According to reports from Dell Inc. the value of purchases made by people through their mobile phones has now exceeded the average order value of purchases being made by users online.

Dell Inc. launched their complete mobile store applications for Android devices and iPhones some time ago and they have found that the average amount being spent on purchases through mobile is 25% higher than it is for online purchases.

The fastest selling item, the Inspiron 15R laptop is the most popular model for both mobile as well as online sales. This laptop ranges in price from $550 to $800, showing that users are not unwilling to make high value purchases from their mobile phones.

Brandon McGee, Director of Global Mobile at Dell says, “From a download and revenue perspective, the Android app is performing extremely well and reaching its goals. The iPhone app is performing twice as well as Android.”

In order to further strengthen mobile online sales, Dell suggests that in order to develop a successful mobile commerce site entrepreneurs should offer a secure site with prominently displayed lock icons on check out buttons, have a clean and easy to use interface that contains all technical and other specifications about the product being sold and also includes user reviews and provide tools to help users select products, such as the Compare feature and the Shop Assist tool used by Dell.

Promoting the mobile commerce site on popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and on third party blogs and even via email has proved to be very helpful to Dell.

Success levels of these apps have been high enough to warrant Dell to invest in tablet apps, which are likely to be launched soon in order to further enhance their mobile commerce offering.

During the third quarter of the year, brands allocated 20% more on paid search campaigns, but many of them received a lower net ROI from search, according to a study by Efficient Frontier.

This should come as no surprise as the uptake of mobile search has increased dramatically over the past few years, and the corresponding consumption of media and search via these Internet-connected devices is bound to increase.

A graph charting the interest over time in ‘mobile video’ illustrates how the consumption of media on smartphones and tablet devices has grown steadily in the past couple of years. Advertisers are naturally going to follow suit.

Trend in volume of searches for ‘mobile video’ from 2008 to date

Mobile ad spend is likely to amount to between 7-10% of all ad spend by the end of this year. Tablets account for 77% of this amount, showing that they have become a very important part of this market.

Over the course of the last 12 months, mobile search spend increased from 0.5% to 4.2%, representing a 740% year-on-year growth in the market. For retail advertisers in the USA, mobile spend currently represents 7% of search spend and tablets represent 60% of all mobile impressions and clicks.

This seems to be quite a logical use of the mobile Web, as users naturally need to find out many things about a place they are new to. At such a time the mobile is the handiest and most easily available gadget to help them.

For instance, when a user ends up in a location unexpectedly, the user could find an appropriate hotel to stay in by searching for nearby accommodation. Similarly, if the user needed to make a booking for a flight to or from a particular location, the mobile would be very useful.

It has been found that mobile devices are used during all stages of travel, right from the initial research to planning, experiencing and sharing of the experience.

Google has revealed that about 19% of all hotel queries are now conducted through mobiles.

Analysts at eMarketer predict that the number of U.S. consumers making use of mobile for travel planning will rise from 19.7 million in 2010 to 29.7 million in 2012.

This growing use of mobile for travel related requirements is a good opportunity for marketers to reach a larger audience. In order to improve their performance, marketers should show location related ads to travelers. Click-To-Call and easy to download ads also improve client compliance. Tablet devices are fast becoming very popular and campaigns should also be catered to these devices.

Mobile advertising for finance companies has grown 802% year-on-year. The top 6 sectors that have shown substantial growth in mobile advertising are:

1. Finance (802%)
2. Retail and restaurants (745%)
3. Telecommunications (719%)
4. Travel (411%)
5. Armed forces (372%)
6. Entertainment (315%)

One of the major factors for this growth in mobile advertising spend by the financial services industry could be because consumers who wish to manage their money more closely during the recession are increasingly making use of their mobiles to keep track of their banking, credit and investments at all times.

Within the financial services sector, the leading sub-sectors, in terms of mobile advertising spend on Millenial’s network were as follows:

1. Banking (38% of Finance sector’s spend)
2. Car insurance (20%)
3. Life insurance (15%)
4. Home loans (12%)

Some may be surprised by the presence of the U.S. armed forces on the list. However, if one considers the facts that teenagers are the most prolific users of mobile technology and that teenagers are also the prime demographic targeted by the armed forces for recruitment, the numbers are not that surprising.

An important factor driving the growth of mobile advertising as a whole is the fact that it allows advertiser the flexibility to choose between various types of customer contact options, including ring backs, form submission, coupon downloads and store locators.

Users thus get a wider choice, and are therefore more likely to respond to the ads  at their convenience without feeling imposed upon. The net result being that advertisers often receive a better response and conversion rate.

