The Opera mobile web browser has been around for 14 years, the 2G standard dates back to 1991, so it really shows how on top the mobile revolution and internet stuff in general UK print media are that after all this time, at least according to a survey by cross-platform advertising firm Vibrant Media, nearly half of the top titles don’t have sites that work properly on mobile devices. And this despite, according to Vibrant Media, a 90 percent expected increase in money spent on mobile advertising in the UK, to £2.26 billion ($3.84 billion).
Daily news publications are the best optimized for mobile, with only 20 percent failing to display correctly, says the Vibrant Media Mobile Advertising Readiness Survey. However, general weekly publications have the second worst mobile sites, with 50 percent failing to display properly, only surpassed by women’s weekly publications, with a 60.7 percent failure rate.
Vibrant Media itself is a mobile ad services provider, and its survey is followed by long and detailed descriptions of its offerings. Naturally, it has a business case for portraying the situation as badly as possible, and its methodology is somewhat limited, using “an iPhone 4 to ascertain whether publications were providing mobile sites that display effectively.” One wonders if Android devices would have yielded any better results. All the same, it’s hard not to conclude that they may have something of a point.
