Tag: mobile

Dictionary.com Illustrates How Search is Becoming More Diversified

Ask’s Dictionary.com has reached the 10 million download milestone for its mobile apps in just over a year. Dictionary.com gets about 50 million unique visitors a month between its site and its mobile apps.

The company’s new iPad app already has over 100,000 downloads to date. I spoke with Dictionary.com President Shravan Goli who expressed a great deal of excitement about the iPad and tablet-style devices in general.

He says their iPad app already gets a higher level of engagement from users in terms of time spent with the app. Over 40% of users, he says, are coming back 2-5 times a day. User engagement is 2x-to-3x more than the online site, and time spent and usage frequency is also 2x-to-3x more than the online site. It’s worth noting as well, that the site has games that are not even available through Dictionary.com’s regular apps (though a couple of them have their own apps in Apple’s App Store).

While Goli is clearly ecstatic about the popularity Dictionary.com’s iPad app is already receiving, he’s more excited about the future. "What we’re excited about is working on the 2nd generation of the app." Don’t rule out games in future versions either.

Like other smartphone makers have come into play following the iPhone, we’re going to be seeing this big time with tablet devices like the iPad. This is at the beginning of its lifecycle, Goli says. "We look at it as something that’s going to explode." And Dictionary.com will continue to look for ways to take advantage.

"At the end of the day we’re definitely seeing some of our fastest growth." This a good example of what we’re talking about when we discuss mobile making search more diversified – people are finding different kinds of information in different ways than they might have in the past. Of course Dictionary.com has been around for over a decade, but mobile simply changes the game – someone who may have used Google to look up a word on their computer, may have also downloaded the Dictionary.com app specifically for definitions – or maybe for some of its other features.

People aren’t just going to look up words, he says. They’re going for pronunciations, how to use a word in a sentence, word of the day, etc. – things that aren’t incredibly easy to find through "generic search".

Goli says Dictionary.com’s well-recognized brand has played a great role in the success of its apps. "We haven’t done any marketing on the mobile side," he says. They’ve essentially just marketed the apps on Dictionary.com itself, and they still reached the ten million downloads.

Look for an even bigger expansion of Dictionary.com’s presence as they have also opened up their API, giving developers access to words and definitions for use in games and other types of apps.

April 26, 2010
Yahoo and Samsung Announce New Global Partnership

Yahoo announced a global partnership with Samsung today, which will see Yahoo services coming pre-installed on a variety of mobile devices from the manufacturer. The two companies have partnered since 2007, but that relationship is now being greatly expanded.

"By making our most popular Yahoo! services available on Samsung mobile devices around the world, we’re providing consumers with personally relevant mobile Internet experiences that make it easy for them to stay connected to what’s important to them and explore the full potential of their device," said David Ko, senior vice president, Audience, Mobile and Local for Yahoo!. "We’re thrilled to deepen our relationship with Samsung and look forward to continuing to drive the global adoption of mobile Internet services."

Dr. Ho Soo Lee, EVP, Media Solution Center, Samsung Electronics (L) and David Ko, SVP, Audience, Mobile and Local, North America, Yahoo! (R), sign strategic global partnership to pre-load Yahoo! services on tens of millions of Samsung devices. (Photo: Business Wire)

Yahoo services that purchasers of Samsung devices may find include:

– Yahoo Mail
– Yahoo Messenger
– Yahoo Contacts and Calendar
– Yahoo Mobile Front Page
– Yahoo Search
– Flickr
– Yahoo News
– Yahoo finance
– Yahoo Weather

"We want to provide our customers with the best possible services designed to enhance their mobile experience," said Kenny Lee, vice president of content planning at Samsung. "Our relationship with Yahoo! continues to grow and benefit our global consumer base, who wants access popular Yahoo! services from their Samsung phone."

While the announcement did not reveal specifically what devices that will come loaded with Yahoo services, it did say that it will include those running the Samsung bada and Android platforms.

April 26, 2010
ChaCha Takes On Steve Jobs Mobile Search Comments

Apple CEO has made comments recently implying that people aren’t searching much with their phones. When Jobs announced iAds, Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, for example, he said something along the lines of "people aren’t searching on their phones." WebProNews received an email on behalf of ChaCha who apparently doesn’t take too kindly to Jobs’ implications (the title of the email was "500 million issues with Steve Jobs"). ChaCha borrowed a quote from the New York Times:

"Search is not where it’s at" on phones, Steve Jobs said recently to reporters at the NYT. "People are not searching on a mobile device like they are on the desktop."