Mobile engagement methods used by finance services providers

Reports from Enders Analysis, a mobile and media research company, show that 2011 is expected to be the year when mobile advertising would come into its own. In fact, since the price of mobile ads is even lower than that of online ads, in most categories, the growth of mobile ads may adversely affect the online advertising industry. Enders predicts that by 2015, mobile advertising will account for 9.5% of all online advertising.

Last September, rumours that Facebook was making its own mobile phone were fueled by posts on TechCrunch and Bloomberg. Both reported on tips from anonymous sources that Facebook had started making their own mobile phone. Facebook was supposedly manufacturing the required software, and the hardware was to be made by another manufacturer.

The continued growth and popularity that mobile social networking and Facebook in particular were enjoying made it seem logical that Facebook would try to integrate their apps into mobile phones. Since this was only possible if they had control over the operating system, it was believed that they would want to make their own handsets.

The rumours had even pinpointed two employees – Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos – who were supposed to be secretly working on the project.

Facebook was reported to be in talks with INQ Mobile to build the phone and AT&T was believed to be the chosen carrier, although nothing was finalised. The social network was supposedly considering the development of 2 handset models, one with a full QWERTY keyboard and the other with just a touch screen. The p hones were expected to be very reasonably priced.

These rumours were then laid to rest when a Facebook spokesperson clarified to Mashable that they were only interested in making mobile apps more social and not in building phones.

Now, the rumours have started afresh ever since a description of INQ’s new mobile phone surfaced. The description of the new phone was obtained via the Blutooth certification that was recently awarded to the device.

The new INQ phone is supposed to be an “Android smartphone built to make messaging faster and smarter”. It’s designed around the way people naturally communicate and has Facebook built into its core. The homescreen features multiple entry points to different Facebook functions, while a dynamic widget displays a feed of status updates, albums, videos and photos.

While a lot of the speculation leads one to believe that the original rumours were probably true, only a handful of people are in a position to verify the truth. Facebook did deny the rumours at the early stage. Though, that could be because it was probably too premature to admit to anything back in October. Whether Facebook denies this new set of rumours or not might give a better indication of the truth.

Reports from Performics Inc. indicate that by the end of 2011, Mobile Google paid search will generate 16% of all Google paid search clicks. This figure was only about 3.5% in January 2010.

The surge in the growth of mobile paid search has already begun in the last few months of 2010. However, conversion rates from mobile search advertisements are lower than those from paid search on desktops.

James Beveridge, a senior analyst at Performics says, “Conversion rates are still lower for mobile search than desktop, suggesting that advertisers should focus on improving mobile site experience.”

Imran Khan of JP Morgan believes that monetising mobile search is the most important opportunity for Google this year. He finds that while mobile search queries have grown over 5 times in the last couple of years, and still continues to grow, only 3% of Google’s search advertising revenue comes from mobile and Google should now focus on strengthening this sector.

Robert Hamilton, Google’s own product manager for mobile search also says that mobile search usage has gone up by 130% in the third quarter of 2010 and the amount of search traffic on Android tripled during the first half of 2010. He also estimates that the number of mobile phones in use worldwide will reach 5 billion soon, and by 2014, there will be more mobile Internet users than wired Internet users.

Getting Mobile PPC Right

All facts point to the obvious conclusion – Google needs to concentrate on mobile PPC now. However, just like video, mobile has proved to be a difficult channel for Google to monetise.

Over the years Google has tested various mobile ad placements. Currently, ads are shown above and below the search results, depending on the nature of the query. Only time and extensive testing will tell what ad format and placement will work best for Google Mobile Search.

Paid search traffic on Google Mobile is about 4% of the total PPC traffic, and that is almost double the market share that Bing enjoys. Also, it was found that mobile search in general has increased 247% compared to the previous year, while desktop search has actually gone down by 15%.

Click through rates for mobile search average around 1.32% whereas for desktop search the average is closer to 1.1%. This fact alone should be an eye opener to small and medium-sized business owners who find it increasingly difficult to drive traffic through regular PPC search ads due to rising costs per click.

Moreover, mobile search is popular for localised search queries. Local stores, service providers and small business owners focusing on a local area can take advantage of mobile search to improve their business much more so than large, nationalised businesses can.

Finally, the investment that SMEs may have to make in mobile advertising in the form of click-to-call and expandable map ads is more likely to pay rich dividends, making the overall value proposition for mobile much more compelloing.

A growing number of users access the mobile Internet every day and a large number of these users also make purchases via their mobiles. At the same time, a growing number of smartphones and feature phones now ship with integrated GPS receivers.

Continued growth in usage of both the mobile Web and mobile geo-positioning systems will definitely result in an increasing use of the combination of these services in the form of mobile local search.

When smartphones were first introduced, the cost of the handset and other technological accompaniments such as the user interface, processors and GPS was extremely high. Thus, only a few people could afford to use these services.

