Google Stresses Importance of Mobile Sites
As Apple continues on its quest to be the king of the applications world, Google is taking another route to the top – the mobile Web.
Just because a desktop site can be viewed on a mobile phone does not mean it is mobile-friendly, Google said yesterday when it announced its newest initiative focused on driving innovation on the mobile Web. Mobile sites are designed for the small screen, with the needs of mobile users in mind.
“While consumer usage continues to explode on mobile, the quality of the sites on the mobile Web hasn’t yet caught up,” said Jason Spero, director of mobile for Americas at Google, Mountain View, CA. “Earlier this year, we found that 79 percent of our largest advertisers didn’t have a mobile-optimized presence.
“Web sites that aren’t optimized for mobile deliver a bad experience for users and, in turn, lead to missed opportunities for advertisers and businesses across the Web,” he said. “The mobile Web experience needs to improve in order for mobile commerce to take its next leap forward.
“Businesses – your customers are already looking for you on the mobile Web and if your site isn’t optimized, they may look elsewhere for your products or services. As mobile continues to grow, it will be increasingly important for you to provide your potential and existing customers with an experience that’s designed specifically for a mobile device.”
Google’s initiative announced yesterday is not just a move on the part of a good Samaritan – although it is, in part. More mobile-optimized sites means more money for Google. At the same time, mobile-optimized sites really are important for businesses, so it is a win-win.
So why is Google so enthusiastic about the mobile Web? The more mobile-optimized sites are out there, the more businesses will spend on search engine marketing on mobile. So more mobile Web sites ultimately benefits Google’s bottom-line.
Additionally, more businesses launching mobile sites also means there is a potential to grow mobile display advertising via Google.
Source: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/strategy/11385.html
Google says, “Better get mobile friendly, ASAP”
Google, which recently shared some big numbers from its mobile advertising business, has some advice for marketers hoping to join in its success: make your mobile presence presentable, now.
“Businesses need to be ready for mobile as soon as they can, particularly this holiday season,” said Surojit Chatterjee, Google’s lead product manager for mobile search ads. “You need to have a mobile site irrespective of whether you think people will actually make purchases from it. How good your site looks on mobile determines how people think about your business.”
Even though mobile advertising is still in early days, he said, mobile search volume is growing at a rapid clip. Over the past two years, Google has seen mobile search queries grow fivefold—a growth rate he compared to the early days of desktop search.
According to research firm Forrester, while 13 percent of the U.S. population searched with a mobile device in 2010 (90 percent with Google), mobile searchers will account for 28 percent of the U.S. population by 2015.
Early experiences now can have lasting consequences, Chatterjee said. Citing analysis from Gomez, another research firm, he said that 60 percent of users indicated they would be unlikely to return to a mobile site if they had trouble accessing it once and 40 percent said they would actually visit a competitor’s site. Beyond that, 63 percent said they would be less likely to buy from the same company through other channels (online or in the store).
“Users are looking at the mobile site to make conclusions about the business as a whole,” Chatterjee said.
Given the increasing number of smartphone users, he said as the holidays approach it will be ever more likely that consumers will try to reach marketers on the go.
This holiday season, Google expects that 44 percent of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices.
While Google has a clear lead in search now (on mobile and desktop), some industry watchers have wondered whether the search giant can maintain its top position as more consumers transition to mobile devices.
Its earnings report earlier this month, however, gave Wall Street a reason to have some confidence in CEO Larry Page’s belief that mobile search could be as big for Google (if not bigger) than desktop search.
In a rare move, the company broke out revenue from mobile advertising and said it was on track to bank more than $2.5 billion in that category in the coming year, and grew twofold in the last year.
Chatterjee said its success comes from building specifically for the new medium and catering to user behavior on the platform. For example, leveraging research that users tend to act more quickly after a mobile search, Google recently launched new ad formats that let users download apps from a mobile ad or reach a specific destination with a mobile app they already have on their phone.
A user searching for a pair of boots from her mobile phone, for example, can now go directly from an ad to a shopping app on her phone, so that she can more easily complete a purchase.
Other mobile features capitalize on the interest in local information—according to Google, 40 percent of mobile searches on Google are related to location. Two years ago, the company released a click-to-call feature that lets smartphone users call a business directly from an ad. This month, Google announced that proximity to a business would be a factor in mobile search ads ranking.
