In a new report titled “Mobile Location Based Services: Applications, Forecasts & Opportunities 2009-2014,” Juniper Research suggests revenue from location-based services (LBS) are expected to surge to $12.7bn in 2012.

Attributed to a combination of Smartphone proliferation, a surge in app store launches, and new developments in hybrid positioning technologies, LBS and location-based advertising are expected to become a major aspect in the mobile ecosystem, with nearly every mobile player integrating location into their services in one way or another.

The report suggests that while mobile LBS saw a number of false dawns over the 2000-2007 period, improvements in handset user interfaces, together with easier consumer access to an array of app distribution channels, has led to greater interest from service providers in providing LBS applications.  Another key growth indicator is the advancement in mobile broadband capabilities and consumer comfortability with mobile Web usage.

The key to continued growth, the report suggests, will be finding ways to integrate LBS into feature phones- getting away from the present smartphone-focused LBS ecosystem.  In addition, finding ways to limit the constraints of privacy and user-information security concerns will be vital for its future.  Interestingly, service usage is expected to be highest in Far East & China over the next five years, with the greatest revenues coming from Western Europe.

It’s an interesting read, while there’s no doubt extraordinary growth when it comes to location, it’s still interesting to see what’s holding things back, and what areas of the industry are seeing the most growth and consumer adoption.  One thing’s for sure, location will remain the buzzword in the mobile realm for a long time to come.

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Online movie ticket retailer Fandango is giving the mobile platform the old college try in eight markets for a new mobile ticket program.

The program in question, aptly dubbed “Mobile Ticket,” is a barcode-based solution that is getting a trial run in hopes of widespread launch in the coming months.

Fandango says “Mobile Ticket” presents theater tickets or passes as barcodes, which are sent to the mobile device of a moviegoer. At the theater, the barcode is scanned much the way a mobile coupon would be scanned at the point of sale. The advantage for moviegoers? No long wait at the box office ticket window.

Fandango’s Mobile Ticket doesn’t require a smartphone and works with the majority of mobile carriers. Initially, the program will reach more than one hundred screens in the Reading Cinemas circuit, including locations in New Jersey, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Bakersfield, Sonoma County, and parts of Hawaii.

“We’ve already seen success in the mobile space with our variety of apps for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and others,” says Rick Butler, COO of Fandango. “We know that Mobile Ticket will be one more Fandango convenience that moviegoers will enjoy. Our cell phones are with us all the time – so what better way to ensure you have your movie ticket?”

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While many have hailed the iPad as a future mainstay of targeted mobile marketing campaigns, no shortage of advertisers are taking a wait and see approach with regard to the new Apple tablet. However, if the pre-order stats from this past weekend are any indication, the iPad could very well have a much larger than expected audience right out of the gate.

The unofficial count of first day orders for the iPad presents an estimated 120,000 tablets were sold. And according to the information and sources cited in a multitude of media reports, that estimate could very well be a low-end conservative one.

A truly remarkable fact about the iPad’s pre-order explosion is that tens of thousands of consumers are purchasing a device that they have never before seen, touched, or experimented with in person. But if the tablet resonates with consumers as the iPhone has, it’s easy to understand why many industry analysts predict millions of iPads could be sold before the end of 2010.

With the iPad’s already established popularity will come an array of unique digital content offerings to the tablet, like the freshly announced Barnes & Noble e-book reader app. An application designed exclusively for the iPad, the e-reader app will provide access to the B&N eBookstore as well as any ebooks already located in the user’s digital library.

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A new survey published by Compete.com indicates smartphone owners are very receptive to mobile coupons, especially when it comes to grocery coupons that are easily redeemable via barcodes scanned directly from the device.

The survey, which looked at the time of day most smartphone owners use their devices, as well as what mobile advertising concepts they’re most interested in, found that usage during commutes to work and while watching TV were the highest on the list by far.

To find out their receptiveness, the survey asked smartphone owners how interested they were in receiving various types of mobile advertising.  The results were quite interesting, indicating consumers were most interested in receiving grocery coupons (36%), scanable barcodes (29%), offers to save and pursue at leisure (26%), movie theater offers (26%) and ads via SMS when going by a retailer with a promotion / coupon (21%).

