The California Arts Council released a mobile version of its website this week, making the official announcement at the California Festivals and Events Association Conference in San Diego on February 9, 2011. Individuals may now view important informational California Arts Council webpages that have been specifically designed for mobile devices like iPhones, Android phones and Blackberries.

The key informational mobile site released this week is the agency’s “California Arts Festivals” database, a comprehensive listing of festivals throughout the state that emphasize the arts — film, music, theater, visual arts, history, food, dance, ethnic, community, literary, and county fairs. Links to the agency’s Twitter and Facebook pages are also available for mobile devices as well. Other pages that emphasize timely news items in the arts and related fields will be released in the coming weeks.

The California Arts Council’s strategy to include mobile-device pages for web viewers was encouraged by the State of California’s Office of Technology Services. Mobile device access to websites represents a huge market in the internet industry, with 300,000 Android phones and 180,000 iPhones being activated daily. The State of California’s mobile website (www.m.ca.gov) is averaging 1,000 views a day as of early 2011, with the numbers rising daily.

The California Arts Council website is www.cac.ca.gov or www.arts.ca.gov, and the mobile version is www.m.cac.ca.gov. The agency’s website technology will detect interaction via a mobile device automatically when the main California Arts Council website is accessed from an iPhone, Android or Blackberry.

For more information, contact the California Arts Council’s Information Officer Mary Beth Barber at (916) 322-6588, (916) 835-5580 (cell) or mbarber@cac.ca.gov.