ChaCha tell WebProNews it has just answered its 500 millionth question (in less than two years). "Teens and young adults routinely ask ChaCha questions (about a million a day) from their mobile devices instead of using search providers since they return links instead of answers," the rep says. "Maybe he thinks searching within the Apps Market does not count. And since many Apps are just better Bookmarks the search activity may be less compared to Win Mobile etc. users…Was searching for my phone just the other day. Before that I was searching for an address, restaurant, and looking up a phone number — from my phone."

I think people are doing a fair amount of searching on their phones as well, and that certainly extends well beyond ChaCha’s offerings. Most of the people I know (myself included) do a pretty decent amount of searching on their phones (at least the ones who have smartphones). In fact mobile has enhanced search a great deal with things like voice search and location-based features.

We commented on Jobs’ comments on our Facebook page recently, and commenters seemed to think Jobs was a little off the mark on this topic as well.

We know Apple and Google are becoming big time rivals, even though Google search is still in Apple’s mix. Search also may be becoming a bit more diversified in the sense that how we search for certain kinds of queries is changing more and more, but I don’t think people are going to stop searching from their phones. If you ask me, they’re going to be doing it more as smartphone adoption continues to rise. But I could be wrong. I’m no Steve Jobs.

April 17, 2010
Mobile Ad Report Shows Big Gains for Android, RIM, PSP

Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media has put out a report mobile devices and their impact on advertising. "For the past year Millennial Media has released a monthly SMART report (Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting), which discusses trends in the mobile ad space. Beginning this month, they’ve decided to release an additional device-focused report, the Media Mobile Mix," a representative for the firm tells WebProNews.

"The Media Mobile Mix will highlight monthly device-focused trends, including growth, percentage of ad impressions, etc," she adds. "For example, data for March shows that although Apple continued to represent the majority of impressions, the number served by Android and connected devices, like Sony PSPs or iPads, increased drastically."

Some other interesting data from the report:

– U.S. device impression data breakout: Smartphones (45%), Feature Phones (34%), and Connected Devices (21%).

– Apple’s OS remains the leading OS on our network in March with 70 percent share of Smartphone impressions. Apple’s OS has maintained the leading OS position since Millennial began reporting OS mix in August 2009.

– RIM remained the second largest OS for the eighth consecutive month with a 14% share of impressions; and four devices in the Top 20 Mobile Phone ranking.

– While Apple represented 40% of overall network impressions in March (top slot for the 6th consecutive month); manufacturers supporting Android enabled devices represented over 50% of the Top 15 Manufacturers. Samsung was firmly embedded as the second largest manufacturer on our network, with four devices in the Top 20.

"As the largest independent mobile advertising platform in the U.S., we support every major operating system and device. In March, one out of every five ad impressions on our network were seen on a mobile connected device, and not a mobile phone," said Erin (Mack) McKelvey, SVP of Marketing, Millennial Media. "We have reported monthly device trends from our network for a year, but given the proliferation of smartphones and connected devices, we felt that it was now time to spotlight this data for industry-watchers who are trying to understand the role of devices and consumer behavior in the overall mobile market."

For the first time, Android’s OS was in the top three in the ranking of smartphone impressions in March, and Android OS impressions share increased 3% in March alone mankind it 6% of U.S. Smartphone impressions for the month. Globally, Android impressions increased 72% month over month, while RIM also surged 25% globally, on the network.

April 16, 2010
Online Advertising Reached $26 Billion In

The economic meltdown hit the U.S. advertising market harder than expected, with overall revenue falling from $77 billion in 2008 to $67 billion in 2009, according to a new report from the Yankee Group.

The report "2009 Advertising Forecast Update: Less TV, More Internet," found the majority of the decline was due to TV advertising, which dipped from $52 billion in 2008 to just $41 billion in 2009.

"The 2008-2009 recession drove down the value of everything-from home prices to TV advertising revenue," said Carl Howe, director at Yankee Group and author of the new report.

"As consumers have become worried about the economy, they’ve reduced the amount of time they spend on media to less than 12 hours a day, down from nearly 14 hours in 2008. This shift in behavior has caused ad revenues to drop significantly."

