NY Dog Nanny's Mobile Makeover (gomobileads.blogspot.com)

With mobile web usage on the rise, companies of all sizes are clamoring to hammer out their mobile strategies, but some smaller companies aren't properly equipped to execute them. Google, friendly giant that it is, wants to help fix that. Today, they announced that they're offering a tool aimed at local businesses to help make their sites more mobile-friendly.

According to the blog post:

"Starting today, you can create a free mobile site directly from howtogomo.com using a tool powered by DudaMobile. This do-it-yourself site builder, customized specifically for GoMo users, easily converts regular websites into mobile-friendly sites in five simple steps. And it allows you to add features like a click-to-call button, mobile maps and Google AdSense. Sites that are created with the GoMo-DudaMobile tool will be hosted free for one year."

In a gesture of good faith (and good marketing prowess), Google gave three small New York businesses an early look at the tool, including dog sitting service NY Dog Nanny, Mexican restaurant Mexicue and limousine service Automotive Luxury. Google thinks that arming these companies with well-designed mobile sites will help increase their business.

We first reported on GoMo last year when Google originally rolled out the initiative. Back then, they existed primarily as a portal to match up businesses with mobile site designers. By partnering with DudaMobile, GoMo is now actually offering a platform for mobile site building, so that small businesses can avoid having to pay an agency to do it for them.

But like everything in this world, the GoMo site builder costs something eventually. Mobile sites will be hosted for free for the first year--after that, the hosting cost will be up to the business. C'est la fee.

I'm a little hung over

Google rolled out its new GoMo initiative today. It's designed to help business owners optimize their sites for mobile. Google tells a little story about a customer who goes to a website from their smartphone and had a frustrating experience. They leave and never come back. Sad for the small business. Sad for Google.

There is no mention in this blog post of how fragmented the mobile experience has become, especially on Android. But read between the lines and that is the issue GoMo hopes to address.

Google sees a bright future in mobile advertising, with more people expected to go online with smartphones than PCs by 2013. Mobile is the platform for consumption. Users look for local information and reach out to merchants with a phone call. Despite how slick apps are, 63 percent of mobile users prefer to do their shopping through the web. 50 percent of mobile searches lead to purchases.  The company has seen the search market in mobile grow 4x since 2010. And it's the fastest growing part of their advertising revenue by far, on pace to more than double by next year, according to CEO Larry Page.

For now GoMo is largely a portal, offering companies a list of developers and agencies that can help them build a mobile site for anywhere between $1,000 and $75,000 dollars. But it also feeds curious businesses directly into Google's mobile ad sales and the companies site builder.

"It's really about giving tools that make it easy," says David Barkoe, the marketing director for Netbiscuits, based out of New York."Our platform really helps businesses solve the problem of fragmentation. Write once, render anywhere." It's the same pain point being addressed by Medialets, where Mr. Barkoe worked until this summer.

Netbiscuits has a self-service platform that lets companies take advantage of the best in HTML5 and javascript, adding in mobile features like SMS, geo-location, email integration and touch enabled features. As the backend for eBay and the mobile checkout engine for Paypal, Netbiscuits have deep experience with e-commerce on the go.

The firm's most recent study found that, "Of the 17 basic HTML5 features tested, only four (Offline Web Application Support, Geolocation API, 2D Animation Rendering and Webstorage) are supported by a clear majority of the top 10 devices in North America. The other 13 HTML5 features tested are only partly supported, or not supported at all, by top devices."

You only have to go back to the widely read post from Michael DeGusta about the history of support on Android to see that Google's problems far outstrip Apple's. To address this Google seems to be building solutions for the different parts of the mobile ecosystem. Back in February, it introduced new developer tools intended to combat these issues in between phones and tablets.

And while the purchase of Motorola makes sense in terms of the patent portfolio, it also gives Google a foothold in the hardware business, meaning the company could begin to push a line of flagship phones that might do more than Nexus to standardize Android handsets.

Anyone got the password?

The savvy folks at Fusible picked up on a new service from Google based on the search giants purchase of several domain names. Google seems to be offering a way to optimize any site for mobile with a service called GoMo. This is the game that New York startup OnSwipe is playing, giving publishers and WordPress blogs a simple way to get their site's looking good on smartphones and tablets. The entrance of a big player like Google to the space is sure to shake things up.

During the TechStars TV show on Bloomberg, Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson declared that OnSwipe was a "bridge solution", and the companies who played that game five years ago are all gone now. "Make me puke," said Mr. Wilson. "There were all these companies out there four or five years ago that were bridge solutions for people to publish on mobile devices. None of them are around anymore. There is a whole bunch of people who are doing this for tablets and none of them are going to be around anymore."

Jon Mitchell over at ReadWriteWeb points out that Google has a vested interest in growing the mobile web, where it sees a burgeoning ad market. Google currently has a pretty spare service that helps websites go mobile, but GoMo seems like a much more focused effort. The more businesses that have sharp, mobile ready sites, the more ads Google will display through its Android platform.