If you were asked to name the most mobile-friendly city in America, you probably would guess New York, San Francisco or Seattle. But according to Buzzboard’s Mobile Readiness Index, it’s Frisco, Texas (near Dallas).
The Buzzboard data focus on business websites rather than consumer mobile device penetration, which is nearing 80 percent, according comScore. On the other end of the spectrum, Patterson, New Jersey ranks as the least mobile-ready city in the US, says Buzzboard:
Source: Buzzboard
The company generated these findings from a database of roughly 20 million local business listings. The sites analyzed are mostly small businesses, but larger entities are present in the database, as well. The scores in the charts above refer to whether the cities over- or under-index based on the national average.
Essentially, the index is documenting the percentage of businesses in a city that have mobile-friendly sites. Below are the scores for San Francisco and New York:
The opportunity factor cited above, according to the company, is “the potential economic development in each city to make its local businesses mobile-ready. The Opportunity Factor takes into account the digital readiness of the city and the total number of businesses in the city. The higher the Opportunity Factor, the higher the potential for economic growth.”
The argument is that mobile-ready cities (and the included businesses) are going to see more growth and economic activity than those cities where mobile readiness is lower. The index thus tries to argue that broader communities benefit when more local businesses are mobilized.
I haven’t seen any other recent data comparing the mobile friendliness of US cities. Google and Bing likely have a view on this. It would be interesting to see their data and how well it corresponds to the Buzzboard data.
You can investigate your own city here.
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