Roll out the red carpet. A top executive from Google will be on hand for a mobile marketing related event in New York next week.

The occasion will provide an opportunity for the Google big kahuna to delineate his company’s mobile marketing plans and overall strategies for the year ahead.

Alex Barza, the Google exec alluded to, oversees Google mobile ad sales. Supplementing his presentation on February 10th will be relevant case studies and a Q&A session with the audience.

Other speakers presenting or contributing to panel discussions will include officials from Bango, HipCricket, Ping Mobile, Impact Mobile, The Lustigman Firm, Amobee, Neustar, Sumotext, and Netbiscuits, to name only a few.

Among the most eagerly anticipated speakers is Michael Becker iLoop Mobile, who will deliver a presentation on the essential tools of the trade for effective and efficient mobile marketing.

As 2010 continues to give rise to countless new businesses and industries ramping up mobile marketing efforts, the practice of mobile marketing is, itself, rapdily becoming a “teachable lesson plan” that continues to turn up in educational settings, seminars, and even marketing classes across the academic landscape.

Share This

If there’s one common quest among those involved in mobile advertising and marketing, it’s the constant pursuit of gaining wireless user location-data that’s seems so heavily guarded by wireless carriers.  Google may have cracked the code to getting this information, even without the carriers, and has even filed a patent on the technology its devised to do so.

The patent filed on Google’s behalf depicts a method for sniffing location data from wireless packets sent to and from a mobile user’s device, essentially giving Google the same information the carriers posses without having to continue to fight for it.  Having this information would give Google a serious leg-up in the increasingly competitive world of mobile advertising- a segment where Google’s dominance isn’t as prolific as they’d hoped.

Google’s purposed system, which looks at all forms of wireless — including cellular carrier networks, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth — discusses estimating the location of wireless access points (whether a Wi-Fi hot spot or a cellular tower), determining the accuracy of the locations, and then deducing the user’s position based on these for the purpose of “location-based services.”  From the patent application:

“…In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a computer-implemented method of estimating the location of a wireless device is provided. The method comprises obtaining a packet of data transmitted from a first wireless device to a second wireless device; determining whether one of the first and second wireless devices is a wireless access point; determining the data rate of the transmitted data packet; if one of the first and second wireless devices is the wireless access point, then evaluating the determined data rate against a predetermined criterion; and assigning an estimated location to the wireless access point based upon the evaluation…”

Read the rest

Share This

I’ve long been a fan of the concept of image recognition, especially in terms of mobile marketing and the potential it has when combined with today’s feature-packed smartphones.  Problem is, several underlying technologies needed for mainstream image recognition have been either under-developed or simply non-existent.

With Google’s debut of its new Goggles visual search app, many of those barriers have been overcome.  The concept of Google Goggles is dead simple- a user snaps a photo of an object around them, be it a book, building, text or any other object, and the app will return search results tailored for that object.  Snap a photo of a book you’re interested in, for example, and goggles will return reviews, table of contents, links to purchase the book and anything else residing in Google’s index that might be relevant.

Granted, this type of thing has been around for quite some time, from several startups, but the difference here is the fact that Google’s enormous index is the centerpiece- an attribute that no startup in the image recognition space has ever had.

Read the rest

Share This

Google has begun a massive mobile marketing campaign surrounding Place Pages, the small pages that display info for local  businesses on Google Maps.  What’s interesting is that the centerpiece for the campaign is the use of QR-Codes.

Google is starting things off by sending QR-code decals to some 190,000 local businesses across the US.  Google determined the most searched for and most clicked local Place Pages for the initial run, though a full release is imminent.  The idea is that local businesses can display the QR-code prominently in their store windows for customers to be able to scan and retrieve info back on that business.

When scanned, the QR codes retrieve things like a map, phone number, directions, address, reviews, and a link to the store’s website, which begs the questions- why would someone need that information if they’re already standing in front of the business?

Furthermore, local businesses can also set up coupon offers through their Google directory page, which would turn the QR code into a mobile coupon, and help entice someone standing outside a store to come in.  An offer such as “If you found us on Google, you get 20% off,” for example.  This is where the true benefit lies.

This is an interesting campaign given the fact that 1.) it’s Google and therefore capable of massive scale, and 2.) it’s one of the first large-scale QR-based campaigns to be started in the US.  It’s no secret that QR Codes, while hugely popular in other parts of the world, haven’t quite taken hold in the US as of yet.

Read the rest

Share This

Baidu, the Chinese search engine equivalent of Google, is taking aim at their US competitor by directly targeting Google with a new mobile search application that, according to multiple published reports, will begin turning up pre-installed on mobile phones.

For now, Baidu will only say that the much-hyped search will start shipping “sometime in 2010.”

If you’re wondering which mobile devices will carry the app, your guess is as good as anyone’s. Baidu is still ironing out details with yet-to-be named device manufacturers. But no matter the mobile phone maker, its a good get for the handsets that ultimately snag the ap. Baidu, which accounts for approximately 70% of all online searches in China, dwarfs Google, which only nets about 20%.

Apart from the standard search functionality, Baidu will reportedly also connect mobile users to Baidu’s message board and to the various other digital offerings either presently in existence or now in the works.

Only a few weeks ago, Baidu unveiled an agreement with China Unicom to similarly preloading a host of Baidu’s search engine-related services on China Unicom’s 3G mobile phones.

In case you are unaware, search engines are big business in China, where the population performed more than 270 million online searches in only the second quarter of 2009.

Share This

Google is feeling extra generous this year when it comes to appreciating the small businesses looking to do big business this holiday season. As a result, Google has announced that they are enabling small businesses and other local retailers to display coupons for in-store use on mobile devices of Google-searching users.

Although Google has not previously given the small business community exceptional exposure to its mobile coupon platform and prowess, Google seems poised to make up for lost time with this latest endeavor.

Essentially, small business owners utilizing Google Local Business Center can quickly create and upload their mobile coupon offers. Consumers searching on Google.com using a mobile device will have access to the coupons on the businesses’ Place Pages. Coupons can then be accessed and viewed to show a retail associate at the point of sale.

Although this latest push by Google stands to benefit any advertiser dabbling in mobile marketing, small businesses are expected to reap the most rewards.

On the Google Mobile blog, product manager Alex Gawley wrote: “With more of you going mobile to search for this information, it makes sense for coupons to go mobile too… We hope you find these mobile coupons useful and that they help you save money, trees (fewer printed coupons), and your hands (from paper cuts) when you’re on the go.”

The simplicity with which Google coupons can be created, coupled with new opportunity for exposure now afforded by Google, will likely inspire a fresh wave of mobile marketing exploits aimed at lifting the sagging holiday sales expected for many small businesses amidst a still-tenuous economy.

Share This

In today’s mobile world, making sure people can find your mobile content is as important as ever.  Like with traditional search, making sure your mobile sites are indexed properly and ranked for your target keywords is the foundation for success.

There’s a misconception regarding what it takes to get your mobile sites indexed in mobile search engines.  Most people think just because their sites are indexed and ranked in Google’s traditional search engine, that their mobile sites will be equally indexed and ranked via Google’s mobile search as well- when in reality the two search engines differ slightly.  If your mobile site shows up in traditional searches, don’t always assume  your mobile site shows up in mobile search as well.

Read the rest

Share This