Mary S. Butler

Even as mobile browsing and pageviews among smartphone users have increased substantially in the past year, 89 and 127 percent respectively, according to M:Metrics, the development of mobile automotive sites has not kept pace.

Consumers who are looking to access third-party and automaker sites from their mobile devices have few to choose from and even fewer that offer an optimum experience.

Third-party automotive mobile sites are best for searching inventory
The few sites that are getting it right are those focused on classified listings. In-market automotive consumers looking to find decision-making advice are better served by their laptops. However, once it’s time to search local dealer inventory, their mobile devices can help them pinpoint what’s available in their area.

The mobile automotive sites with the strongest inventory focus are those from Cars.com and Vehix.com. Both list new- and used-car inventory search as the first two links from their landing screens.

Cars.com Mobile, which launched in June 2007, is the best site for consumers who wish to check out local inventory, find a dealer and get maps and directions. The site also makes it easy to quickly find the make you are looking for – the new-car listings screen displays multiple makes side-by-side. [Full disclosure: I am the former Managing Editor of Cars.com, a position I held until December 2004. However, I did not have any involvement with the current iteration of the Cars.com mobile site.]

The one advantage that Vehix Mobile, which launched in October, has over Cars.com is a cleaner interface. Unfortunately, I was unable to compare inventory results between the two sites because of “internal server” errors I encountered both times I tried to use the Vehix mobile site.

[You can read the rest of my article in the June 2008 issue of headlightblog.com, where it was first published.]

Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, included headlightblog.com in his Ongoing List of Social Media Examples in the Auto and Car Industry post this week. Apparently, our May issue, which was devoted to Social Influence Marketing as it pertains to digital automotive, was well-timed.

Why is this mention noteworthy? For starters, Owyang’s Web Strategy by Jeremiah blog topped Technobabble 2.0’s list of the Top 100 Analyst Blogs, which was posted in February. Also, as the editor of headlightblog.com, I am glad to see that after only two issues the blog is starting to gain notice. Of course, the primary reason for this attention is the high-quality contributions from my talented colleagues, including Shiv Singh, Ben Bloom, Jesse Pickard and Grant Owens (who also doubles as publisher of headlightblog.com).

Another shameless plug: If you are interested in reading more about digital automotive-related topics, check out the upcoming June issue of headlightblog.com, which will be devoted to Mobile, and will feature the contributions of Kyle Outlaw and Terri Walter.

This week my company published the first issue of the Headlight blog, which covers digital automotive trends and insights. I am the editor and my colleague Grant Owens, director of account planning, is the publisher. Our first issue is devoted to Green topics in the digital automotive space.

Next month’s theme is Social Media and is already shaping up to be quite an interesting issue. Social media expert Shiv Singh, director of strategic initiatives at Avenue A | Razorfish, will be covering Social Influence Marketing in the automotive channel and Senior UXA Jesse Pickard will be looking at automaker-created owner sites and how existing customers can be tapped to help lure in-market consumers. Grant and I, along with a few other co-workers, will help round out the May issue.

I have been spending a lot of time this year looking at social networking sites and the opportunities that exist for both car shoppers and automakers. I recently came across a press release for a new site that is touted in the headline as “the first automotive social network.” (Although the folks at CarDomain would rightly claim that is not the case.) Specious claim aside, I went to check out the new site. Unfortunately, the only thing on the CarFolks.com homepage, at least at the time of this posting, is a Flash intro and links to a contact form and to the November 8 launch announcement. Definitely not what I expected after the press release buildup.