“We are building specifically for the medium,” Chatterjee said. “We are really, as an industry, speaking to the mobile user and taking into the account the signals we have on mobile phones, the constraints on mobile phones and the user behavior trends on mobile phones.”
Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-marketers-get-better-mobile-136100
World Smartphone Leader (Hint: NOT Apple)
On this edition of As The Smartphone World Turns…, we’ve got Samsung violently snatching victory from the jaws of Apple, claiming its spot at the top of global smartphone vendors once more. Dramatics aside, the latest shipment figures tallied up by Strategy Analytics are showing that worldwide smartphone shipments are up 44 percent year-over-year, reaching a staggering 117 million units in Q3 2011.
Digging into that a bit, we’re told that Samsung has overtaken Apple from a units-shipped standpoint, with Sammy moving 28 million smartphones and claiming 24 percent of the market share. If you’ll recall, Apple briefly grabbed hold of numero uno last quarter, but has now fallen a rung with 15 percent of the global pie.
Of course, things could be dramatically different when we see Q4 2011 figures roll out — remember, Q3 2011 was the last quarter in a long string with the aging iPhone 4 as Apple’s “newest” device. Stranger still, Nokia is slotted third with just 14 percent of the global share, representing a precipitous drop from 33 percent a year ago. Similarly, Nokia’s fortunes are apt to change with both the N9 finally out and its spate of Windows Phone devices heading out in short order. Hop on past the break for the full breakdown.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/28/samsung-claims-top-spot-in-global-smartphone-shipments-for-q3-20/
New Record Set for iPhone Sales
I just read in Time Magazine that the iPhone 4S set a new record for sales, over 4 million in 3 days!
You can read more about it at these sites:
http://www.mobiledia.com/news/112491.html
http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/233144/20111018/iphone-4s-smashes-previous-weekend-debut-sales-records-top-5-reasons-why-steve-jobs-siri-ios-5-sprin.htm
Wow! That’s a lot of Smartphones!
Mobile Searches Quadruple in Last year
Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year, for many items one in seven searches are now mobile.
Source: Internal Google Data http://www.google.com/events/thinkmobile2011/presentations.html
Many Web Users are Now Only Using Mobile Devices
Many mobile Web users are mobile-only, i.e. they do not, or very rarely use a desktop, laptop or tablet to access the Web. Even in the US, 25 percent of mobile Web users are mobile-only.
source: http://ondeviceresearch.com/blog
4G technologies to reach 700M mobile users by 2015: study
Demand for mobile technology is increasing at a phenomenal pace with 4G technologies looking to reach nearly 700 million mobile users by 2015, according to Yankee Group.
The “4G Creates Opportunity for All Ecosystem Players” report finds smartphone penetration and growing user demand to be the driving force of LTE deployments. Yankee Group also believes that between 2010 and 2015, the global installed base of smartphones will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 33 percent.
Yankee Group is a research and advisory firm equipping enterprises to profit in a mobile world.
Research
The Yankee Group report predicts the combined total of LTE and WiMAX mobile lines will reach 675 million by 2015.
This is up from just 31 million at the end of 2011.
Although 4G is steadily gaining momentum, Yankee Group believes that consumer awareness of 4G still remains patchy.
According to the survey, 44 percent of consumers have either never heard of 4G or do not understand what it means.
The study also found the mobile video consumption is on the rise.
More than 40 percent of smartphone users in the United States, Britain and France are watching videos on their mobile devices at least once a week.
Additionally, more than 40 percent of Europeans now rank mobile Internet access in their top three most important features when choosing a mobile handset, per Yankee Group.
The study also focused on the tablet market.
Yankee Group predicts that the tablet market will move even faster, achieving a CAGR of 81 percent during 2010-2015.
Source: Mobile Marketer – http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/research/11327.html
Most Searchers Prefer Browsers to Apps
For every shopping activity, including researching products and prices, reviews, promotions and purchasing products, most respondents (61-81%) preferred browsers to apps.
Source: Keynote/Adobe http://www.keynote.com/docs/news/AdobeScene7_MobileConsumerSurvey.pdf