Mobilising your brand - entertainmentafrica.mobi

The Media magazine - Feb 2010.

Prezence South Africa, one of South Africa’s leading digital agencies, was recently tasked with deploying South Africa’s most comprehensive music and entertainment site, EntertainmentAfrica.com into the mobile space.

The Media talks exclusively to Tim Bishop, CEO of Prezence South Africa about the mobile migration, the associated challenges and ultimate benefits.

The Site: EntertainmentAfrica.com is South Africa's definitive guide to local and worldwide music, movies and entertainment. It boasts a massive repository of unique editorial, audio and video content and features not only extensive music and movie coverage, but games, gadgets, events, charts, movie schedules as well as exclusive competitions. The site is the largest of its kind in South Africa, and boasts an average of 50 new stories and features being written and published daily.

Why mobilise?
The growing number of South Africans who access the internet using their cellphone presented EntertainmentAfrica.com with a large untapped audience who are starved of African and International entertainment related content. The very nature of the content coverage on EntertainmentAfrica.com which spans a large variety entertainment genres, especially appeals to the youth, the same population group who are increasingly accessing their information on the go via their mobile handsets.

The approach
The general misnomer is that mobile sites have to be cut down versions of their online counterparts. With the development of EntertainmentAfrica.mobi, Prezence has proved that with the latest in technological knowhow coupled with extensive mobile user-experience expertise, comprehensive mobi sites can be developed to easily rival their online counterparts.

The biggest challenge of developing a comprehensive mobi version of a well known online publishing property is of course the need for making the mobi version a recognisable brand experience within the constraints of the smaller browser size and the limited navigation tools available on a cellphone.

Therefore, taking a well known online property such as EntertainmentAfrica.com into the mobile space comes with its own set of extra challenges. The approach needed to take into account the existing personality, flavour and flow of the online counterpart, providing a seamless transition for any user accessing EntertainmentAfrica.com via their cellphone or online. The similarities between the two properties need to be a lot more sophisticated than simple design cues, so it was incredibly important when developing EntertainmentAfrica.mobi that the structure and user flow of the site’s comprehensive features were retained. Natural content relationships, search and ‘you might like’ functions within the music, movies, games, gadgets and events sections also needed to be applied to the mobi version within very limited screen ‘real estate’.

Our approach to Mobi site and user experience design at Prezence is similar to how someone might organise themselves at a very small desk. Firstly, we ensure that the essentials such as their 'screen and keyboard' are directly accessible in front of them. Then we ensure that their ‘coffee cup’, ‘phone’ and ‘pen’ are close to hand. From there we work outwards in circular zones, with the less used items still reachable but on the periphery, but always ensuring that the user’s workspace is kept very tidy.

In order to ensure effective usability on EntertainmentAfrica.mobi, we needed to ensure that our small ‘desk space’ optimally positioned all of the essentials to be just as effective and accessible as the online version. This approach is vital when working with larger mobile deployments and requires extensive user-experience expertise within the Prezence development team as well as a comprehensive understanding of the brand or property being deployed. Our approach is very similar to how we have always handled web deployments, the methodology and user experience rules are the same, only in the web space we have a slightly bigger desk to work with.

Further adding to the challenge of mobile development is that there are currently over 5500 mobile handsets in the market, each with a variety of features, capabilities and a multitude of possible screen sizes. Handset Content Adaptation is then the next most important layer in the Prezence development process. This specialised methodology enables us to render infinite different versions of the mobi site ‘on the fly’ in order to display perfectly on the individual user's handset regardless of screen size or phone capability.

This incredibly important technology that Prezence have been developing for the past four years also enables us to prevent any ‘dead-ends’ for the user by automatically hiding any features that their phones cannot handle, but also enables advanced features for those more capable mobile handsets. We also build all of our mobi sites with strong future-proof elements to cater for screen sizes and capabilities not yet released by manufacturers. Ultimately, through this sophisticated methodology, we are able to individually tailor the mobile content delivery experience specifically to the user's browsing handset whatever it might be.

How mobilising their content has enhanced Entertainment Africa’s offering
EntertainmentAfrica.mobi now offers a content hungry African market 24-7 access to breaking entertainment news and information on the go.

News and entertainment content is updated in real time, providing users with fast access to breaking entertainment news and celebrity stories. This breaking news is supported with a wealth of in-depth information not available on any other news or mobi site in South Africa. EntertainmentAfrica.mobi effectively now services two very distinct target markets, with considerable overlap: those looking for quick entertainment information and breaking news; and those ‘aficionados’ wanting to find out a lot more from the huge entertainment information repository. EntertainmentAfrica.mobi has now opened up to a potential 12 million more South African users, a figure that is growing rapidly.

EntertainmentAfrica.mobi and its content is also available as a full ‘whitelabel’ service. This means that  brands wishing to integrate this authoritative, up-to-the-minute entertainment content onto their own portals and under their own branding can do so with ease.

What’s to come
The ability for streaming music and video to be played via Entertainment Africa.mobi across a variety of compatible handsets already exists within Prezence and will be deployed after permission is granted from the respective content owners. Our comprehensive CRM profiling tools will also be plugged in shortly enabling users to automatically customise their view and experience on EntertainmentAfrica.mobi based on their music and movie preferences. Enhanced user-generated features are currently being added to the online portal which is undergoing substantial redevelopment which will also be deployed to the mobi site to enable users to write their own reviews, comments and editorial.

In closing
Quality mobile destinations are few and far between in South Africa and across the world. EntertainmentAfrica.mobi has raised the bar considerably; it provides a comprehensive mobile experience, supported by over a million pieces of informative content, as well as multiple competitions and promotions running every day of the week.

We truly believe that EntertainmentAfrica.mobi has helped define a new benchmark for a quality content mobile portal development in South Africa. Not resting on these laurels, Prezence is now aiming to constantly enhance and improve the quality of mobile deployments for brands and online properties worldwide.

Boilerplate
Prezence is one of Africa’s most prominent new media agencies, specialising in taming the complex world of digital technology enabling brands to interactively reach out to their target audiences and beyond. Using the hottest and most innovative technology at its disposal, as well as award winning design and user experience expertise, the agency creates immersive digital experiences across web, mobile and touch screens that are at once highly functional, intuitive, strategically-focused, beautifully-designed and – most importantly – easy to use and enjoy.

URL: http://www.entertainmentafrica.mobi