David Berube’s OLD Blog

Mowser is dead – so the mobile web must be dead to. If you’re a reader of Read Write Web, TechCrunch and the others you would be lead to believe this as true. It’s the furthest thing from the truth.

Russell Beattie, CEO and Founder of Mowser, is in a tough spot financially. It’s not easy being an entrepreneur. His financial situation seems to have placed him in a rough patch and that frustration has come out and it was inaccurately aimed at the mobile web. He’s in a bad spot right now and I understand his frustrations, but I disagree with the reasons he felt Mowser failed.

There are a variety of reasons Mowser seems to have failed that have nothing to do with the mobile web being dead, see Mike Rowehl’s (co-founder of Mowser) take on why it failed. Mike sums everything up pretty nicely.

The blogosphere, going on Russ’s post, was quick to claim the mobile web dead, and in place of it the full web will emerge. They are all flat wrong.

Those people who are quick to jump to the conclusion that the mobile web is dead and that the iPhone pulled the trigger are wrong. The iPhone planted the seed. Apple has spent millions of dollars marketing the web on your mobile phone, creating awareness that you can access the internet from the device in your pocket.

Detractors will say, why do you need a mobile web when these mobile browsers can browse the desktop web? They are right to an extent. The iPhone lets you to browse the desktop web, yes. And the radio lets you pick up a television signal. Following me?

What I’m trying to say is that, yes, you can view the desktop web on the iPhone and it’s the best mobile browser out there. But visiting an iPhone specific website is a much better experience than visiting that same site’s full-desktop-version.

Facebook is a great example of this. I much rather use Facebook’s iPhone version on my iPhone rather than trying to navigate their desktop version through the periscope that is the Safari mobile. Same goes for Digg, Bank of America, LinkedIn and Google.

Websites of the future will be designed for three screens. The larger smart phone screens(iPhone), smaller mobile phone screens(RAZR, etc) and the desktop screens. You fit the content to the media it’s designed for. You can’t take something designed for a 19” screen or larger and then simple zoom-it-out so that it fits on a tiny screen. Nobody wants to look at the web through a periscope and you wouldn’t put a YouTube video on a matchbook cover (thank you David Harper).

My final take, the mobile web isn’t dead, far from it. Ask the other founder of Mowser, ask the guys at AdMob, ask David Harper, ask myself. Here at MoFuse we’ve seen consistent mobile pageview growth of at least 40% month over month.