Over the last year Penn State has done a lot of work to bring its web services up to date. From a redesigned eLion to the new psu.edu, Penn State has realized that the way to attract tech savvy students and keep current students from getting too irritated with stagnated services.

Penn State has also realized the immense pull that mobile technology has on students. m.psu.edu is the mobile site version of Pen  State’s “home on the web.” Some features of the mobile site are more impressive than the full version, while others fall short.

The interface is what you can expect from something optimized for an iPhone. The menu is simple, with a four by four layout (currently only 15 “apps”). Some of these apps are nothing special, like the link to GOPSUSPORTS.com or links to other sites. Then there are the apps that have potential like “PSU On YouTube” and “Wireless 2.0 Configuration.”

Then there are the apps that are actually useful. The campus map is much more efficient than searching for a building on Google Maps or a search engine itself. The “Schedule of Courses” is a condensed version of the full SoC and definitely has potential assuming you don’t need honors courses or IL credits.

The “Bus Tracker” is just like the CATA app. And the “University News” — which basically sums up everything that PSU Live puts out — isn’t bad either, .

Overall I was fairly impressed with the mobile site. It has a lot of potential and can definitely be a boost to a web service that is mainly stuck in the past.