Now, however, the cost of these products and services has dropped considerably, making it more affordable for consumers in general to use such services. These features have also become more user friendly, further encouraging buyers to make use of them.

Many location-based services and location-enabled apps are also being developed to exploit the boom in mobile social networking. Mobile apps that tie-in social networking with geo-location awareness are growing in popularity with phenomenal speed.

Juniper’s study predicts that browser-based services will continue to dominate local search, but applications from app stores will also hold a large share of the information services market.

The total revenues from all mobile location-based services is predicted to be in the range of $12.7 billion by 2014. Advertising will account for a large portion of this revenue, but it may not be the primary source of revenue.

Juniper Research has arrived at these findings based on interviews, case studies and analysis of information available from the leading organisations in the mobile industry.

The company reported at the Mobile World Congress panel hosted by the Mobile Marketing Association that they earned $100 million through mobile advertising and mobile marketing. Their total revenue for the first nine months of 2009 was $4.27 billion.

Of the total revenues Turkcell earned over the year, about one-third the amount was generated through mobile advertising, while the rest was generated through mobile marketing.

What is even more impressive is the fact that the head of Turkcell’s mobile marketing and advertising division, Melis Tuerkman says that the company expects to increase this total by a further 60% this year through mobile advertising and marketing.

Tuerkman explains that the sector is growing very rapidly. In 2005, the total revenue from mobile marketing and advertising was a mere $1.5 million.

Turkcell has been an aggressive and successful proponent of mobile advertising. They lead the way in investigating new sources of revenue for mobile network operators.

Mobile search has grown 5-fold for Google in the past year. A slew of Android-based devices are hitting the market this year, and the Nexus One aims to be one of the best. Google’s mobile phone’s features include:

1. Nexus One phone hardware includes a 3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen touchscreen interface with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, Wi-Fi, GSM EDGE, Bluetooth and a trackball
2. The phone will run on the Android 2.1 mobile platform
3. Basic features include a compass, gps, accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor
4. 2 microphones on the Nexus One allow noise cancellation
5. The phone is 11.5mm thin and weighs just 130 grams (with battery)
6. 5 megapixel cam + LED flash. 1-click upload to YouTube
7. 5 home screen panels to add more widgets
8. Live wallpapers – including animation – will sit behind widgets on the home screen
9. Live wallpapers are interactive and react to touch!
10. 3D framework introduced into the Android platform
11. Quick photo loading, 3D gallery and photo clustering
12. Google Earth for mobile due to be released soon
13. Voice activated searching and GPS-based search localisation
14. Voice enabled ALL text fields in the device, which means you can speak your emails, tweets, facebook updates

The Nexus One will be sold exclusively online via the Google website:

www.google.com/phone

Unlocked phones will be sold for $529. Alternatively, users can buy a subscription to T-Mobile and get the operator-subsidised phone available for $179.

Pricing of the Nexus One is disappointing, and this sentiment was reflected by some of the attendees at the press conference. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, had in the past voiced hopes that we may one day see an ad-supported mobile phone. They seem now to be falling short of their own hopes.

Vodafone will be the first operator to sell the phone in the UK. Spring 2010 is the estimated time Google has given for the UK launch of their new mobile phone. Users on other networks can simply plug in the other netowrk operator’s  SIM card.

At the Q & A session following the press conference, Google mentioned that the core revenues and income they aim to gain from the mobile phone business is not meant to be from sales of the hardware but from the usage of their mobile search service and the ensuing mobile advertising.

Vlingo’s list has been compiled after studying the data they have collected in 2009 across the millions of searches conducted using their service.

Over three million people worldwide currently use Vlingo’s services on their mobile phones. All they need to do is simply speak into their handset, to carry out various tasks such as sending mails, searching the Web or even to update their Facebook status.

According to their findings, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace hold the top 3 positions in the list, which only goes to prove, how popular social networks have become, even on the mobile Web.

Dave Grannan, President and CEO of Vlingo says, “unlike traditional Web searches that focus on specific search terms, such as Michael Jackson or Twilight, our data shows that on mobile phones, people tend to search for specific destination sites and resources.”

The findings are not too surprising, though, as navigational searches are extremely popular even on the wired Web. On the mobile Web, users find it a lot easier to speak the name of the site they wish to visit than having to key in an entire URL on the phone’s number pad.

The top 10 voice-powered mobile searches, according to Vlingo, are:

1. YouTube
2. Facebook
3. MySpace
4. Weather
5. Movie Times
6. Twitter
7. Yellow Pages
8. MapQuest
9. Craigslist
10. White Pages

A survey of 22,000 US consumers conducted by BIGresearch shows that consumers are increasingly expressing a negative attitude towards mobile marketing.

