Recently, it seems as though computer stores are being taken over by wee little laptops that seem more suited to the hands of children. These NetBooks, as they are called, are a lot smaller than a laptop and can be found for as low as a couple of hundred dollars. It’s no surprise that millions have been sold in just the last couple of years. The big question for anyone creating web content or involved in online marketing is: “How do I make sure I’m creating a positive experience for this growing market of Web users?”
A well known example of a NetBook
Let’s look at how you can target these NetBook users when they are on your site or using your products. A good starting point is to ask “What makes them so different from laptop users?” To answer that, we need to understand a bit more what we are dealing with.
NetBooks have much smaller screens
Since NetBooks are so small, they can’t have glorious 17” LCD screens. The screen resolution on NetBooks is usually 1024 x 600. The problem with that small size is that when you create a web page that’s formatted for a 1024 x 768 screen or larger, the NetBook will only be able to show a somewhat “gun slit” view of your page. I’ve used a few NetBooks, and the last thing you want is your customers feeling that they are looking at your page through a cardboard tube! The good news is that Intel has increased the maximum allowed resolution from 1024 x 600 to 1366 x 768 for new NetBooks. But that’s still a tight squeeze for most web pages which tend to extend vertically. While most users won’t have a problem scrolling up and down, no one wants to have to scroll Left or Right just to see everything on it. This can make navigating them very annoying for the user, and could result in potential customers leaving your site. An east rule of thumb would be to make sure that the really important stuff fits in the 1024 x 600 space that NetBook screens accommodate. You may also want to consider a separately formatted site just for NetBooks. That’s not as crazy an idea as you may think. Developers create separate sites for iPhones all the time, why not NetBooks? Again, there are certainly enough of them out there! Letting users know that your site is “NetBook Friendly” would go a long way to ensuring traffic. That may be the ace in the hole that makes your product stand out from others!! . Now you may also be tempted to just huff and say “Tough luck, get a real computer!”…..but did I mention that there are millions of NetBook users?
1280 x 1024
1280 x 600
Linux is pretty common in NetBook land
Another very important consideration involves the software that’s loaded onto these NetBooks. Unlike the majority of PCs, a far higher percentage of NetBooks come preloaded with Linux. Many of these Linux NetBooks come with Firefox, while others come with Opera and other less popular browsers. So when creating web content, playing it safe by coding for Internet Explorer may not be doing you any favors. Try to write your content for as broad a user base as you can. Not only will it make NetBook users happy, but it’ll also ensure that other non-standard web users are happy as well.
Smaller size also equals less performance
Finally, there’s one other very big concession when it comes to NetBooks……performance! While pretty good at basic web browsing and average quality video, NetBooks are not meant for high end animation and video. So if you have advertisers that run videos, or if you embed a video into your home page, lower its quality or scrap it altogether to make it faster for NetBook users. NetBooks can also struggle with a lot of Flash stuff as well, so you may want to keep the Flash content and video down to a minimum….at least on the main page and any pages that can close a sale. At the very least make sure that whatever you do put up will fit in that 1024 x 600 window. Most of the time “Less is More” is a better way to go with your home page anyway.
The point to all of this is that there are many ways for your potential customers to access your content, and by making that content appropriate for the devices out there just makes good business sense. By making sure that your content is enjoyable to everyone on the Internet, you make your product that much more successful.
