Outdoor pursuits and the mobile Internet are a natural fit. With a hotline to his London-based power-kiting school in the palm of his hand, Mark Parker never struggles to show potential customers the thrills of kiting, wherever he or they may be.
Blue-sky thinking
The goal for the site was to provide customers with everything they needed to know about power kiting and Kitevibe’s lessons, simply and effectively, whatever mobile handset they were using. And once convinced, to allow them to go ahead and purchase a course.
Kitevibe.mobi delivers that in spades. The .mobi retains the brand identity of Kitevibe.com, but is clearly designed with mobile in mind. You are only a click or two away from all the information you need on kites, lessons from beginners on two- and four-line kites to flying with boards and buggies, instructors, and a wealth of tantalizing images. It bares all the a hallmarks of a man who is passionate about kiting and photography in his other life, Parker is a professional photographer.
Do-it-yourself
Despite its professional and up-to-date feel, Kitevibe.mobi is almost three years old and Parker built it himself. Asked about his previous Web experience, he says: Before I started on the PC and mobile sites for Kitevibe, I couldn’t even write my name in html.
Being a mobile Web pioneer came with its own difficulties: there weren’t the handy tools or hand-holding guides to building a site now available and the W3C hadn’t really established any standards. Kitevibe.mobi was built using NotePad, a bit of Dreamweaver and a lot of trial and error.
First I launched a basic 1.0 text-only version of the site. Then, based on the lessons learnt from that, redesigned it completely to take advantage of more modern PDAs and Smartphones as they came onto the market, explains Parker.
Parker learned by studying existing mobile sites too numerous to list, he says such as Google Mobile; but it was from BBC.mobi that he took his lead. Being a public-service broadcaster, he knew the BBC wouldn’t use any technology that hadn’t been rigorously tested to ensure accessibility, whatever the device.
Kitevibe.mobi was repeatedly tested using dotMobi’s ready.mobi: I wouldn’t settle for any less than five out of five: it was test, test and test again, he points out.
Working in his spare time, Kitevibe.mobi took six weeks from zero to completion. There was no financial investment in site development just his time.
Hands-on handset testing
Compliance, he says, that’s the best thing about Kitevibe.mobi. It plays and renders anywhere. The site was tested on basic mono-screen phones all the way up to the latest color PDAs.
With more Internet-ready phones hitting the market, Parker had set himself a serious challenge making sure Kitevibe.mobi worked with each and every one.
Living in Kingston-upon-Thames [on the outskirts of Southwest London], the high street is blessed with every possible mobile-phone shop. I’d go into each one and try out each Internet-enabled handset. Of course, there was only one site I was interested in looking at, he laughs.
Getting off to a flying start
Kitevibe.mobi is promoted through all the usual channels. It has been registered with the major search engines and mobile portals. It is heavily promoted on the Kitevibe.com site, and is always cited in advertisements, whether print, Web, direct mail or email marketing.
The gallery of spectacular, though thumb-nail-sized, photographs give the site a viral appeal, as enthusiasts especially those pictured will refer to the site to help impress friends at the pub. The site taps into Parker’s extensive collection of photographs featuring every imaginable permutation of kiting and locations from idyllic beaches to snowy mountains, as well as back home in Richmond Park, the largest of London’s Royal Parks and a favorite haunt for power-kiters, where the lessons take place.
A masterstroke is giving each student their own private gallery, where they can show off their kiting prowess to friends and family � and potential customers.
Even in the depths of winter, when we caught up with Parker, Kitevibe.mobi had received an impressive 80 unique visitors for the week, with four appointments coming directly through the mobile site. Kitevibe uses Google analytics to track visitors.
What’s next?
The next logical step is to add video to the site, to give customers a true feel for thrill of power kiting. It’s the pace of technology advancement, slow download speeds and maybe customers data-plan that’s holding Kitevibe.mobi up certainly not Parker’s enthusiasm for the mobile Web.
Parker is also looking forward to the time when mobile payment becomes a way of life. He feels this will improve as payment services come online hes particularly surprised that PayPal has been so slow to embrace mobile payments in Europe and partly down to consumers.
I can hand someone my phone and ask them to phone someone and they just do it. If I ask them to buy me a train ticket, they don’t know what to do, he explains.
Tips
To other small businesses that are thinking about going mobile, he offers the following encouragement: Start now. Don’t put it off. It’s so useful to be able to show people what you do right there and then. The advantages are right there for the taking.
And he offers the following advice: Test, test and test again.
Verdict: mobiThinking loved Kitevibe.mobi. It’s an excellent example of how a small business can really benefit from the mobile Web. What makes it particularly special is that the concept and creation is entirely Mark Parker’s own.
Comment below or email editor (at) mobiThinking.com.
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