Apps and Mobile Web: Understanding the Two Sides of the Mobile Coin

Mobile internet use is divided into two modes: browsing the mobile web and using mobile applications (“apps”). Many kinds of content or service can be provided or accessed equally well via either app or mobile web; however, some are available exclusively via one or the other.

Media companies, agencies, and marketers face some confusion regarding whether they should focus their strategies predominantly on apps or mobile web. At the simplest level, many measurement firms report that mobile internet usage gravitates very heavily toward mobile apps, and so a naïve view emerges that apps have somehow “won,” and that mobile web is unimportant.

This overlooks the important role mobile websites play in people’s total mobile internet experiences. In practice, in daily use of the . . .