The percentage of people who are not in favour of mobile marketing has grown since June 2008.

67% of consumers surveyed said they dislike text ads, up from 64% in 2008. 60% dislike voicemail ads, also up from 57% in 2008. And 60% dislike video ads, up from 56% in 2008.

In fact, 52% of consumers surveyed actually felt that mobile marketing is an invasion of privacy. This number too is up from 2008.

The majority of users expressed the view that marketers should take prior permission before sending any such ads to consumers.

These findings are sure to give some sleepless nights to mobile marketers, who must now find a way to get their ads across to users without upsetting them, as that would defeat the whole purpose of advertising.

On a more general note, it was found that the mobile marketing audience consists of 58% males. The average age of these users is 39.2 years. These users also tend to access social networks in large numbers. 38% use Facebook, 23% use MySpace and 13% use Twitter on a regular basis.

AdMob is based in Silicon Valley and was founded by Omar Hamoui in 2006.

Google has agreed to pay $750 million for this acquisition which will help them to improve their mobile advertising technology. So far Google has been concentrating on Mobile search ads, while AdMob’s specialty is mobile display ads and in-application ads.

Besides helping improve Google’s technology, this deal is sure to bring cheer to publishers of mobile websites and applications as it will provide them with better tools for monetization, thus helping them to offer better services to their users.

It will also help advertisers to reach out to their audiences on the mobile web by providing them with more relevant ads through engaging formats.

Eventually these changes are good for the user, who will receive better mobile content, information and ads which will be useful to him for free or through low-cost mobile apps.

In other words this deal is a win-win situation for all concerned and will be good for the future of the mobile web which has already been gaining in importance in the recent past.

Go Mobile! provides tips to help marketers realise how best to reach their mobile clients. Google aims to make the site helpful to both new comers to the mobile marketing as well as to experienced marketers.

At present, the Go Mobile! site merely provide a one-page write-up with tips on mobile marketing, as follows:

Mobilise your website – if pages are specifically formatted for the mobile browsers, it becomes easier and faster for the user to see the highlights of the products or services being offered, thus saving the user’s time and improving the chances of making a sale.

Know your place – instead of asking the user for his location, make use of information from the mobile browser, or use Google Maps or other applications to know the customer’s location, thus impressing customers and providing more locally relevant information.

Offer ways to engage at any time – Since the mobile handset is always with the user, the marketer can engage them by providing a QR code or a phone number on a bus, for example, or by creating a downloadable mobile game to reinforce the brand.

Help customers spread the word – Encourage users to take part in events and ad campaigns etc. by sending MMS, IM, email etc to their friends.

Help them find you – make use of the ad products which Google offers to place relevant ads alongside the mobile search results when a customer is looking for something.

These basic steps are more common-sense than strategy, but could help marketers focus their mobile marketing initiatives more effectively.

Google Go Mobile!

Yahoo! has now started serving ads from the Yahoo! Search Marketing system on mobile phones. These ads are served on all smart phones including iPhones and Android mobile handsets.

Ads on Yahoo! Mobile Search

The best part about this new feature for marketers and advertisers is that unlike Google AdWords, the Yahoo! Search Marketing system will not require the usual process of creating new campaigns, mining keywords and writing new ads.

Standard sponsored search ads are displayed automatically on mobile search results pages. The ads are just 2 lines long, consisting of the ad title and the display URL.

One ad is displayed at the top of the search results page and two more ads are displayed at the bottom of the page.

All advertisers will be able to reach an ever increasing audience of mobile Internet users with the introduction of this new feature.

Marketers who wish to specifically target mobile search users will also be able to continue using the Yahoo! Mobile Sponsored Search service at:

Yahoo! Mobile Sponsored Search

Mobile search volumes have been a long-requested feature that Google representatives have been historically reluctant to share. Speculators always concluded that this was due to the low volume of mobile searches.

The new feature is not immediately obvious in the new keyword tool. Advertisers need to click the “Advanced Options” link and then check the “Show stats for: Mobile search” box.

The network statistics setting allows advertisers to change search volume data to show mobile device statistics only. This setting changes only search performance columns and does not affect traffic estimate columns.

Mobile website owners and mobile search marketing agencies will welcome this new feature as it finally gives them the ability to estimate PPC costs and traffic volumes they can expect from search.

A quick review of the mobile search volumes shows that even in popular mobile search categories such as local information and gaming, the volume of mobile searches is a mere fraction – as low as 0.3% – 0.6% of traditional Web searches for the same 1-word keyword queries.

The number of mobile websites has been growing rapidly, and so has the number of mobile Web users. The number of mobile websites has now grown to almost 2 million while an estimated 31% of mobile phone users browse the mobile web at least once a month, to look up routine things such as weather, news and search.

