According to figures from comScore, visits to social networking sites Twitter and Facebook via mobile internet browsers showed triple-digit growth during January.

The study found that 30.8% of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3% from 22.5% one year ago. Access to social network Facebook, in particular, grew 112% in the past year attracting 25.1 mobile users in January, compared to Twitter which experienced a 347% increase on the corresponding period of 2009.

Overall figures for January 2010 revealed that 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via their mobile’s internet browser. This shows an increase of 4.6% over the past 12 months.

Such figures are proof that social media sites are increasingly being used by individuals worldwide regardless of their location, and this is where mobile marketing still holds great promise for marketers. Not only are users accessing social sites and community networks via their phones, they’re also feeling more comfortable making purchases from their handsets, as revealed by a recent Compete Smartphone Intelligence Survey.

The recent study by Compete- Smartphone Intelligence Survey- has revealed that mobile commerce (m-commerce) is bound to grow drastically in 2010.

“We’re seeing notable behavior differences across devices, so, for example, users of the Android operating system share different characteristics than Blackberry and iPhone enthusiasts. As manufacturers and marketers better understand how each group actually uses their devices, there’s a huge potential in 2010 for mobile commerce to explode,” said Danielle Nohe, director of consumer technologies for Compete.

The survey also found that 37% of smartphone users have bought something non-mobile using their handsets in the past 6 months. At the same time, 19% of total smartphone owners have bought music from their device, also 14% of respondents purchased books, DVDs or games and about 12% purchased movie tickets.

Other results from the report that focus more on the specific types of mobile devices in the market include:

- 40% of Android owners and 51% of Blackberry owners would spend $500 or more to buy a product from their mobile phone, compared to 9% of iPhone owners
- The most popular mobile shopping-related activities are research related: 41% of iPhone users and 43% of Android users are most likely to check sale prices at alternative locations from their mobile phones while they are shopping
- The second most likely activity is accessing consumer reviews, with 39% of iPhone owners and 31% of Android owners investigating reviews from their handset before they purchase

The number of British using smartphones rose 10% in the last three months to almost 6.2 million, with Blackberrys becoming the fastest-growing smartphone.

The study by Nielsen also revealed that browsing the web was the fastest growing  UK mobile phone media activity between the second and third quarters of 2009. The number of users using mobile internet went up from 8.8 million in Q2 to 10.4 million in Q3. This means that over 1/5 of all UK mobile users access the internet via their smartphones.

The second fastest-growing activity was downloading applications with 3.1 million users in Q2 to 4.1 million in Q3- up one million new users. Email is the third one down from list, increasing from 5.1 million users in Q2 to 5.8 million. However, most significantly is the growth of text messages and sms alerts which totals 78% of all British mobile phone users who send/receive sms.

Although change was not utterly significant, it’s still surprising to see video listed as the top 6 fastest-growing mobile phone media activity with 4% of total mobile phone owners using their devices to watch videos.

Overall, the total number of people in the UK using smartphones increased 10% between Q2 and Q3 (5.6 million to 6.2 million) that’s over 577,000 new smartphone users.

Edward Kershaw, Vice President of Mobile Media, The Nielsen Company said: “Although there have been sizeable increases in the take-up of new mobile technologies such as video and location-based services they remain niche forms of behaviour. Although the era of the handset as a truly multi-media device on a mass-market level lies somewhere on the horizon, the key for companies to successfully harness mobile lies in a realistic understanding of what media activities people on a large-scale are actually doing on their handsets now.”

These figures clearly indicate that significant growth opportunities remain in this segment. It’d be interesting to see what the new launch of smartphones such as the Palm Pre will do to these numbers and of course, how these figures will have climbed once the holiday season is over.

This evolution has made way for the emergence of new applications such as FourSquare, Yelp and GoWalla, as pointed out by Jeremiah Owyang. So what can these mobile social networks do to tap into this new market that’s harnessing these new tools?

FourSquare, the local-based social network, for example, has been offering discounts based on people’s physical  locations, and therefore, serving up ads on businesses and shops nearby the identified location of the person.

“We should expect FourSquare to evolve and eventually offer advertisements based on your friends’ interests — John, Amy, and Allen all like Los Taqaritors, invite them now for a 20% off discount,” commented Owyang. “Location-based ads will soon connect with social information.’”

Another good tip Owyang mentioned was that consumers should consider using RedLaser, a tool which provides users with the cheapest prices on products by allowing consumers to scan the product’s barcode. In other words, consumers can run a price comparison on the product of desire and make up their minds as to whether to get it at a different store or online depending on the offer.

