• BusinessWeek, Thursday, May 29, 2008 11:01 AM

There may be only one Internet, but a BusinessWeek report suggests that consumers use the Web differently from their cell phones and personal devices compared to their computers. As one Silicon Valley exec says, "I pretty much live on Google," from his office computer, but from his BlackBerry he spends a lot of time searching for items on Craigslist, and checking weather forecasts and airline schedules.

BusinessWeek calls this the weekend Web, as people spend more time surfing wireless devices on weekends. Google confirms the trend: "At Google, we see the majority of our desktop traffic (in the U.S.) during weekdays," says Matt Waddell, Google Mobile's chief of staff. "On mobile, the situation is completely reversed." According to mobile measurement firm M:Metrics, which was today acquired by comScore, mobile browsing surged 89% in the past year, with mobile page views increasing 127%. The mobile researcher attributes the increase to the proliferation of sophisticated smartphones like Apple's iPhone as well as the growing availability of unlimited data plans.

M:Metrics says the number of unique visitors to mobile sites spikes on Saturdays, up 8% from Fridays, and 4% from Mondays, the next busiest day in terms of traffic for the mobile Web. The most visited mobile site in March was classifieds giant Craigslist, followed by online auctioneer eBay.

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