Clearly I’m a believer, but just how pervasive the mobile Internet is becoming was made clear to me yesterday while driving in the car: the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, our less well-funded version of “the Beeb”) broadcast a short voice-over (Madonna King or Kelly Higgins-Devine, I can’t remember whom) promoting the new ABC mobile site at m.abc.net.au. 

Now ABC local radio isn’t known for it’s pursuit of the youth demographic, that’s TripleJ.  So this was clearly intended at the 45-54 age demographic, ABC Local’s largest audience segment.

The site itself seems to have been designed for people with poor eyesight – design is average at best, image-laden, and compared to the usually quite good portal and digital media efforts of Aunty, looks like a student project.

I don’t want to discourage this initiative in any way, but if this is what someones first view of the mobile Internet could be, I’d worry about their continuation in the medium. Hopefully before arriving at this site new adopters would see one of the operator portals which (in Australia, at least) look well-designed and quite usable. I also would hope and encourage the ABC to both continue with their mobile efforts and, in the first instance, try and work on their mobile design skills.