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If you've been to our office recently, you’ve probably seen our Mobile Testing Lab. We tell everyone about it; clients, partners, students, interviewees, journalists. We really like to talk about it. And we should, it’s really amazing.
We like to show it off
But that's not why we built it. I mean, that’s partially why we built it; we wanted to be able to talk about it. We said it would help show people that we are committed to this whole mobile thing. We said when we pitch a new responsive website or an amazing new mobile app that it would show clients that we knew what we were talking about. We said that it would get people talking. We never thought people would actually use is as much as they do.
It really wasn't that hard
Building a mobile testing lab really sounds like a lot of work. 
- You have to come up with a plan. Sketches help.
- You have to convince a lot of people.
- You have to build it.
- You have to run electrical lines. This is dangerous stuff.
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thundertech, marketing, agency, mobile, testing, lab, device, test, develop, Development, web, website, app, Data, phone, tabletWe often read articles and attend seminars on the topic of SEO and how a marketer can best execute it. The problem is that many firms and people tend the feel that once they have the initial idea of SEO, nothing will change; it will not evolve or adapt. This is ultimately where they begin to lead clients, listeners and readers horribly astray. The latest such article was written for Financial Planning and delves very heavily into “keyword use.”
Sadly, the ideas stated in the above article have been ones that good SEOs have moved on from in the past couple of years. We’ve learned that there is no magic number for keywords, no golden ratio, nothing that says “if you use a keyword this percentage, you will have solid value in rankings.” One needs to look no further than Matt Cutts, head of Web spam at Google, in this video from 2011:
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thundertech, SEO, optimization, keyword, Google, matt cutts, web, content, search, engine, optimization, marketing, social media, call, actionIf you're amazed by today's current smartphone technology, just wait. They are going to look like cassette players in the next five years or so.
My watch shows who's calling, my scale can tweet, my bike and heart rate monitor correspond with my smartphone and the light switches in my home are connected to the Internet. This isn't Disney’s Tomorrowland; this all exists right now. And it’s just the beginning. More and more devices we use every day are going to be connected to each other and the Internet in ways we can hardly imagine today.
Right now
The Pebble smartwatch is one of the devices mentioned above. It was part of a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2012 and they've just started shipping over the past few months—mine came last week after 10 months of patiently waiting. The watch pairs with an iOS or Android phone via Bluetooth and displays text messages, emails, calls and other alerts. It can also control music playing on a smartphone.
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thundertech, connected, device, Internet, web, enabled, smartphone, technology, marketing, marketeres, pebble, watch, wearable technology, wearable, Google, glass, project glass, Apple, advertising, messageDuring the past couple days, an article has been circling around the thunder::tech office. This article, When Responsive Web Design is Bad for SEO by Bryson Meunier, has also caused a lot of discussion in the Web community. Here is the second installment of our response to the author’s final three points as to why people should favor optimization practices over responsive design. Read the first installment here.
3.) "When Responsive Layout Increases Load Time Significantly," stop everything and re-examine the entire site.
You'll find that the wrong stakeholders are making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. The amount of code to add responsive capabilities to a site is nominal at worst, but more often miniscule. A well-made responsive site can be a tiny fraction of the size of a somewhat-well-made mobile-only or desktop-only site with the same features.
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thundertech, web, SEO, responsive design, rwd, responsive, design, website, mobile, Development, optimization, search, Bryson Meunier, user experienceDuring the past couple days, an article has been circling around the thunder::tech office. This article, When Responsive Web Design is Bad for SEO by Bryson Meunier, has also caused a lot of discussion in the Web community. We at thunder::tech have been strong proponents for responsive Web design and found issue with some of Meunier’s points. Our User Experience team decided to respond to each of the five factors the author says to choose optimization practices over responsive design. This first installment includes the first two points:
1.) "When Desktop Website Does Not Contain Categories Mobile Searchers Are Looking For," the content is at fault.
The following quote from Adam Audette and George Michie is the underlying assumption here: "Mobile websites: Responsive design helps, but smartphone users have fundamentally different needs and only a site designed to meet those unique needs will produce the best outcome for the user and for the business," This assumption isn't always going to be wrong, but it's still jumping to a conclusion that's likely to disrupt the user experience rather than support it. The needs of desktop users can be time-and-location-specific and the needs of mobile users can be neither; they're just less likely to be so.
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thundertech, web, SEO, responsive design, rwd, responsive, design, website, mobile, Development, optimization, search, Bryson Meunier, user experience
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