FoundLocally announces Mobile/Smart phone version now in “beta”

FoundLocally.com Media Inc. has released its mobile version of its flagship FoundLocally.com website as “beta”. This new version provides full access to the extensive informational content and the business directory on most brands of mobile smartphones without an “App”. The mobile site is accessible at http://m.FoundLocally.com ** which links to the 30 cities coast-to-coast covered by FoundLocally.com.

The FoundLocally community websites’ 50,000 pages of content have been re-purposed for optimal smartphone functionality. Over 300 forms and reports were re-programmed for mobile phone viewing, on a much narrower screen than the desktop version. For example, additional functionality was added to enable users to dial phone numbers, as well as send emails using their smartphone’s e-mail capability. Apple iPhone users can also add a FoundLocally icon to their smartphone’s Home Screen.

“During the development cycle, we were involved in a market research project with Calgary’s Mount Royal University,’ said the company’s General Manager, Mark Ruthenberg, “and we quickly realized the number one App on all platforms was Google, and since we typically ranked on first page of search-results there, we saw no advantage to creating an App competing with Google, just to provide access for mobile users.This saved us having to develop (and to maintain) different App versions for each platform.

To toggle between the desktop version and the mobile versions of the website, the JUMP feature was expanded. It previously enabled website visitors to jump to the same content (even the same business search results) in neighbouring FoundLocally communities. They now can also jump to the same content in the other version with a mouse-click or screen tap. This approach lets Table users (such as Apple’s iPad) select their preferred interface.

** UPDATE: in summer of 2015, we replaced the mobile site version for FoundLocally.com, MovingInCanada.com and TransCanadaHighway.com with responsive version to handle mobile + tablet users with a single website