TV and video watching decreased a full hour per day. Consumers spent a total of 3 hours and 17 minutes watching TV, DVDs, videos and pre-recorded programs.

While time spent online decreased by 40 minutes pre day from 2008 to 2009, consumers still spent more time online, 4 hours and 13 minutes daily, more than any other medium. Another bright spot was Internet advertising revenue increased from $24 billion in 2008 to nearly $26 billion in 2009.

Mobile was the only category that saw an increase in time spent. Consumers spent 40 minutes per day talking on mobile phones in 2009, up from 12 percent from 2008. Mobile Internet use grew 36 percent, to 11 minutes a day, and texting grew 55 percent, to 27 minutes a day.

April 14, 2010
Google Takes Second Crack At Mobile App For iPad

The day before the iPad went on sale, Google showed its support for the device by announcing five different ways in which it would accommodate iPad users. Now, the search giant’s sort of unveiled a sixth: what it’s calling an iPad-friendly version of the Google Mobile App.

As you might expect, this doesn’t represent a significant departure from the traditional Google Mobile App. Indeed, Google even counted a different version of the app among its original five iPad-specific offerings, with an official blog post stating, "[W]e’ve adapted it to work on the iPad . . ."

Still, a fresh Google+Mobile+Blog%29″>post promised this afternoon, "[T]his new version has been designed to show neatly on the iPad’s screen, and . . . the usual features of Google Mobile App for iPhone, like search by voice and My Location, work well. From the Apps tab, you can also easily navigate to Google’s web-based apps, such as Gmail, which was recently optimized for iPad."

More improvements are supposed to be in the works, too.

Perhaps Google will attract a few new users thanks to this update. At the least, the company’s demonstrated that it remains dedicated to all aspects of the mobile market (and not just Android).

The iPad-friendly version of the Google Mobile App is available for download now in the App Store.

April 13, 2010
Google’s Schmidt Endorses “Mobile First” Approach

Google’s CEO is no doubt interested in search and advertising. He’s recently talked about journalism and copyright law, too, along with a number of other topics. But mobile is the subject Eric Schmidt claimed to most interested in last night, and he’s getting Google to focus on it, as well.

Somewhat ironically, Schmidt stressed the importance of mobile while speaking at Google Atmosphere, a one-day event meant to promote cloud computing. He got onto the subject due to a broad question about products and the future.

According to Anthony Ha, Schmidt responded, "What’s really important right now is to get the mobile architecture right. Mobile will ultimately be the way you provision most of your services. The way I like to put it is, the answer should always be mobile first. You should always put your best team and your best app on your mobile app."

That’s a rather interesting comment. It’s hard not to wonder whether Google will get a lock on the mobile market just as it’s dominated the traditional search market for years. At the same time, you can almost imagine search engineers at Yahoo and Microsoft sort of perking up at the chance to make (more) headway.

Investors don’t seem to mind the "mobile first" directive, anyway. Google’s stock is up 0.72 percent so far this morning, even though the Dow is down 0.13 percent and the Nasdaq is down 0.14 percent.

April 13, 2010
Google to Bolster Google Goggles with Plink Acquisition

Google has acquired the UK-based visual search engine company Plink, which makes PlinkArt, a mobile app that lets users take a picture with their phone and identify paintings and artworks. Google is adding Plink to work on its Google Goggles project.

Google introduced Goggles as a Google Labs project back in December. It was cool from the get go, but the potential it displayed was far greater than the actual functionality. The addition of Plink will allow Google to expand on that functionality. Google Goggles lets you search Google using pictures from your camera phone. They take an image as input, and using "several image recognition backends," such as object recognition, OCR, face matching, etc. Goggles returns relevant results (at least in theory). It even lets users get local business information without even taking a picture. For that, it uses GPS and compass data.

"We started Plink to bring the power of visual search to everyone, and we’re delighted to be taking a big step towards that goal today," say founders Mark Cummins and James Philbin. "Google has already shown that it’s serious about investing in this space with Google Goggles, and for the Plink team the opportunity to take our algorithms to Google-scale was just too exciting to pass up."

"The visual search engines of today can do some pretty cool things, but they still have a long long way to go," the pair add. "We’re looking forward to helping the Goggles team build a visual search engine that works not just for paintings or book covers, but for everything you see around you. There are beautiful things to be done with computer vision – it’s going to be a lot of fun!"

