The much anticipated “Mobilegeddon” seems to have passed by without the world stopping on its axis. True, Google’s algorithm change in April of this year is taking effect, and mobile-friendly websites are rising to the top on search result pages on mobiles. And this is a good thing, as it improves customer experience and makes the web work better for all of us.

But it has not, from all the evidence I can see, been the death knell of many businesses and websites that some have been predicting. All in all, for those of us who use the Internet, it is a change for the better.

Getting on board

Organisations and individuals are increasingly recognising not only what it means to have a site that is mobile-friendly, but also appreciating the benefit of delivering their website information to suit whatever device their audience chooses to use. This is a significant change from when we started out trying to promote the advantages of sites that look good and work well on mobiles back in 2011 – people often thought if you could see the website on a mobile that was enough. Now it is understood that you should be able to read it and navigate it as well.

“So what’s all this stuff about hurdles and high jump then?”
I hear you ask.

Well, the tortured analogy I’m trying to shoe-horn into my article here is that whilst on the face of it both activities are essentially about clearing an obstacle, they are fundamentally different events.

Big Media customers who have Chameleon Software installed in their websites won’t be facing a major challenge when the next platform shake-up hits the world wide web. Whilst there’s always another hurdle to clear in managing your business, Big Media’s Chameleon reduces the height to a manageable level.

How do we do this? – Chameleon works as a layer over responsive design to add device recognition into your site. So when Google throw the next challenge at us, perhaps whether your site is SmartTV-friendly, with us you’re already most of the way there.

Browse the site or contact us to learn more about the Chameleon advantage

Big Media in the Welwyn and Hatfield Times – 3rd June 2015

Following on from our inaugural outing at the EXPO at the end of April, the attention Google is bringing to the need for sites to be mobile-friendly is rubbing off on the Big Media Team.

The Google Mobile Web Doctors made an appearance in the business pages of the Welwyn and Hatfield Times on 3rd June 2015 after our approach to helping small and medium businesses become mobile-friendly attracted the attention of journalist Alex Lewis.

David Taylor, who now heads up the sales and marketing efforts for Big Media, commented in his interview with Alex: David, “The internet was a place where small businesses could compete with the big boys, but now smaller businesses will suffer.

David added: “Most large organisations already have mobile-friendly websites. Gone are the days when it was a ‘good idea’ to have a mobile-friendly site, it is now an essential. We don’t want local businesses to start suffering because the big boys are going to corner the market again.”

Gecko vs Chameleon

Fundamentally Big Media has two approaches – Gecko and Chameleon

Gecko is a tool that allows us to convert a site to be mobile-friendly. The first pass is to add a line of code to a page or a site, in a very similar way to how Google Analytics is included, that sets a mobile centric baseline to the way a site behaves on mobile. This invariably benefits from design tweaks that take into account specific elements of the individual site, and the result is a site that passes the Google Mobile test AND appeals to site visitors.

Chameleon takes a more advanced approach, by adding the capability to the customers site of device recognition. Chameleon essentially allows responsive design techniques to handle most of what is needed for sites to work cross-platform, but builds in a future-proofed aspect by catering specifically for various devices, such as Android, Apple, Windows and Blackberry mobiles and tablets, PCs and on to Games Consoles and Smart TVs.

“If browsing ends up being a mainstay for in-car sat-nav systems, Chameleon will be ready to cater for those as well”.

A BIG thank you to everyone who took time to talk to us about our online training platform and our FREE mobile-friendly site converter

Our thanks also too from us to the organisers, Vicky and her team, for all their efforts before and on the day.

The Big Media team built on the “Mobilegeddon” story and the recent announcement by Google by theming our stand as the “Google Mobile Web Doctors”.

A FREE prescription for a healthier website

Google’s 21st April algorithm update, first announced on 26th February, concerns mobile search results and the preferential placing for mobile-friendly sites in relation to PC only ones. As Web designers and web developers based in Milton Keynes, Big media were offering a FREE solution to help PC only sites take the first step to becoming mobile-friendly.

Entitled Gecko Musketeer, our mobile-friendly site converter is available free of charge as a first step to turning PC only sites into working on mobiles. We also had a special offer on the customised version (Gecko Knight) where from £49, usually £79, we work to improve and tweak the user experience specifically for your site.

Read more about our easy2training online elearning and training platform here