I just did a quick, one-page setup that I think will look OK on mobile as well as a desktop monitor.

Maranda Dorsey is in the race to be the Homecoming Queen at Covington Academy for 2012.

She can send her classmates to her site:

http://MarandaDorsey.com

Maranda made the two posters that you see there.

Two and a half Minute Video to tell you about mobile phone stats. Info you need to consider in planning your 2012 Marketing budget and advertising plans.

This video presents key findings from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Consumers,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm. The findings come from research conducted at the end of 2010 among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users. Google commissioned this research with the objectives to better understand how smartphones are used in consumers’ daily lives and how smartphones have influenced the ways consumers search, shop and respond to mobile advertising

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QR (Quick Response) Codes are two-dimensional barcodes. They differ from the normal barcode that you usually think of whose bars are the same from top to bottom. QR Codes differ as you look at them from top to bottom.

Normal Barcode QR Code above contains: http://www.internet-local.com

I first found QR codes on a Google Places page. They had the code for the url that would take a user to my Places page right on my page as an image. At the time, my phone was not a smart phone and I had to get a friend to scan the QR Code and watch as it took them to my Google Places page.

I have since gotten my own Android Incredible from Verizon and am able to scan the code myself.

How to Use Your Phone to Create a QR Code

I use the app Barcode Scanner. A few days ago I discovered that you can also use your smartphone to create a QR Code for any contact in your phone. The QR code will then be displayed on your phone’s screen so that another person with a smart phone and the barcode scanner could scan the image and have the information loaded into their phone.

So, for instance, if you were at a meeting and someone that you had just met wanted your contact information, just do as above and they could easily and quickly have your contact information in their phone. And you could get theirs also

It is MUCH easier to get information this way than it would be to type it into your phone using its keyboard. And Quicker and with less chance of a typo!

The QR Code below contains complete contact info: First Name, Last Name, phone#, Email, Website, Organization, Street address, City, State, Zipcode and Country.

When I scan it on my Incredible, I get choices to Add Contact, Show Map, Dial Number or Send Email

OK, I just finished the first setup of a mobile optimized site for 2GoMo.com.

Screenshot is below of the index page, but you will have to visit it in Chrome or on your mobile phone to really see how it looks and  operates. The mobile pages are at: http://2gomo.com/m

You need to collect as many of your Customers’ mobile phone numbers as possible so that you can send them Special Offers that you may create from time to time. You should also have a method of collecting prospective customers’ mobile ph0ne numbers.

You can send text messages to them which is one of the best ways of actually getting your messages read or seen by them.

Most everyone has a mobile phone capable of receiving text messages.

Using QR codes is the perfect way to make it quick and convenient for anyone interested in your services to opt-in to your SMS list.

You could also get them to opt-in from text instructions such as: “Send mobile50 to 72727″

They use 72727 as the To: entry of the text message and enter mobile50 into the body text of the text message and click Send.

So, basically SMS text messaging gets you more customers by allowing more communication to actually get read by your prospective customers. The more offers from you that they see, the more they will become your new customers.

Call John to get started: 770-722-4248

Watch this 1-1/2 minute video to better understand how SMS Text Messaging works:

Google offers advice and tips on How To Go Mobile with your existing website.

They have a new website: http://HowToGoMo.com

They have a GoMoMeter there that will allow you to put in the link to your existing website and see how it would look on a mobile smart phone. You may already have viewed yours, but you can get an idea of what it would look like here, in case you don’t have a smartphone to test with.

Their site also give you tips to consider when creating a mobile-optimized version of your site and you can even download the report as a pdf file.

Of course, if you need help, our $199 Sale Price is still on.

Once you have your mobile version, you just put a Redirection Script on your regular site which detects when someone is coming from a mobile phone and automatically sends the mobile-optimized version. It is just copy/paste of some code into your homepage which is quick and simple to do.

For instance if you visit this site http://Internet-Local.com on a mobile phone you will be redirected to the mobile-optimized version.

You can see that version from a desktop computer by going here: http://Internet-Local.com/mobile/

Let us know if we can help.

john@internet-local.com

Google is anxious to get more websites to also looking good on Mobile Devices, namely cellphones.

Cellphone, having much smaller screens require some changes to sites that were designed to be viewed on large screen monitors of desktop computers.

Tablets that are becoming very popular have 7-inch or 10-inch screens which are usually large enough to display those websites.

Google is offering a way for anyone to create a mobile site for free even if you don’t have a hosting account.

Look here: http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/mobile-landing-pages/mlpb.html

Here is one that I created quickly: https://sites.google.com/site/getquickmobilesites/

Smartphone usage in the U.S. is on the rise and it looks like half of all mobile users in the States will be using smartphones by the end of 2011. As a matter of fact, about a third of mobile users in the U.S. currently own a smartphone whether it’s an iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian or Windows device.

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So, I am thinking…

With smartphones, mobile users will be looking for sites that:
display properly on mobile devices and

• if they reach a site that is not optimized for mobile so that the text is immediately large enough to read,
• images are small and do not take all the screen,
• videos are rare and short and to the point when they are presented and
• the site has navigation that allows the user to quickly find the information that they are looking for.

It is becoming easier to get a mobile optimized site setup whether you have the skill to do it yourself or have it done for you.

The $199 Sale price is still in effect from us. If you want to have us create the mobile site for you, just email:

john@internet-local.com

A couple of weeks ago, JQuery Mobile moved to Release Candidate 1.

You can see it at: http://jquerymobile.com/test/

Depending on your level of experience with websites, you can look at their presentation there and get a decent looking website setup that looks good on a mobile phone.

Here is one demo that I did: http://xsqr.com/mobile6/

Once that page loads on a regular computer, just drag the side of your browser to narrow the display down to the approximate size of a cellphone and you will get a better idea. If you have a smartphone it will display fine from the link above.

Adobe and Dreamweaver is very involved with JQuery Mobile and have tied it into their CS5.5 version of Dreamweaver.

To get a better idea of the designs that are possible, you should look at this site:

http://www.jqmgallery.com/

I am very impressed with the power and relative ease of use and I am following their continued development.

John