PlinkArt will still be available for download and will continue to work, but the company will no longer be updating it. They will instead focus all thier efforts on Google Goggles.

Financial terms of the Plink acquisition have not been disclosed.

April 12, 2010
Official Twitter App for Blackberry Launched

Twitter just announced that RIM has launched its official BlackBerry Twitter app. The two companies have worked closely together to create it.

Here’s what it looks like:

Features include:

– Real-time BlackBerry push of Twitter direct messages

– Camera and photo gallery integration

– Browser integration for Tweeting links

– Customizable interface for changing fonts, hiding tool bars, etc.

– Inbox integration so you can read your Twitter direct messages along side your email and text messages

– @integration so that if you receive an email or text message which includes an @username, it is linked to the Twitter app profile page

– Twitter lists integration

– Notification of @mentions

– Search for users, content, and trending topics

– Localized for French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Brazilian Portuguese

The app can be downloaded here. It requires a 64MB BlackBerry smartphone, 750KB of available BlackBerry smartphone memory, and BlackBerry Device Software Version 4.5 or later.

April 9, 2010
Google Suggest For Mobile Gets Universal Answers

More so than when a nice, big keyboard is at hand, every moment and character counts when someone is trying to search using a smartphone. It’s rather significant, then, that universal search features have been introduced to Google Suggest for mobile.

Universal search features met Google Suggest on the desktop in December, and although not revolutionary, they’re useful. It’s thanks to them that you can see a five-day forecast after just typing "weather," or see the results of a zip code query or currency conversion without going near the "enter" key.

Now the same sort of stuff (including stock quotes, time zone info, and flight data in addition those other universal suggestions) is available to people who are on the go.

It’s available to lots and lots of people who are on the go, too, considering that Google’s supporting Android devices, iPhones, iPods, and Palm WebOS devices in America.

This may help Google become more popular than ever in the U.S. mobile market; it probably won’t take people long to realize that the second or two that’ll be saved per search will add up over time.

April 9, 2010
Does Apple’s iAd Have the Right Stuff for Mobile Advertising?

This week, among other things, Apple unleashed its new mobile advertising platform called iAd. This is based on the company’s acquisition of the mobile ad platform Quattro earlier this year.

iAd is seen as a direct competitor to AdMob, which Google is still in the process of trying to acquire (the announcement was made in November), and Steve Jobs has even said Apple tried to acquire itself. The AdMob deal has been under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, to determine if it would reduce competition in mobile advertising. Seeing as how Apple has now unveiled its own direct competitor, one would think that it would help Google’s case for getting its AdMob deal done.

If so, perhaps it will all work to Google’s benefit. They can see what Apple has done, what works about it, and what doesn’t. Apple put out the iPhone, then along came Android, and Android use is skyrocketing. Can Google repeat this with mobile ads? Apple shows how it’s going to do mobile ads. If the AdMob deal goes through, Google will then show the world its own plan (beyond the following).

iAd lets developers include ads in their apps (HTML5 – No Flash) that keep the user within the app. Ads will reportedly have access to many of the APIs other apps have access to. Apple gives 60% of the ad revenue to the developers.

Someone within Google has reportedly (and anonymously) already ripped iAd. Clearly, they are already thinking they have a better strategy, or at least want people to think that. Silicon Alley Insider reports the problems with iAd cited by this person:

– Creative agencies build ads in Flash. There is no comparable tool for creating HTML5 creatives. There is no "IDE" for this. So those ads looked great in the presentation but the odds are that Apple (or Quattro) built them custom for the clients. How does this scale to hundreds of campaigns?

– As a media agency (e.g. Publicis, Havas, etc) how do I determine the right targeting, etc to execute the buy to my satisfaction. Since this is a close ad network run by Apple I guess you’ll just have to trust them that they’re giving you a media plan that meets your objectives. "I want to reach young men who are interested in sports" –> how does this get translated into a media plan? If Apple does all the work, then how does an agency add any value to the process?

– How would I measure results? It’s not clear what metrics Apple will provide advertisers. Whatever they are, they won’t be a) audited; b) comparable against anything else; c) integrated into the systems advertisers use to measure overall results.

– Oh, also, how will these ads be priced exactly? Will it be an auction like AdWords? Or will it be a rate card Apple controls?