Owyand then leaves businesses and marketers with a set of recommendations to consider in order to be prepared for this evolution of the adoption of mobile social networks by consumers. And they are the following:

* Listening In For Free Research: Local businesses should immediatly montior their brands on mobile social networks like Yelp and FourSquare.  Use this information as free research: find out the perception of customers opinions both good –and bad to learn about their market.
* Responding To Reviewers: Use negative information as a way to improve products and services and let your community know you’re listening to their feedback.  Although there are always two-sides to any complaint use these same tools to respond to customers in public, but be sure to abide by the terms of service.
* Rewarding Top Customers: Customers that frequently patron your store and tell others on these mobile social networks should be rewarded.  Build both in person and online relationships with them so they’ll continue to advertise and market on your behalf.  Free drinks anyone?
* Preparing for pricing impacts and positioning: With disruptive tools like RedLaser appearing, customers can quickly find pricing of products and find them at nearby retailers.  Retailers like CVS, Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Safeway should take heed as consumers continue to become empowered through instant information.  Companies will need to respond by:  making product pricing more competitive, or offering other deals such as bundling, speed, time, or other value-based offerings.

Nielsen tells us that in the past year, the number of smartphone subscribers grew from 15 million in Q2 2008 to 26 million Q2 the following year.

In the UK, 55% of iPhone users and 34% of smartphone users have used web search, as opposed to 12% of total mobile phone users, according to data from Google’s Internet Stats page.

Today, it’s not the U.S. that’s leading the smartphone market, it’s Italy whose percentage of smartphone owners is 28%, followed by Spain who’s not lagging too far behind with 23%.

Markets with the most room to grow on smartphone penetration are France (11%), Canada (12%), UK (12%), Germany (12%) and Sweden (13%).

Nielsen stats also show us that smartphone owners continue to be predominantly male, are 65% more likely than the average mobile subscriber to be between the ages of 25 and 34.

Evidently, there’s great potential for growth in the mobile industry one aspect which marketers should not overlook as it represents a great marketing opportunity. More people are changing their habits and adopting these new technologies. More people than ever want to be connected and take the Internet with them at all times.

The total number of people accessing Facebook via their mobile phones is now up to 65 million compared to just 2o million eight months ago. Since its launch in 2006, Facebook Mobile was initially available only in English.

However, due to the incrementing necessity of staying in touch with friends and contacts when there’s no computer available, the Facebook team updated the websites and translated them into a number of different languages for everyone to have access to.

According to Henri Moissinac from Facebook, the sites will allow you to to update status, browse your News Feed and your friends’ Profiles, comment or ‘like’ stories, and view or update your Facebook Page.

Currently, Facebook has two mobile websites, m.facebook.com, which works from any mobile browser and x.facebook.com, which is enabled for Androids and iPhones, plus devices manufactured by Nokia and Palm.

These new developments work pretty well in conjunction with the fact that social marketing is one of the most powerful trends nowadays with an annual compound growth rate predicted to be the highest over the next five years, with mobile marketing sitting right behind it.

Another feature that was launched by the social media giant but only available on some mobile sites is Facebook Connect, which allows consumers to sign-in to a variety of third-party websites using their log-in details from the social network, active for people using the mobile internet.

Through Facebook Mobile texts, a text messaging system that has also been developed, you are enabled to receive notifications, send and receive messages via SMS, as well as, update your status through 52 different operators in 25 countries.

Are you an avid computer or mobile user?

Mobile phone technology is advancing rapidly, but what can we expect to be using in 2015? What will our mobiles be able to do and what will they look like?

Recently, there’s been lots of news regarding mobile applications- native apps, mobile web apps, and hybrid apps and most particularly, iPhone applications. And it’s the one device that has caught the attention of some of the most prominent advertisers such as Coca-Cola, Burger King and Kraft, as a means to communicate with their target market. Why?

As explained by Vodafone’s international development management of mobile advertising, Jeremy Makin, the new gadgets and apps offered by iPhone (which can also be developed by other manufacturers)  offer a great opportunity for branding due to their functionality and entertainment. And it’s that fun and entertaining aspect that makes them very popular amongst customers, thus becoming a strategic place for brands to be present in.

A recent study by ABI revealed that the global mobile marketing spend will grow nearly $16 billion by 2011, led by the Asia-Pacific region with $7.7 billion, which accounts for over 50% of this total spend.

Although the financial recession has influenced the mobile phone market significantly, the development of new apps and mobile ad formats are now playing an important role in mobile marketing and advertising, according to a report by WARC.

Jeff Orr, ABI senior media analyst affirmed that “spending on mobile marketing and advertising in 2009 worldwide is at least flat compared to 2008 if not slightly growing…That’s very encouraging compared to the numbers for advertising in other media. It’s less money per campaign, spent more intelligently, with greater benefit per dollar.”

