How much luck are you having with mobile?

[DrChango]

Our mobile sites have been showing better conversion ratios than even our best conventional sites, and I was wondering if it was an "across-the-board" thing or was it because of where and how we have been pushing those sites.
Also curious as to what role the lower membership fee plays (it's roughly half that of the conventional mega-site membership).

So, all of you that sling mobile, what have been your experiences? No need to name names of other programs if you're going to go into detail, don't want this to turn into a mess, just want some honest feeeback

[Cyndalie]

Great for surfers, buyers not so much

[Evil Chris]

I don't understand your use of "mobile". Sites that are tailor-made for handheld devices?

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by Evil Chris

I don't understand your use of "mobile". Sites that are tailor-made for handheld devices?

yep, the tours are laid out to be surfer friendly on a mobile device, and the content is in MP4 format, which is supposed to be the preferred format on all the high-end devices.

Here's a no-popup link to one of ours: iPink Visual Pass

They tried to get it balanced to look good on all the fancy mobile devices that are commonly in use (that is, no side scrolling)

[lulu]

Originally Posted by DrChango

yep, the tours are laid out to be surfer friendly on a mobile device, and the content is in MP4 format, which is supposed to be the preferred format on all the high-end devices.

Here's a no-popup link to one of ours: iPink Visual Pass

They tried to get it balanced to look good on all the fancy mobile devices that are commonly in use (that is, no side scrolling)

i don't have any experience with mobile but it seems to the way to go for content. i just spoke to Alli today, we're translating a few of ipvp pages

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by lulu

i don't have any experience with mobile but it seems to the way to go for content. i just spoke to Alli today, we're translating a few of ipvp pages

Awesome=)

[Evil Chris]

Hmm... well I'm indifferent about the creation of a site wholly around the portable device idea.

Offer the content in that format yes... but the entire site? Dunno about that.

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by Evil Chris

Hmm... well I'm indifferent about the creation of a site wholly around the portable device idea.

Offer the content in that format yes... but the entire site? Dunno about that.

A couple of other sites were doing it that way, and then opted to launch sites where the tour was formatted for mobile (Naughty America took this approach, for example.)

In all honesty we're getting something like 3 to 4 times the conversion ratio of the conventional sites, but is that because mobile sells well or we've been promoting well? Both?

[Evil Chris]

Originally Posted by DrChango

A couple of other sites were doing it that way, and then opted to launch sites where the tour was formatted for mobile (Naughty America took this approach, for example.)

In all honesty we're getting something like 3 to 4 times the conversion ratio of the conventional sites, but is that because mobile sells well or we've been promoting well? Both?

Why not just auto-detect if it's a mobile device and serve the page accordingly?

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by Evil Chris

Why not just auto-detect if it's a mobile device and serve the page accordingly?

From what I understand there were some technical issues with doing that to all of our sites, and not all of our content has been formatted to MP4 yet (our library is pretty extensive).

[thruma]

that link looked pretty good in my 1024/768 screen resolution.
So I guess a mobile device will just make that smaller and fit?

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by thruma

that link looked pretty good in my 1024/768 screen resolution.
So I guess a mobile device will just make that smaller and fit?

that's the big idea. It's a bit of a balancing act trying to find a layout that looks decent on all the popular high-end devices, if you tailor just to the iPhone, it will look badass on iPhones, but maybe look crumby on Blackberries, and vice versa. A lot of trial and error, and lots of cursing from down the hall while they experimented wiith it.

[thruma]

Originally Posted by DrChango

A lot of trial and error, and lots of cursing from down the hall while they experimented wiith it.

lmao

yeah it does look pretty good though. nice idea.

[DrChango]

Originally Posted by thruma

lmao

yeah it does look pretty good though. nice idea.

Thanks, Thruma=)

[Danny]

We've been playing with mobile for a bit now, and we are getting decent results. The problem I do see is that many of the Adult mobile developers are a bit lazy, and don't tailor the proper video format for the device being used. While MP4 video will work in most cases, a .M4V video will look much better on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Some Blackberry devices work better using a DivX format (Bold, Curve) while the Storm works better with MP4. Mobile users tend to be loyal to the format that works best on their device!

We are doing mobile formats in MP4, M4V, DivX Mobile, WMV and even 3GP for cellphone users. All the videos we have done in the last year are available in all those mobile formats, and it really does keep users happy and around.

I'm still doing work on auto-redirecting devices (a real pain in the ass). I'm developing with WURLF to detect and redirect devices to pages with stylesheets designed for that device. There is still work to do. But iPhone users can see an example by going to carolcox.com on their device. That takes you to a page designed for the iPhone and with .M4V video formats that are preferred by the iPhone.

I still have some work to do before everything is finished, and still have to touch up design and lay-out. I'm more concerned with the operation than the graphical design at the moment. As I mentioned, mobile users are loyal to their devices and you really want to give them all the best you can. Their appreciation will turn into sales.

[DrChango]

I chatted with one of the managers some more about mobile today, and found out that we do have a detection and redirection setup on most of our sites...that only works with iPhone surfers. Glad I don't have to deal so much with that end of it, it sounds like it's frustrating, lol

I'll have to ask about those other formats. I wonder if they proved to be a logistical issue (more formats to convert our library into) or if there were some other concerns. I know one of the selling points of MP4 was that it looks decent on a PSP and there was a lot of free publicity to be had when that America retailer (I think Walmart) accidental sold UMDs from Japan that were pornographic earlier this year.

[DrChango]

replace America with American, and accidental with accidentally

grammar fail on my part