Much of this sentiment has been echoed throughout the industry in general, by non-Googlers.

One clear advantage Google has in mobile advertising is that it already has search advertising. Apparently Steve Jobs would like people to think that people aren’t using search on their phones (based on his comment: "People aren’t searching on their phones.") which I have a hard time believing, considering the amount of searching I do on my own phone. If that were the case, however, that ought to help Google’s case even more, as far as competition.

iAd may further Apple’s head start in in-app ads, but it’s possible that Google won’t be too far behind if the FTC views iAd as a competitor to AdMob (although recent reports indicate the FTC is leaning toward blocking the deal, the iAd gives Google some ammunition). Android usage is still growing rapidly, and Google is still the default search engine on the iPhone as well, at least for the time being.

The competition between Google and Apple gets more interesting by the day, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.

April 9, 2010
Chinese Block On Google’s Mobile Services Lifted

It’s seemed possible for a while now that the Chinese government would attempt to cripple Google’s operations in the country. Or that, in response to Google’s stand against censorship, authorities would at least hold a grudge for years to come. But Google seems to have won a small reprieve, as mobile accessibility issues have been resolved.

Early last week, a "Mainland China service availability" page Google established indicated that the company’s mobile services in China had been partially blocked. The yellow wrench icon then continued to appear day after day, pretty much eliminating any hope that the problem was a fluke.

A green checkmark’s now visible again, though, signaling that everything was in working order yesterday.

Assuming the yellow wrench doesn’t reappear tomorrow, this development may represent a significant breakthrough. Even a sort of victory for Google, if the Chinese government has decided not to follow through on some rather harsh statements about lawbreakers being "unfriendly, irresponsible," and having "to pay the consequences."

Of course, it’s possible that some other service of Google’s could start suffering accessibility issues at any time. The twists and turns of this conflict have proven extremely difficult to predict.

Still, for one man’s ideas regarding what could happen, see Abby Johnson’s interview with Kaiser Kuo, who works as a consultant for Youku.

April 8, 2010
Google Maps Gets More Useful on BlackBerry

Google introduced a new version of Google Maps for BlackBerry devices today. There are quite a few significant features that come along with it.

Search by Voice, one of the most convenient features of searching from mobile devices in general, is included with this version. "Simply press and hold the green ‘call’ button, speak your search, and see your results quickly appear without typing a single letter," explains Ole CaveLie, Software Engineer on the Google Mobile Team. "Try it now for any search, like the name of my favorite hometown pizza place, ‘Punch Pizza in Minneapolis.’ You can also search by voice for addresses like ‘802 Washington Avenue Southeast’ or search for other another pizza place to try by speaking, ‘pizza restaurants.’ Currently supported languages include multiple English accents and Mandarin Chinese."

Google has added Buzz for mobile, which lets users use the Google Buzz layer to see what’s going on around them, or to post tot he layer themselves. You can use this to share pictures, news, etc.

Google also syncs your personalized search suggestions and starred places with the new Blackberry version of Google Maps.

Other new features include:

– Use Labs to try experimental features like the Scale Bar or Terrain layer (great for hiking enthusiasts!).

– See nearby businesses at an address or location by selecting a point from the map.

– Report a problem with the map data or a business listing.

Users can install this version of Google Maps for BlackBerry by going to m.google.com/maps.

April 7, 2010
Digg Updates iPhone App
Update: Digg announced several changes to the recently released iPhone app today. These include:
- Closing the app on a Digg story page doesn’t result in a crash when reopening the app
- A range of stability improvements allows the app to be used for longer periods without crashing
- We’ve added an "open in Safari" option for viewing websites from the story pages
- The app opens on the last page viewed when it was last closed
Original Article: Digg has launched its long awaited iPhone app, which was created by TapTapTap.

"This free app was designed to create a seamless browsing experience between Digg and the most popular content on the web, as chosen by the Digg community," says Digg’s Chris Howard. "We wanted to make it easy to discover interesting content on your phone and to easily jump into the conversations around that content. You can browse lists of recent content, search for the topics you care about, and save stories to check out later. Best of all, you can join in on the curation by Digging and burying stories and comments right from your phone!"

TapTapTap is even going so far as to hold a contest in which it is giving away fourteen Digg-branded iPad devices. They will be giving away one each day for two weeks. More details on that here.

