Mobilegeddon isn't just Google's doing
Don't believe the hype. Today you'll see one massive amount of stories about how Google's newest update to Google Search will bury websites not prepared to be "mobile friendly." Barring the odd "old web" website or local government council site, the web is basically already there. Google wouldn't enact a sweeping set of changes if they suspected their business model would be drastically altered. And for those of you worried, Google has put together a handy guide to get you through this tough time, including a "Google Mobile-Friend Test" site.
Several very obvious markers in the history of the mobile web have been popping up for the past several years. One example is a Chetan Sharma study conducted all the way back in late 2013.
Back in 2013, Chetan Sharma suggested that data consumed by mobile web users nearly doubled year-over-year.
In their 2012 study they found the average US-based smartphone or tablet user consumed 690 MB of data a month.
In 2013, that amount of data jumped to 1.2 GB. That's a jump of nearly 2x in just one year – and it's gone up since then by a significant amount.
Back in April of 2012, the Opera web browser group suggested that 56% of users are mobile-only web surfers.
In December of 2014, IBM reported that 41.4% of all Cyber Monday web traffic came from mobile users.
Google has been dropping clues that they're heading to a mobile universe for years.
If Android itself wasn't enough of a clue, #MobileMonday has been happening since early 2014. This hashtag event had (and continues to have) Google releasing mobile-friendly updates for mobile web apps across the board.
As of March 9th, 2015, Apple iPhone sales reached 700,000,000 (that's seven hundred million) units.
As of January 30th, 2015, Google suggested they have 1-billion active Androids in the wild.
Smartphones live in people's pockets, and people use their smartphones to access the web.
The time is now, it's been a long time coming – update your website or face the finality of extinction.