“Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video shown on MTV in the US (watch it here). While the impact of video on music continues to be debated, there is new speculation about mobile devices killing off the desktop computer…
- Google made news in May when it announced mobile searches have surpassed desktop searches.
- Google’s mobile-friendly search algorithm update, aka Mobilegeddon, was the hottest SEO topic of the spring.
- In web design circles, the talk has been about the importance of responsive designs and designing for mobile first.
With all this talk about mobile, you might think desktop web browsing and search are on the way out.
But as Mark Twain once said, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
A comScore report earlier this year titled “2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus” explains:
While most of the growth in digital media consumption over the past four years has occurred on smartphones (up 394 percent) and tablets (up 1,721 percent), these mobile platforms are not eating into aggregate time spent on desktop, which has still grown 37 percent over this time period. The digital media pie continues to get bigger and Americans engage with screens during more occasions throughout the day than ever before.
Here’s a graphic from that same report to illustrate this point.
So, let’s not forget about desktop users and desktop search. Mobile has not killed them.
Both mobile and desktop search are important.
What’s your experience been?
- Are you searching more on mobile devices? More or less on desktop computers?
- What trends are you seeing in other people’s search habits?