The company says it will have an Android App available at some point. So far, no word on a timeframe for that or other mobile apps, but we’ll keep you posted if we learn more. The company will release updates for the iPhone app as it receives feedback.
April 7, 2010
Goober Thinks It Has the Better iPhone VoIP/IM Apps

Goober announced the availability of a new VoIP app and an IM app for the iPhone and iPod Touch this week. The company shared a few details with WebProNews about what makes its apps stand out from the competition.

"Goober, besides Skype, is the only company offering versatile and flexible flatrates," a Goober representative tells WebProNews. "The flatrate prices are about the same as Skype’s while the per minute rates are drastically lower."

"Goober 1minute US calls cost for example, 1 cent compared to Skype’s 2.1cent; other countries are around 1.4 cents/minute, but that only occurs in 10% of all calls like if you call an Indian reservation in Cheyenne J On average the per minute prices are between 25% – 50% below Skype’s per minute rates,’ she says. "Overall goober is about 50% cheaper than Skype in the US and Canada because the 1 cent rate is used in 90% of all calls."

If you want to know what sets Goober apart from other instant message apps, "It’s the Webfolder were you have online access to your files and were you can upload files or for example images to a gallery, while you’re on the road," the rep tells us. "The next version of goober IM for the iPhone will be multi-protocol, meaning you can chat from goober IM people using other IMs like Google or Yahoo. The goober IM on the web already supports multi-protocol messaging, btw."

Both applications are available now to download for free from the iTunes App Store, searching the keyword "goober."

April 1, 2010
Google Gives AdWords for Mobile Interface to Advertisers

Today Google has made AdWords for Mobile the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English-language advertisers.

"AdWords for mobile works best when you customize your experience," says Miles Johnson of Google’s Inside AdWords crew. "Before using the mobile website, you should log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. Set up custom alerts for key account events (like when your campaign reaches 90% of your daily budget, or when your traffic drops substantially compared to the previous week), and saved filters to flag your most important keywords and campaigns. You’ll then see these filters and alerts on your AdWords for mobile home screen."

"We built AdWords for mobile to help you quickly access the essentials in your account, so we’ve focused on letting you view and make basic edits to campaigns and keywords through the mobile application," adds Johnson. "If you need access to the other parts of your account, like ads or campaign settings, you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen."

More advertisers in more languages will get the feature in the coming weeks. Those who wish to try it out immediately, can go here with their Android, iPhone or Palm Pre device.

March 30, 2010
Which Payment Platform Will Dominate Mobile?

A recent study found that consumers are getting more comfortable with mobile shopping, and you best believe that will only continue, as people continue to spend more of their web time on their phones. So as everybody reaches for their mobile devices to make payments, which platforms are they going to use?

PayPal hopes to stay in the drivers seat in this area. WebProNews interviewed Francesco Rovetta, director of business development for PayPal Mobile at SXSW a couple weeks ago, who talked a bit about PayPal’s vision for mobile.

PayPal is certainly not the only player in this space though.

O’Reilly Media Founder Tim O’Reilly has posted a fascinating piece on the "State of the Internet Operating System," which explores in depth, just what the phrase operating system means in the age of the cloud, and the mobile web. While he talks about this with regards to search, media access, communications, identity, advertising, location, and a slew of other categories, one section of this lengthy article talks specifically about payments.

"Payment is another key subsystem of the Internet Operating System," he says. "Companies like Apple that have 150 million credit cards on file and a huge population of users accustomed to using their phones to buy songs, videos, applications, and now ebooks, are going to be in a prime position to turn today’s phone into tomorrow’s wallet. (And as anyone who reaches into a wallet not for payment but for ID knows, payment systems are also powerful, authenticated identity stores – a fact that won’t always be lost on payment providers looking for their lock on a piece of the Internet future.)"

"PayPal obviously plays an important role as an internet payment subsystem that’s already in wide use by developers," he continues. "It operates in 190 countries, in 19 different currencies (not counting in-game micro-currencies) and it has over 185 million accounts. What’s fascinating is the rich developer ecosystem they’ve built around payment – their recent developer conference had over 2000 attendees. Their challenge is to make the transition from the web to mobile."

UPDATE: PayPal contacted me, pointing out errors in O’Reilly’s numbers. "We now have 81 mil active registered accounts and 210 million accounts, in 190 markets and we support 24 currencies."