The fact that over 1 in 5 smartphone owners would be interested in these top-5 concepts is very promising for the mobile marketing industry, considering that it’s still in the early stages of mainstream adoption.  Given the nature of smartphones, adoption via this user-group will signal what works and what doesn’t- with concepts that do see mainstream adoption via smartphones making their way to feature phones eventually.

It’s not surprising that barcodes, coupons and other retail-oriented mobile technologies are the first to catch on with consumers.  It’s a concept that provides the most value to users, while not interfering with daily usage like some other concepts.

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YouTube is making a dramatic change to its mobile web presence. This week, YouTube revealed that it will begin incorporating advertising services throughout the mobile site.

Naturally, YouTube is optimistic that advertisers will find enormous value in placing adds for their products and services on YouTube’s mobile site – a mobile presence that realized a 160% traffic increase in 2009.

Adds will run across the home, search, and browse pages in both the US and Japanese mobile YouTube sites.

According to the YouTube Biz Blog:

The increased usage of high-end devices like the iPhone and Android is also making mobile advertising easier and more effective for advertisers.

“Test campaigns” are already underway by L’Oreal and Land Rover. Initial results indicate promising rates of click-throughs, positive user experiences, and greater brand awareness.

We’ve already seen some early campaigns run on YouTube’s mobile site by advertisers like Sony (for the DVD release of “District 9″) and Kia, both of whom were able to easily reach their target audience, no matter where they were looking for video.

The addition of advertising space to YouTube’s mobile website is not only of great interest to mobile marketers, it also comes as a blow to rabid YouTube critics claiming that YouTube would falter in finding new ways to create profitable revenue models.

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If you’ve ever used one of the Location-based apps like Foursquare, Gowalla or Brightkite, you’ve gone through the steps of checking in to a location to earn some sort of reward for being there.

Now that these early-stage start-ups have proven the interest in Location-based Services, Twitter and Facebook want in (joining Google, Apple and Nokia in trying to figure out how knowing a users’ location can lead to major mobile ad revenue.) In 2010, in the least, we’ll see both Twitter and Facebook’s take on LBS, a smart move for both companies which are experiencing massive mobile access growth.

Facebook, which according to a new comScore report saw access to its mobile browser grow by 112% in the past year, is expected to add location sharing in its users’ News Feeds, which may more than just intrude on the smaller companies’ courts. An article yesterday in the New York Times cited sources saying that Facebook would announce the news at its F8 developer conference in April.

Meanwhile, Twitter, which saw access to its mobile browser explode 347% in the past year, is already testing out a geolocation feature, which some users have seen in various beta forms as they go about their tweets. Foursquare, still a solid player in the game, will offer a free analytics tool and dashboard to give business owners information and stats about their visitors. These days, there isn’t a company in the consumer mobile space that isn’t interested in Location-based Services, and the market is ripe for innovation.
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Not only are companies, developers, and entrepreneurs of all varieties looking to develop a mobile presence as part of a comprehensive marketing campaign, even US states are delving into mobile territory.

This week it was posted on the official web site of the state of Alabama, that a new (and free) iPhone application is being released courtesy of Alabama.gov. Available now from iTunes and Apple’s App Store, the state of Alabama is looking to boost everything from tourism to resident awareness about state happenings through the new app.

Alabama Interactive, which is the “official eGovernment solutions provider” for the state of Alabama, reveals that the aforementioned application will serve up a variety of tools and resources that will certainly prove of interest to both Alabama residents and potential visitors to the great state. Such features include: Full site and state employee directory searches, access to state maps (parks, educational references, public services) through Google maps, news feeds, alerts and – of course – Twitter.

According to the official announcement from www.alabama.gov, the state’s website generates in excess of 800,000 visitors each month. The mobile extension of the site via the new app “will provide another gateway for citizens to interact with government.”

What it may also provide is the inspiration for every other state to develop a similar mobile application to promote the virtues and values of their own state.

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