Despite its significant lower campaign cost, however, even mobile advertising is not completely immune from the economic recession. Some typical case scenarios could be, if mobile marketing already plays a significant role and established part of the marketing mix of a company, spending will most likely be maintained or even increased. However, if mobile marketing is part of the experimental budget, then chances are it will get cut.

What do you think the future of mobile marketing will be like?

I remember when people used to make fun of the gizmo trends for mobile phone and asked sarcastic questions like: What can your phone do? Now with the iPhone (and more generally with all smartphones) the question without irony is: What can’t you do?

Mobile phones are like Swiss knifes or nano laptops, they enable you to do an increasing number of things. But the lastest advancement which has impressed me the most has been the development of television and real-time television available for smartphones.

The program Television for iPhone was one of the first applications to offer television content (from channel programs) accessible from your mobile phone. But what’s really impressive is BBC’s launch of real-time content available via smartphones or the France24 application for the iPhone.

This TV-on-the-go idea could at some point influence the way TV is made. The emphasis could be put on short content (3/4 minute content) but of course this will depend on technological improvements (which could solve the current problems such as the extension of the 3G network).

What is the next step? Well, it’s already here: broadcasting live from your smartphone. Companies like Qik, UstreamTV or Flixwagon already offer this kind of service. The next trend will be the integration of real-time content into social media. Qik, for example, is a mobile utility that offers to integrate your videos into your Facebook profile (but you cannot broadcast live on Facebook…yet). That could potentially turn everyone into a journalist, with both positive (reporting abuses, sharing unique moments) and negative (privacy issues) consequences.

The Mountain View search giant is now ready to tap into telephone communications as it is slowly rolling out it’s new service, Google Voice in the U.S.

The new service, however, represents a new version of the GrandCentral service Google acquired back in 2007 for $50+ million, but which was put on hold for quite sometime due to changes in the system that took longer than expected before it could make public appearance.

Google Voice is available for free for GrandCentral users, but will soon be open to new users as well. What the service offers is a single phone number for all your phones; mobile, work, home and sms in order to make people’s lives easier by helping them keep track of just one number instead of several different ones, regardless whether the same change over time.

Cool features include Google Voicemail, which works similar to Gmail in the sense that you receive new voicemails at the top of your Inbox, go through them and press play to hear. You can also search for a specific message as you would an email, by typing in the name of the person in the search field. Messages can also be viewed by type- sms, voicemail and recordings.

On the settings menu, users can set the option for phone screening callers whose numbers don’t appear in the address book. Other services include new voicemail alerts, blocking calls for unwanted callers, personalized greetings which can vary by caller, conference calling that joins more people in a call and the list goes on.

Let’s just hope Google doesn’t suffer any outages once GrandCentral and non-GrandCentral users begin adopting the new phone service.

(image: snappr)

We can all agree the Japanese have always been very much ahead of the game when it comes to technology.

Not only were they the creators of QR Codes, the most common type of 2D codes in Japan, they’ve also made excellent use of them. From business cards to children’s toys to bananas at the supermarket, QR Codes can be placed anywhere and are swiftly spreading to the West, entering the mainstream, as pointed out on my previous post.

Websites have also decided to jump on the bandwagon and are beginning to use QR Codes to link the virtual with the real and vice versa. This translates into a significant efficiency gain for the mobile user as the code is used to store RSS information accessible via mobile devices.

Advertising and marketing will never be the same once this tool is widely adopted. It’s boundless.

In fact, I wanted to give it a shot as well and below I’ve included a QR Code for a website, it’s up to you to figure out what it is! :-)

But first things first, you must start by installing a QR Code decoder on your mobile device such as the ones provided by the following sites (just a handfull, there’re loads more):

www.kaywa.com

www.neoreader.com

www.upc.fi

www.beetagg.com

QR Code generators are also many, here are some links:

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

http://www.jaxo-systems.com/barshow/

http://invx.com/

http://www.snapmaze.com/

http://www.snappr.net

Why would blogs include a QR Code on their website? Well, for one it’s useful if you’re someone who uses public computers often or if you’re over at a friend’s or borrowing someone’s PC, which you obviously don’t want to fill up with personal bookmarks.

However, if you’re online using a computer that’s not yours and you notice that the unique url of the page you wish to bookmark is displayed as a QR Code,  then you can simply scan it with your mobile (after you’ve installed the QR code reader) and add it to your web Favorites.

The final step would be to sync your mobile so that the info is passed across to your personal computer.

Try it out and tell us what you think!