The mobile Web, though slow going in the beginning, is now growing by leaps and bounds- as evident in the enormous traffic spike seen to the U.S. Golf Administration’s U.S. Open mobile site during the tournament.
The USGA and IBM — who runs its Websites — released figures yesterday reporting that 1.7 million people visited the U.S. Open’s mobile site
, which represents a 518 percent increase from last year. In contrast, the regular site saw 4.2 million visitors during the week, up only 8 percent over the previous year’s totals. These figures show that nearly 30 percent of the traffic to the U.S. Open’s sites were from mobile devices.
What’s interesting is that the mobile site was pretty stripped down, with an all-text news feed, scores, tee times and some basic video. This proves that mobile users are primarily after quick information and updates rather than flashy graphics and deep interactivity (in some cases, that is). This is pretty impressive, and shows that the mobile Web is becoming more important than the traditional Web in a growing number of areas.
