That is the conclusion I’ve come to after reading this post about mobile search over at Mob Happy:
75% of mobile web users use mobile search, but it’s much higher on smart phones with qwerty keyboards. These people are roughly 3 times (81% v 25%) more likely to use the mobile web and 4 times more likely to use mobile search (67% v 18%).
We need cheap, attractive QWERTY devices for all product segments. The only "teenage" friendly devices I can think of are the T-Mobile Sidekick and the soon to launch Helio Ocean.
It makes sense you know: Younger people use text messages practically every hour of their day, I know I do.
Get the guys who designed the 6300, 8800 and E61i in a room together and let them brainstorm the perfect device. Simple features like triband GSM and a 2 megapixel camera, but make the thing look ridiculously sexy.
It will sell like hot cakes and operators will fall in love since more and more people will begin subscribing to data plans. Here in America we are just now starting to see unlimited sms/mms plans and the price of unlimited data is falling too.
The services are there, but what about the devices?
Update: I knew I previously posted a similar rant a while ago.