Are there any underdog (not within the fortune 10,000) success stories regarding mobile web solution that received honorable mobile based traffic flow and the necessary stickiness to be considered a success without going native?

Yes, monetizing is all about business models regardless of technology. And mobile is no exception. But technology is a great facilitator.

When it comes to monetizing I truly believe mobile will play a key role on the discovery (via interactions) for the purpose of influencing the potential buyer to complete the transaction. I believed this years ago, and I still believe it (and is why I had started eZee. )

But what I just wrote relates to what Natasha wrote above, that there are “classes of goods or products” some that work more naturally for mobile than others. I think that will always be the case for mobile *handsets*.

ceo

However, I think a key point here is that there’s a class of goods that people just don’t buy on phones b/c they can’t see them well enough (due to small screen size & slow to download pictures/alternate views). Let’s look at Mike’s list of recent web purchases: “A couple of books, bits of furniture for the new apartment, hotel reservations, more electronics…” In each of those cases (& add to them clothes, shoes, household goods, etc.), unless you already know the product well enough (or perhaps you are standing in a brick&mortar store comparison shopping), you won’t buy it from a phone. You have to see it from all angles, flip through some pages, explore the hotel & see some room views & a map location, and comparison shop a few sites (multiple browser windows) to get the best price. It’s too much for some phones to handle, especially if you’re still on a 2.5G network. (BTW, in Japan 3.5G networks are common these days…improved experience but still not good enough for this type of shopping.)

BTW, the browser does make a huge difference. I recently temporarily switched phones b/c my older batteries started bursting internally (has anyone else had this happen?). The temporary phone is from the same era but its browser can’t handle half of the web sites that I could view on my primary phone. Hope my new batteries arrive soon!

But certain physical items are good for mobile purchases: movie/concert/train tickets, parking lot fees, CDs if it’s an artist you know or you can hear samples (although do people still buy CDs? Maybe downloading an MP3 album to your phone is also too much, and it’s better to put the MP3 album safely on your PC.). Flowers to be delivered — if the address entry is not difficult.

Great post. I couldn’t agree more, but would extend it one step further. What drives PC web/email advertising spend is completing the transaction. Not being able to close the loop and attribute the dollar value in spend attributed to an action by a consumer means there is no value to support a price floor on publisher inventory (native app or mobile web).

What Apple and Google have the chance to do with their embedded payment capabilities is to tie a purchase to an ad/promotion on the device. But where it gets even more interesting is when a consumer can complete a purchase for a service or item in the real world with a bricks and mortar retailer (think pay per download across physical goods and services). Obviously the point of sale systems are the key technical hurdle here.

There is $23B in ad spend from B&M retailers that is almost exclusively in old media like radio, newspapers, YPs, etc. because the internet is not a good method for driving local foot traffic. We hear from marketers that they want to be in mobile, but they want measurability on driving foot traffic in local stores and eventually purchases. This is what mobile can truly do, and that PC web advertising/marketing never accomplished.

Cheers!

Blair