When Pete Townshend of The Who sang “Going Mobile” back in 1971, he certainly didn’t realize that 40 years later “going mobile” would be or should be the mantra of today’s newspaper editors.
Mark Faller, sports editor of the Arizona Republic, and Todd Kelly explained the importance of going mobile during a workshop on Monday at the Associated Press Sports Editors West Region convention at Reno.
Mobile devices are the next medium for our audience, and many readers already are using smart phones for sports news and scores, according to Faller and Kelly, who is the online sports manager of azcentral.com.
“Going mobile is the number one task that’s on our list,” Faller said. “We must figure what to deliver, how to deliver our product and how to identify the audience.”
To say people rely on their smart phones these days would be an understatement. Kelly provided the following statistics:
*- 130 billion text messages sent a month; (those of us with teenage kids are not surprised);
*- 35 percent of users browse the Internet
*- 33 percent download applications;
*- 23 percent visit social networking sties;
*- 23 percent play games.
“People aren’t using their home computers like they used to,” Kelly said. “Today, it’s easier and faster to use hand-held devices.” These people want to know up-to-date scores. They want to know when Tiger Woods finally wins a tournament. They need to know how close TCU is to busting the BCS. And they want to know it now. Not in five minutes. Not tomorrow in the morning paper.
As media companies, we have to be in that mobile space right now, Kelly said.
Kelly reminded sports editors 15 years ago, “deniers” in the industry underestimated the importance of creating and maintaining websites. “We learned from our mistakes back then, and we won’t make the same mistakes this time around,” he said.
Technology has come a long way since the first cell phone call was made in April 1973. Nearly two decades later, the Blackberry became the working man’s device, Kelly said. Fast forward five years, and the iPhone became a consumer device
“Smart phones became toys for adults,” Kelly said.
Those “toys” have become a crucial to delivering news and Kelly stressed “we can’t wait for users to find us. We have to be aggressive and contact our readers by learning our audience’s habits.”
Surveys and focus groups can help identify an audience, but not all newspapers are created equally. Trying to figure the intricacies of capitalizing on mobile devices’ popularity is the challenge.
But don’t despair. Faller has simple advice.
“Make the best use of what you can offer that’s already available and that includes Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “With 400 million Facebook users, if you haven’t already, jump in.
Neither Faller nor Kelly discounted the popularity of tablets such as the iPad. They’re coming and they’re coming fast — by Christmas, at least six more types of tablets will hit the market.
Wall Street analysts last month said that iPad adoption was faster than any electronic consumer good in history, Kelly said. And even though “mass-market penetration” won’t occur until 2013, plans are on a fast track to take advantage of the technology.
“We’re not going to miss the boat this time around when it comes to mobile,” Kelly and Fowler said. “We’ve learned our lessons, and we’re in a much better position to tackle this new challenge.”
Address the challenge, use resources, identify the audience, deliver the product and remember the prophetic words sung by Pete Townshend in “Going Mobile:”
When I’m drivin’ free
The world’s my home
When I’m mobile.
This is where sports editors should be heading in the months and years to come.
