Desktop vs. mobile vs. tablet when reading a business story

Lewis Dvorkin, the chief product officer at Forbes, writes about the difference in how long a reader spends with a business news story when it’s on a desktop computer vs. being read on a mobile device or a tablet.

Dvorkin writes, “Consumers did spend less individual time on the post, but did make their way down the mobile screen. That makes it important for product teams to look beyond the device — to the actual person. Different consumers will likely react positively to different mobile screen experiences. Some may want only images, others just headlines. Many might engage only with video. That requires both personalized screen experiences and targeted stories.

“Mobile Exposure: This chart looks at cumulative mobile vs desktop dwell time for the same Employee Who Stay In Companies Longer post. It’s another way to look at our mobile future: more people, more often with less session time still means loads of aggregate attention.

“As we wrapped up our call, Jonah offered what was, to me at least, one of those ah-ha moments. ‘Mobile is a new world of behavior, not just a form factor to fit content into.’ That made me recall the news industry’s initial reaction to online content in the 90s, when it viewed a desktop page as merely a container for traditional print stories. We should have all learned from that lesson. If not, here are two statistics to keep front of mind. Last week, Facebook said mobile accounted for 62% of its advertising revenue in the second quarter, up from 41% a year earlier. A day earlier, Apple said iPhone sales rose 12.7% in the quarter ended June 28, while iPad sales fell 9% — and that came after a 16% drop in iPad sales the previous three months. Like I said, journalism is changing again.”

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