Service: Mirror Mobile
Owner: Trinity Mirror
What's happened?: Service has launched
The site has the same look and feel as the recently relaunched Mirror.co.uk website - it's bright with plenty of red splashed around. But on my Palm Treo (a terrible phone), all I can see is a big red logo and banner ad, so the first line of the top story is just visible. As all handsets are different, I borrowed one of the many iPhones in our office hoping for a better experience.
The bar for mobile websites is low in the UK and there are only a few decent properties. The Sun launched its mobile site a year ago and now regularly attracts 250,000 people a month to content that is slightly deeper than the Daily Mirror's. But take away the appetite for Page 3 girls and you're looking at two very similar sport and news sites.
Mirror Mobile predictably offers news, sport, celebrity, TV, lifestyle, horoscopes and weather - all of which neatly recognised I was in London and tailored content accordingly.
The homepage gives you a flavour of the top Mirror stories and on an iPhone the experience is pretty slick, the navigation is clear and the depth of content is enough to keep you occupied for a while. The images are large enough to see, but small enough to keep the page loading quickly.
The site's search functionality worked well and there's a good Personalise My Mirror option. Users can customise the content they want to see on the homepage every time they visit. The only let-down was an inability to personalise football content.
There are people who buy into brands and consume them across any platform, but I wonder if the Mirror has that sort of audience? Only time will tell if the depth of content and add-on features of Mirror Mobile allows users to get over the novelty factor and stick with the service.
What's good?
The look, content and navigation.
What could be better?
A more considered approach to the advertising options.
Would I book this for my clients?
Yes. You can't miss the banner ad at the top of the page.
Jim Gyngell, Head of online commercial operations, BLM Quantum.
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