With the number of people globally connected to broadband set to double by 2015, driven mostly by our collective enthusiasm for mobile devices, higer ed marketers need to review the way they reach out to target audiences.

Amid all the hullaballoo as technologists gawp and whoop over the astonishing uptake of smartphone ownership around the world (the key driver of the increase in broadband connections is the growth in smartphone ownership), there is ongoing discomfort about the role of the tablet computer in all this.

Caught part way between the laptop and the mobile phone, the iPad and its many tablet acolytes offer what at first blush appears to be an awkward half-way house of lightweight scope accompanied by equally lightweight functionality. However, as naysayers get over themselves and realise that tablets are ultimately not ideal for excel or world processing, there is a growing recognition of the value of the tablet in the lives of the (digitally) well connected.

Earlier this year Nielsen estimated tablets were going to be owned by 24% of Australians by the end of the year - up from 8% at the dawning of 2011. Whether those intention-to-purchase statistics evaporate with Australia's other retailing forecasts remains to be seen - but the strong uptake of tablet ownership shows that consumers have identified a value for the tablet, even if marketers are struggling with it.

I've had an iPad for about a year now, and it generally sits around the loungeroom, ready for easy access; most used for quick email checks, googling actors or facts during ad breaks or app usage (such as reading The Age app for the past two days because my paper didnt turn up). The value of the device is its instant start up (the email / web fact check), its portability (my four year old carts it about now and then for read-along type apps and it's an easy thing to throw in the bag on the way to a meeting) and its apps (games/news apps keep everyone else entertained).

One of the key problems with the device (apart from the well-documented manufacturer shortcomings - of lack of capability with flash / no USB inputs / difficulties with outputs etc) and one of the key challenges for marketers is that when I dial up a website, it defaults to simplified mobile sites, despite the screen size easily being able to cope with the detail and content of a regular site. This becomes a source of great frustration, as I am regularly forced back onto the laptop for web searches and bookings so that I can have the full functionality and information that a full site offers.

This is significant because as the majority of the world will be viewing the net on mobile sites by 2015 (according to most technology analysts), there will be an increasing need for mobile sites. However, as time with a tablet will attest, mobile sites with oversimplified functionality can also be a major turnoff for consumers.

Higher education marketers should be confronting this issue now - identifying the best way to reach multiple audiences through mobile platforms, so they can trial new approaches in mobile web delivery before the whole world goes mobile.