• April 22, 2009

Not exactly a big surprise, but browsing on the mobile Web was found to be 30% slower than on the desktop Internet, according to a study by Web measurement firm Gomez and mobile Web domain registry dotMobi.

The study looked at mobile Web services provided across businesses in the airline, banking and search industries, according to five key elements: readiness, discoverability, speed, success and consistency.

Yahoo topped a group of nine search providers in all five categories, with Amazon, Ask and Google tied for second place, and MSN coming in last. Among the six banking sites rated, Bank of America was first, followed by Chase. In the airline category, AirTran, Continental and Southwest all tied for first.

In a separate, recent study, dotMobi said there were currently more than 1.1 million mobile sites, with that figure continuing to grow rapidly.--Mark Walsh