[Ed. Note: This column continues a series of posts by ALM’s Jeffrey Litvack on Foliomag.com about launching a digital and mobile strategy. To see the other entries, and an expanded version of this column, visit the Blog section on Folio:’s website.]

In my last piece, I laid out the importance of the mobile Web to publishers and dove into two strategic and operational mobile questions that CDOs need to address. Here, I’ll pick up where I left off and address three additional questions.

Which Devices Should You Support?

The first step in deciding which devices to support is to review your mobile data from Omniture or Google Analytics. During this process you should evaluate both the devices that are most in use today and their relative growth over the past six months. Consider breaking this information down into the following categories:

• Smartphones vs. Feature Phones 
• Tablet Devices vs. Smartphones
• Operating Systems (i.e., Android, iOS, etc.)
• Operating System versions (i.e., 6.0, 6.1, 7.0)
• Browser (this is an upcoming category as more users choose to use a browser other than their default mobile browser)

Once you have the data, I suggest focusing your design and development capital by applying the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. At ALM, for instance, when we embarked on the creation of our mobile strategy, we found that 15 percent of our visitors were already accessing ALM content on mobile devices. Of that 15 percent, 80 percent were on Apple devices and more than 90 percent were on smartphones. Equally as important, we identified tablets as the “next” platform for growth.

What Content Should Be Available on the Mobile Website?

Smartphones: Your biggest consideration (and your biggest challenge) is screen size. How do you fit all your Web content onto such a small screen? The answer is: You don’t. You want content that’s to-the-point, easily consumed, and easily read no matter the size of the screen. Everything else should be excluded from your mobile website.

Tablets: Assuming you are going to repurpose, here’s the most important thing to remember—pay attention to inoperability issues with tablets. Two important differences to consider: (a) Flash won’t work on many devices, and all those great infographics may not display properly and (b) Navigating by your finger is different than navigating by a mouse and inherently changes the user’s experience with certain content pieces.

What’s Your Revenue Model?

Many people invest in the mobile Web without understanding the ROI or how it fits in with their overall strategy. Generally, the mobile Web should be an extension of your online and print business models. This means that you’ll need to incorporate access control parameters at launch, and align print and digital ad operations and sales.

Be realistic when projecting your ROI and give the market time to adjust to the new realities and opportunities. This is going to be a big opportunity, it just is going to take more time to develop.

Most publishers will extend their online subscriptions to mobile devices at no additional charge. The only real challenge in doing so is to be sure to redesign the sign-on and subscriptions screens so that they are optimized for smartphone and touch-screen devices.  

Jeffrey S. Litvack is the chief digital officer at ALM.