While mobile websites are improving in general, the report from the Yankee Group found that only 4 of them received good usability scores. These were Google, Google News, Yahoo! and MLB.com.

Carl Howe, a director at Yankee Group, says, “Unlike last year, most of the sites we reviewed adapt their content to many differing feature phones and smartphones. And some companies are also starting to incorporate location-awareness, something other sites should strive to emulate.”

Of the 27 sites studied, it was found that for news, both Google and Yahoo! have done well and scored 73 points each. They have managed to walk the tight rope between providing sufficient information and flooding the user with excessive details.

Again, in the field of search, Google has retained the number one slot as would be expected with 81 points and is followed quite closely by Yahoo! with 76 points. Yahoo! just needs to strengthen itself regarding some of the relatively minor features such as extraneous content and HTML validation errors.

In the field of sports, the Major League Baseball mobile site scores 71 points and is followed by Rival.com with 58 points and ESPN.com with 57 points.

As far as U.S. mobile carriers are concerned, they all need to improve their own mobile presence. Sprint, though not very good, is the best with just 53 points.

Read the full report: Best Of Anywhere Web 2009

In fact a few months ago Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt had even said that “mobile Search revenues will overtake those on the PC within a few years”.

Google hopes that PC and mobile searches will soon become identical, and to facilitate that they have already incorporated some new features into their search engine.

It is now possible for users to conduct searches on PC’s as well as on mobiles with improved search results, which are restricted to specific time periods such as month or year. The page summaries now available are also more detailed than they used to be and the introduction of the Wonder Wheel has further improved the result quality by providing related queries.

It is also possible to coordinate searches across various platforms like mobile phones, notebooks and set top boxes etc. with the availability of better developer tools and user interfaces.

According to a recent study carried out by Google and researchers at Stanford University, searches conducted on the latest smart phones are more akin to searches conducted on PC’s than to those on the older generation of mobile phones. The average length of a smart phone query is now nearly three words, while that on an ordinary phone is only 2.5 words.

According to Google different types of handsets require different search interfaces to operate, and that of the smart phones is now looking similar tot hat of the PC’s and users of smart phones would be able to avail of more personalized features for their search operations.

The newly formed alliance will be capable of providing search services to China telecom’s wireless subscribers across the entire country, of which about 33 million are CDMA subscribers while about 43 million are PHS subscribers.

Users will be able to receive solutions to almost any query sent by SMS, SIM card, OTA application, or menu operations which are preloaded on certain new handsets.

The search providers will give almost instantaneous answers to questions related to a variety of topics ranging from the latest news and weather to education or knowledge and business directories.

The service will initially be available only in the important markets of the country, but by the second half of 2009 the service will be accessible all over the country.

According to reports from Analysys International, mInfo is the clear market leader for search solutions in China. They are also on the final selection list along with Baidu as search partners for Unicom, which is the other major mobile service provider in China.

mInfo had also been chosen by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic games as the official search providers for the games.

In the meantime mInfo’s competitor Baidu has announced that they will be providing search services to the 3G subscribers of China Telecom, as they have formed a partnership with China Telecom’s directory information service which is known as Best Tone.

Reports from Forrester predict a high rate of growth for all the online sectors, but growth rates will be especially high for mobile advertising and social network advertising.

The overall growth for the online sector is expected to be a respectable 17% in the six year span from 2008 to 2014. However, the rate of growth for the mobile advertising industry is expected to be much higher, at about 27% per year, and for social network advertising, the growth is expected to be at an explosive rate of 34% per year compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Actual figures are likely to go from the current $716 million to $3.1 billion during the six-year period ending in 2014. The overall interactive marketing spend in the U.S. is expected to just double, from $25.5 billion to $55 billion during the same period.

Forrester Research Vice President and Research Director, Christine Overby said, “Marketers don’t need to start revolutions in order to innovate, they need to solve problems”. She further says, “Social technologies allow for accessible innovation where the risks and costs are not as high, but the return is significant”.

The Mobile Search Benchmark is a means of ranking mobile search providers, with regards to five different criteria. They are, discoverability, readiness, availability, response time and consistency for a search operation carried out through a mobile handset.

Only the larger, better-known search providers have been considered for this survey. The selection was based on comScore’s Expanded Search Query Report published in July 2008.

Nine companies were selected for this survey: Yahoo!, Amazon, Ask, Google, AOL, Craigslist, eBay, MySpace and MSN. Facebook was not included in this survey, as their mobile web applications did not meet the technical requirements of this study.

