We’ve been hearing about the three revolutions that are currently altering the Web a lot, and not the least in this year’s LeWeb conference baseline: SO (social) LO (local) MO (mobile). EU institutions have always had « local » as part of their communication strategies, and they are now slowly accepting the social component in their communication activities, but what about the mobile revolution?

Slowly moving towards mobile-friendly EU websites

Not all EU institutions have made the jump to mobile, and when they have done so it is in a low profile way and with many caveats:

• The European Parliament has recently launched a mobile-friendly version of their main website, which offers a simplified navigation and a nice way of browsing their otherwise very content-heavy and rich site.
• It’s very hard to find out about the mobile-friendliness of sites from the European Commission, because there are about 460 of them and they’re built on many different web platforms and technologies. A Google search and a visit to the Europa site seems to indicate there is not yet a mobile-friendly version available.
• The European Council launched a mobile-friendly site during its June meeting, but it was only shared among journalists at the moment and doesn’t seem to have been widely promoted since.
• The Council of the European Union does not yet have a mobile-friendly website.

That being said, the two mobile-friendly versions mentioned above are still in their infancy, with basic yet functional features and a blatant lack of sharing features on news items. My personal feeling is that there will only be seriously good mobile versions once the institutions’ websites also undergo a serious overhaul, in particular of their content management systems which are far from being mobile-friendly.

2012, the year of the first EU mobile apps?

There is no doubt senior management in the EU institutions understand the importance of being present on mobile devices. Moving to truly usable mobile-friendly websites may however take some more years, while it is actually more interesting to develop some targeted and well thought mobile apps that would naturally have to be available on all major mobile platforms.

For a thorough review of existing iPhone and iPad apps on offer today, I’ve just written an article on my personal blog that you can have a look at: The best free iPhone and iPad apps on the EU (European Union).

Ideas for useful mobile apps from the EU institutions aren’t hard to find: from a mobile app to follow the status of EU legislation to a mobile app about my rights as an EU citizen in specific mobility contexts (taking a plane or a train abroad, falling sick abroad, looking for a university course abroad, checking out consular rights in a non-EU country, etc.), the concrete domains in which the EU is active allow for many potential apps to be developed.

I’m pretty sure that next year will see the first mobile apps of European institutions arrive on mobile app stores. A truly inter-institutional application would work miracles for EU professionals (whether they work with or for the institutions) but I’m afraid we won’t see that in 2012. Except if we can get it crowd-sourced and accepted a posteriori by the institutions…

Would you follow EU communication products on your mobile device?

So, for all mobile aficionados, patience, we are getting there. In the meantime, to help the institutions make up their minds about the public’s interest for mobile products, you can always take the short survey I created (5 min) – I’ll make sure it arrives on the desk of heads of communication in the Parliament, the Commission and the Council!