O’Reilly also mentions Google and Amazon as key players in the mobile payments space, with the Android Market giving Google Checkout a boost, and Amazon having only recently opened theirs up a bit to developers.

Then you have Facebook, who last year started letting users buy physical goods with virtual currency. As business sell more products through Facebook, which is happening more and more, Facebook may play an increasingly bigger role in mobile payments. Mobile Facebook users are usually signed into their accounts all the time.

Which of these payment services do you see yourself using most a year or two from now? Something else? Share your thoughts.

March 30, 2010
Google Reports “Partially Blocked” Mobile Service

It looks like China has found another way to strike back following Google’s decision to redirect Google.cn users to Google.com.hk. The search company is reporting that its mobile service in China is now "partially blocked."

This information was disclosed through the "Mainland China service availability" page Google established after making its somewhat dramatic semi-exit. And as you can see below, "mobile" is the first service to have its status change since the page debuted.

This appears to signal that China’s stepping up its show of disapproval. Indeed, Google’s mobile-related problems in China are really starting to accumulate; China Unicom and Motorola both split with the company last week, and it’s rumored that China Mobile will do the same in the near future.

(Pressure from the Chinese government is thought to be a motivating factor in every instance, in case you couldn’t guess.)

Anyway, a hat tip goes to David Sarno. One other detail worth noting: Google’s stock is down the tiniest bit at the moment (0.02 percent versus the Nasdaq’s gain of 0.54 percent), perhaps as investors express their unhappiness about the idea of losing another revenue stream.

March 29, 2010
T-Mobile Customers Bigger on Stocks, Bill Pay?

Last week, we saw some interesting findings from AdMob about smartphone usage. Now Compete has shared some of its own findings with WebProNews. The firm recently conducted a Smartphone Intelligence Survey.

About 47% of T-Mobile smartphone users use their phones to find local branches and ATMs, while 45% of AT&T users and 36% of Sprint users reported doing this (see chart #1 for data).

According to the survey, 34% of T-Mobile users use their phones to pay bills, followed by AT&T users (31%), Sprint users (23%) and Verizon users (21%).

While the numbers were lower, 19% of T-Mobile smartphone owners used their phones to buy/sell stocks. 11% of AT&T and Verizon users also bought/sold stocks, while only 8% of Sprint users reported buying/selling stocks.

73% of smartphone owners reported using their devices for at least one shopping-related activity during the holiday season.

Currently, 38% of smartphone owners conduct leisure travel research on their mobile devices (at least some of the time), according to the findings. This compares to 27% using mobile for leisure travel bookings, 20% using for business travel research, and 15% using for business travel bookings.

The findings present an interesting look at how people are using their devices to interact with the mobile web and make decisions.

March 29, 2010
Why MapQuest Should Be Considered in Your Local Marketing Mix

I don’t think too many people will dispute the fact that location is buzz topic of 2010 so far within the online marketing industry. Big players in this space include Foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, Facebook (soon), and of course Google.

As reported earlier this week, Google noted that a third of its searches via the mobile web pertain to some aspect of the searcher’s local environment, and that they think of location as a "hugely important signal".

As smartphone usage continues to increase rapidly, users are finding more and more options to find what they are looking for from their devices, with regard to their locations. As RateitAll President Lawrence Coburn recently discussed with WebProNews, consumer location-sharing has become a new kind of query.

We’re seeing this becoming a much bigger part of local search and mobile map apps. Yesterday, Microsoft announced a Foursquare app for Bing Maps. At SXSW, MapQuest launched some location-sharing (via Facebook) features (as discussed in the following clip):

Last month, we discussed driving traffic with MapQuest and its new search engine. While MapQuest doesn’t receive as much media attention these days as some of its competitors, the AOL-owned property is showing some ways that it is staying relevant, and as a result of mobile, that relevance may be on the way up.

As MapQuest’s David Cole tells WebProNews, "We’re one of the most downloaded applications on the iPhone, despite the fact that other options are built in."

If businesses aren’t considering MapQuest as a factor in their local search marketing, there are reasons to reconsider.

March 26, 2010
Google: Location a “Hugely Important” Signal

Google made a couple of interesting comments at a mobile marketing and advertising event in Vegas. Michael at Mobile Marketing Watch reports that Diana Pouliot – Director of Mobile Advertising at Google says a third of all Google searches via the mobile web pertain to some aspect of the searcher’s local environment.