To ensure a uniform playing field for all participants, a predetermined task was set out, with a fixed set of steps to be used while performing the search operation on each participating provider. One had to first navigate to the home page of the mobile web site, type a search query, and then click on ‘search’. The search results page would then be displayed and would show the search result obtained for that specific query, which were then graded.

According to the study, Yahoo! has currently been ranked the best site for mobile search operations. The provider rankings within individual categories were as follows:

Discoverability

Ability of a consumer to discover the location of a company’s mobile site on the Web.

1. Google
   MySpace
   Yahoo!
2. AOL
   eBay
   MSN
3. Amazon
4. Ask
5. Craigslist

Readiness

Ability of the mobile web site to be rendered on popular mobile devices.

1. Ask
   eBay
   Yahoo!
2. Amazon
   AOL
   Craigslist
   Google
   MSN
3. MySpace

Availability

Percentage of successful transactions out of the total number of transaction attempts.

1. Google
2. Amazon
3. Craigslist
4. eBay
5. Yahoo!
6. MySpace
7. AOL
8. Ask
9. MSN

Response Time

Time required to download each page in an entire multi-step transaction.

1. Amazon
2. Google
3. Craigslist
4. Ask
5. Yahoo!
6. AOL
7. MySpace
8. MSN
9. eBay

Consistency

Standard deviation of the response time of completed transactions

1. Amazon
2. Craigslist
3. Google
4. Ask
5. Yahoo!
6. AOL
7. MySpace
8. eBay
9. MSN

Overall Ranking

1. Yahoo!
2. Google
   Amazon
   Ask
3. AOL
   Craigslist
   eBay
4. MySpace
5. MSN

The research also measured performance of mobile sites in other industry verticals. AirTran was found to be the highest ranked mobile airline site and Bank of America was ranked top for mobile banking.

Overall, though, the results indicated that mobile websites are 30% less efficient than traditional Internet sites.

tapMatch

Companies can now advertise their products on this service by bidding on keywords and categories. The ads will then be displayed on mobile web pages and above mobile search results.

Jumptap claim that the service uses technology to relay ads very selectively, so that advertisers do not waste their money.

The service allows advertisers to target ads to certain handset models such as the Blackberry and iPhone. Google AdWords mobile ads do not currently provide device targeting. Like Google, other targeting options such as location, mobile carrier and language are also be available on tapMatch.

In the past pay per click mobile ad services have not been able to target audiences too well, in spite of the personal nature of the medium. TapMatch will allow advertisers to select their target audience by building client profiles through various sources such as search queries, context and previous click-through history of the client. Accordingly only appropriate and relevant ads will be shown to the mobile user.

Additional levels of audience demographic targeting present in the ad delivery system are expected to produce high levels of user engagement, which should eventually translate to high a conversion rate for advertisers.

Signing up for tapMatch is easy. Advertisers who are used to Google AdWords will find the process of signing up and setting up campaigns to be remarkably similar.

Pricing of these ads will be auctioned just as it is for Google AdWords. Advertisers will be required to pay only if the user carries out one of the click actions the service offers, which include:

• Sending users to a website
• Displaying an SMS landing page that includes a title, 250 character description, an image and instruction to text something to a short number
• Capturing an email address via a landing page that includes a title, 250 character description, an image and a text box with a button to capture user email addresses
• Showing a phone number on a landing page with a title, 250 character description and an image – this would have worked better as a pay per call action
• Delivering a 250 character marketing message along with a title and image.

In theory, all these features seem very interesting. However, reality might show that tapMatch has a long way to go before it provides serious competition to the likes of Google, mainly due to the higher volume of mobile users that default to the search giant even for their mobile search needs.

Search, which has already become an extremely important feature of mobile technology, is now set to combine itself with the mobile camera and GPS.

The working of this new service is quite simple really. All one needs to do, is to “point” his mobile camera at an object, and as soon as the mobile has “seen” the object, it will “find” all the internet links, connected to the object in question and display them on the mobile screen. The user then selects whichever link is most appropriate and clicks on it.

Nokia and its content and advertising partners are in the process of tagging all the images to form a database for this new service of theirs. The service will be offered sector by sector, as the database gets consolidated.

To start with, they will offer this service for the movie sector only. If a user points at a particular movie poster, the service will find and provide various links such as, where the film is running, show timings, reviews, trailer, ticket bookings etc.

The links shown will also depend on the current location of the mobile GPS, reports Peggy Albright at Msearchgroove.

This service will thus create interactivity, and according to Philipp Schloter, Nokia’s General Manager for Point & Find, it could turn into a money spinner, for brands and advertisers, who could thus connect with their target audience and encourage impulse buying.

Initially this service will be beta tested in the U.S. and U.K.

If things go as planned, Nokia would be the first company to launch this innovative service.

