Spanish-language television network Univision is redoubling its efforts in mobile via a new touch-optimized portal designed to drive content consumption and ad sales.

The new mobile portal consists of more than 90 sites covering a variety of content, including news, sports, entertainment and lifestyle. With over 100 million monthly mobile page views already, the site will help Univision address the growing demand from its audience for content that can be easily consumed via a smartphone.

?Univision wanted to be able to deploy a wide breadth of their content across a wide variety of devices,? said Tom Burke, CEO at Trilibis Mobile, San Mateo, CA. ?They are really making sure that their content, no matter what kind of device, is really getting the optimum experience it can get on that device at that time.

?A portal such as this allows brands and content owners to focus on their product and not have to be concerned about the nuances of delivering content across a wide variety of devices,? he said.

Time to upgrade
Previously, Univision had a very simple WAP site. However, with a growing portion of its audience buying smartphones, Univision decided it was time to upgrade its mobile presence.

The network teamed up with Trilibis to build the portal using Trilibis? scalable, cloud-based mobile publishing platform SmartPath.

A touch-screen experience is available for high-end devices. Other features available for smartphones include swipable image galleries and an expanding collapsible menu on the first screen so users can see all the viewing choices.

A non-touch experience for feature phones is also available.

To simplify the delivery of content across Univision?s more than 90 sites, the two companies built a flexible mobile content management and publishing layer that pulls content from over 100 different feeds.

The mobile portal also takes advantage of HTML5 technology and includes reusable components that dynamically construct the layout, menu and navigation for each mobile site within the portal.

As a result of these features, Univision will be able to easily launch new sites and add new content across its portal.

?The size and breadth of the site is amazing,? Mr. Burke said. ?It is a product that Univision really would have had a hard time developing using traditional methodology.

Advertising opportunities
The new portal is also designed to support Univision?s advertising and sponsorship initiatives to create promotional and campaign oriented mobile pages and sites.

Because Univision is an advertising-supported business, the amount of time spent on the site is important because want to be where their targeted audiences are.

Mobile users are increasingly watching entertainment, news and sports content via their smartphones and by providing a richer experience, content owners are able to drive more video viewing and encourage viewers to spend more time on the site, per Trilibis.

?When you give users a better performing experience, in a matter of months you can see doubling of page views,? Mr. Burke said.

Univision is selling its own advertising inventory for the site and focusing on developing promotional sites for brands to get a larger share of the ad buy. Some of the initial advertisers include Nokia, Kraft and Chevron. The ads are targeted based on content, location and device.

?They are selling more than just banner ads,? Mr. Burke said. ?They are creating micro sites through sponsorships for various different advertisers.

?When consumers click on the ad, they are being taken to a mobile optimized site that usually has a call to action and the information is optimized for that device,? he said.

?In general, we have seen pretty significant increases when advertisers use these types of mobile optimized campaigns.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York