivier Blanchard.

The loose format allows all attendees to take the microphone to engage and brainstorm with presenters and attendees. No long slide shows or short FAQ sessions.

And because at Soho we still feel you should receive more than just a great social and networking experience, cost to attend includes the following:

• Continental Breakfast
• Daily Lunch Buffets
• Books from best selling authors: Chris Brogan, Sally Hogshead and Scott Stratten
• Attendee only parties at three locations

Sohobiztube.com is also launching a series of smaller more personal unGeeked Elite seminars, designed to help you Engage (your internal and external audience), Enlighten (inform and educate your internal and external team), and Execute (internal and external campaigns) and Monitor (brand position, persona and value).

Join us as Milwaukee invites the nationwide social media, marketing and branding community to our lakeshores. RSVP at http://budurl.com/UnGeekedMay2010