It will be a free service for users, and will be accessible initially, only to users of the N95. Later however, it may be extended to include all GPS enabled camera phones, irrespective of the brand.

While this application is certainly not new – Windows Mobile and Yahoo! Mobile already have similar services – it is reasonable to expect that due to the sheer popularity of Google and the simplicity of the process, a lot more iPhone users are now likely to use Google Search on their handsets.

Google will also combine this service with the iPhone’s GPS capability, to pinpoint the user’s location and the locations of various advertisers, reports Wired.com. However there is a downside to the voice search service. Search terms have been entered into the system in a typical American accent and hence the search procedure fails if the search words are spoken by people with different accents.

Given the diverse accents spoken in the U.K., the voice search function has quite “confused” the system. According to the Telegraph, when the word iPhone was spoken into the handset, using various British accents, the results ranged from Einstein, MySpace and Bonfire to Gorillas and Kitchen sinks!

A hilarious situation by itself, one might say, but one that was certainly never intended by Google.

When they discontinued the mobile video service, a spokesperson for 3 had said, “Mobile advertising remains an important part of our strategy. This change has created a great opportunity for a new supplier and we’ll be looking at options over the coming months.”

They now appear to have fulfilled that promise. 3 has now tied up with Mobix, which will deliver real-time in-video advertising, and 4^th Screen Advertising, which will be their sales partner, to restart their mobile video service before the end of the year.

The 3 million subscribers of 3 will now be able to receive personalised advertising from various brands, with the option of demographic targeting and frequency capping.

3 UK will begin with news, weather updates and movie reviews, and follow it up later with comedy music and cartoons. 3′s earlier entertainment and information services, mobile games, and full length music downloads will of course continue.

Videos will range from being free to costing up to 50 pence each, depending on the length and type.

3 UK’s Head of Portal Advertising, Neil Andrews says, “By allowing people access to video content at a consumer friendly price we can offer brands a potentially massive target audience.”

Mark Slade, Managing Director of 4^th Screen Advertising says, “Pre-roll video advertising is highly targeted, enabling campaigns to be far more effective, whilst reaching the right customer demographic at a time that suits.”

Read the full 3 UK official press release

It is open knowledge that Google has been in talks with Verizon for the same deal. Google wants Verizon to make Google the default search provider on all their mobile handsets.

Microsoft is probably making use of Google’s inattentiveness here – due to their recent preoccupation with the debacle of advertising on  Yahoo! – and is trying to woo Verizon away from Google. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Microsoft is offering much better terms to Verizon, by way of a higher percentage share of revenue and also a guarantee of considerably higher payments to Verizon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, if Microsoft succeeds in this attempt, it will not only compensate them to some extent for their failure to acquire Yahoo! earlier in the year, but will also help them to fight the search giant Google to some extent.

Verizon wireless, which is currently the second largest wireless carrier in The U.S.A, is of course taking its time to come to a conclusion as to whom they wish to tie up with, and will no doubt make the most of this opportunity.

The 3G industry has grown almost 80% in one year in the U.S. and now has 64.2 million subscribers, thanks to the availability of better networks and many new 3G-compatible handsets.

Italy and Spain still have better 3G penetration than the U.S. with 38.3% and 37.2% respectively, while Germany, France and U.K. have 23.9%, 17.1% and 27.6% penetration respectively.

A parallel survey conducted by comScore on the use of mobile search found that the popularity and frequency of mobile search has also gone up, both in the U.S. and Western Europe.

The growth of mobile search has been an impressive 68% and 38% in U.S. and Western Europe respectively, between June 2007 and June 2008, with the U.K. accounting for the highest mobile search penetration at 9.5% of all mobile subscribers, followed by the U.S. at 9.2% penetration.

According to Alistair Hill, analyst at comScore, it is not only the number of users using mobile search that has increased, but also the number of times each user uses it that has increased.

In Europe the number of people using mobile search at least once a week, has increased by 50% and in France and Spain it is 69% and 63% respectively. In the U.S. mobile search has more than doubled, thanks to better 3G penetration and the availability of 3G enabled handsets, as well as lowered tariffs.

Expectedly, it was found that Google was the most used engine for mobile search in all countries, followed by Yahoo! in Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S.

Expectedly, the U.S. has the largest number of mobile Internet users, solely due to the large population of consumers. In 2006, they had 22.4 million people, using the mobile web, while now, they have about 40 million such users i.e. about 16% of all mobile users in the country.

Among the 16 countries studied in this survey, U.K. and Italy follow closely at second and third place with 12.9% and 11.9% respectively. Indonesia had the lowest number of mobile net users, with only 1.1% of mobile users, accessing the net through their mobile phones.

