Mobile Still an Untapped Opportunity for B2B

I recently completed a Q&A and with Folio's Bill Mickey on the state of mobile in B2B media. You might be surprised to hear that I'm bullish on its prospects.

The first question is below. If you want to see the entire Q&A, you'll have to go read it on the Folio site .

FOLIO: What's your general impression of how far along b-to-b media is with its mobile initiatives?

Sean Griffey: It's wildly varied. Some folks have embraced mobile while others haven't seriously looked at it.

Overall, the response to mobile is eerily similar to how b-to-b responded to the internet in general. When users first started moving online in the 90s, b-to-b media companies had two main responses. They either ignored online because they didn't see money in it or they immediately tried to replicate their print magazines.

Obviously, there are exceptions, but you can see the same response today. The first response for a number of b-to-b publishers was to create iPad versions of their magazines and afrighteningly large number of companies still don't have mobile friendly sites. The lack of innovation in b-to-b mobile is disappointing.

That is, however, starting to change. We are getting approached by an increasing number of b-to-b media companies interested in exploring mobile opportunities. We've actually started licensing parts of our technology stack to help other publishers develop mobile products.

What do you think? Am I crazy? You can get me on Twitter @industrydive or @seangriffey