In addition, Google Mobile Ads Group Product Manager Paul Feng reportedly said, "We think of location as a hugely important signal."

How important is location to relevance? Discuss here.

So just how important of a signal is location to Google? Feng may have been talking about ad relevance specifically, but we know it plays some role in organic search. Otherwise, people would not get different search results based on where they are, which has been the case for some time. Perhaps the real question is whether location will start carrying more weight as searchers increasingly turn to their mobile devices for a greater percentage of their queries.

Location is already playing a significant role in the way people are searching on their mobile devices, and not just with search engines. WebProNews had an interesting discussion with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn at the Online Marketing Summit last month about how consumers sharing their location has in essence become a new way of sending out a generic query, one that is becoming more prevalent with the growing popularity of location-sharing services like Gowalla and Foursquare.

"The thing about Foursquare and Gowalla, and these check-in apps, is like, a single tap of your phone is a powerful piece of data. It creates a connection with the merchant (with a bar or a restaurant) that you’re at," explains Coburn. "It tells your friends where you are, and then in the aggregate, it tells the services like Foursquare and Gowalla what places are hot. And then you can imagine, like a local coupon or a local ad network overlaid on top, where a business is having a slow Tuesday, and they can blast out to everybody in their neighborhood, and say ‘hey, we’re doing half off beers in our place RIGHT NOW,’ and they can decide that on the fly, and reach a community that’s right around them."

Despite apps like these, Twitter now has location features, and Facebook is expected to have some very soon. That has to be considered a whole new ballgame, not only because of the popularity of these social networks, but their relationships with the search engines. The social networks are already becoming more integrated into search results through real-time search, as well as social search (not to mention the web in general through Facebook Connect, APIs, etc.). Given Google’s fondness for delivering relevant results and an increased rate of user location sharing, it’s hard not to imagine location becoming more of a factor in search than ever.

In recent months, Google has already begun placing a great deal more emphasis on location than it has in the past. For example, last month, the search engine added a new search option to its list, called "nearby." This lets users filter their results based on either their default location or a custom one.

"Location has become an important part of the way we search. If you’re a foodie looking for restaurant details, food blogs or the closest farmer’s market, location can be vital to helping you find the right information," said Product Manager Jackie Bavaro of the feature. "One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding ‘Minneapolis’ to your query and missing webpages that only say ‘St. Paul" or "Twin Cities.’"

Another example of Google’s recent emphasis on location would be the tailoring of search suggestions to user location, a feature introduced in January.

On the advertising side of things, Google is already targeting ads based on location. The company even released ads with click-to-call phone numbers recently.

Google is optimistic that ad rates may beat the desktop standard in time. "We hope and believe that there’s even a chance that we could exceed desktop in the future," Google’s Vic Gundotra reportedly said last week. Location information will no doubt play a significant role in the quest for achieving such a goal. The fact of the matter is that location makes targeting easier in many cases, and location is much more of a factor when it comes to mobile. Back to Google’s comments in Vegas, Feng is said to have hinted at Google working on improving ad formats soon, with features that would include "new forms of user interaction," including navigation.

Regardless of location’s role in search, businesses are already finding great benefits from users sharing their location information. Here are some things I mentioned in a previous article that you can do as a small business to stay ahead of the curve with regards to user-location sharing:

1. Keep up with what mobile apps are popular on the most popular devices

2. Study what makes these apps and their respective users tick.

3. Determine which of these has a functionality that your business can directly take advantage of

4. Verify your business at Google’s Local Business Center

5. Keep a close eye on what Google is doing in the local search space (there are frequent announcements that directly relate to this)

6. Keep a close eye on how Twitter users interact with geo features, particularly those who follow you

7. Definitely keep a close eye on Facebook announcements, looking for geo-related tidbits to drop

8. When using social media, include your business location in updates when appropriate, and promote offers (time-sensitive perhaps) that encourage nearby people to stop in (if you have a brick and mortar store) or meet for a quote at a nearby restaurant for example (be creative…without being too stalkerish)

Share other ideas here.

Is location part of your strategy for reaching customers through search? If you run an online business (as opposed to brick and mortar) do you think this will affect you? Share your thoughts on the subject.

March 25, 2010