This gigantic leap which has occurred in the use of the mobile web, is likely to be due to a combination of factors such as, more user friendly mobile phones, which make it easier to access the net, the availability of high speed networks, and lowered costs due to the availability of various data packages offered by the companies.

In spite of the large jump in the number of mobile web users, there is still scope for further growth of this industry, as it was found that almost 95 million Americans pay for use of the mobile web, but most of them still do not use it. This may be either due to lack of interest in this particular facility, or the lack of awareness, of its availability in the various media packages they have chosen.

Nielsen Mobile has further revealed that of the users of the first generation iPhone, almost 82% use the mobile internet facility, which is 5 times higher than the likelihood of the average mobile user using this option.

The second generation iPhone promises to bring with it even better facilities.

Among other handsets, the Motorola RAZR, is the most popular in the U.S. and Nokia’s N95 is the most popular in U.K. In India China and Russia too, it is the Nokia handsets which are the most frequently used.

The most common uses of the mobile web, are to execute bank transactions, check email and socialize through the social networks. Yahoo! and Google are the most popular internet sites visited through the mobile.

However, while desktop users, visit almost 100 sites per month, on an average, mobile web users visit about 6.4 sites per month in the U.S., 5.5 sites per month in U.K. and 8.2 sites per month in Italy.

$5 billion were generated from use of the mobile web in 2007, and already $1.7 billion, have been generated in the first quarter of this year.

This growth in the use of the mobile web, is an indicator for big businesses to start investing in this as a marketing tool.

Henceforth, mobile display ads will be shown to all Windows Live for mobile users across the U.S. U.K. France and Spain on both Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger. The ads will have to follow guidelines set by the Mobile Marketing Association.

According to Chris Ward, Commercial Director of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, the launch of Display Advertising on Windows Live Mobile is an important milestone for their business and demonstrates the progress they have made in the field.

Brian Arbogast, Corporate Vice President of Mobile Services at Microsoft says, “In today’s connected world, the mobile device is emerging as a prime opportunity for advertisers to reach their audience.” Since Europe is estimated to have over 220.5 million mobile users, mobile advertising has become a fast growing field and advertising on Windows Live Mobile platforms will help advertisers to reach target audiences at all times and places.

Paramount Motion Pictures will be among the first in the U.K. to advertise through this means. Mobile advertising on Windows Live is expected to also be available in Germany, Italy and Netherlands shortly.

Microsoft also plans to include Live Search in the mobile advertising mix, but at present, the mobile search advertising facility will be confined to the U.S. on a ‘by-invitation-only’ basis. Microsoft plans to expand the mobile search advertising service later this year.

Google’s mobile search advertising service has been live for more than a year now, giving them sufficient time to establish a solid presence in the mobile search market and gather enough data to provide a far more intelligent service than Microsoft will be able to.

The delays in incorporating technology from ScreenTonic into the Microsoft Advertising service and launching a good mobile ad product are Microsoft’s fault alone, and they are likely to pay a heavy price for it, just as they are in the Internet search market at present.

At present, data charges from mobile search far exceed the income generated from advertising. However, this trend is changing rapidly as more and more operators offer flat rate tariffs and all you can eat data packages. As operators bring down their walled gardens, more content owners and developers will be able to take advantage of the market, eventually attracting more consumers.

Juniper Research‘s estimate of $4.8 billion by 2013 may seem very far off at present, given that last year global mobile search advertising brought in less than $100 million.

Google has, however, reported a 20% jump in mobile search usage in recent months, owing to the improved user experience offered by the search application on handsets and improved handset design, as well as flat-rate data tariffs.

40% of the money spent on mobile ads is expected to be earmarked for local search ads, according to the report from Juniper Research. This too seems unlikely at present, given the recent doubts cast over the actual popularity of mobile local search.

However, current trends could change if application developers and search providers create a more compelling proposition for consumers, who would then be more inclined to take advantage of the benefits of geo-specific services and advertising.

China and the Far East are expected to be the main revenue generating regions, followed by Western Europe and North America, in that order. Current trends in China, India and the Far East definitely point towards this prediction coming through. The world’s largest mobile operator is China Mobile, followed by Vodafone and then China Unicom. These volumes will naturally attract more advertiser dollars.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has repeatedly spoken about their plans to expand the AdWords mobile advertising programme. Google has already forged partnerships with the leading manufacturers like Nokia and BlackBerry as well as the largest operators including China Mobile and Vodafone. Yahoo! has similar tie ups with T-Mobile and Hutchison’s 3.

At the end of the day, the success of the mobile search industry rests in the hands of the consumer. Consumers will decide whether they will adopt the mobile Internet at the rate analysts are predicting and whether they will react to mobile search advertising as receptively as they do on the wired Internet.