Mobile-mania edition

As it happens, there was a good deal of news and subsequent chatter this week about social media and the future opportunities on mobile devices.

Google makes its third-largest acquisition to-date

Earlier this week, Google announced that it would be buying AdMob, which is a big player in the mobile advertising world.  Ringing in at $750 million in stock, this will be the third-largest acquisition in Google’s history.  Google obviously sees a clear future opportunity in the potential profitability and popularity of mobile technology.  As more and more people begin to rely on their mobile devices for basic computing needs such as email, web browsing and game playing, the opportunity to make money off mobile ads is increasing.  To read more about the story check out the article on BusinessWeek.

Social media and mobile technology affect holiday purchasing

An interesting bit of research surfaced this week about the influence social media and mobile advertising have on consumer purchasing decisions.  The study, which was conducted by Deloitte, found that 17 percent of the sample population of 10,878 consumers planned to use social media sites to shop for gifts during the next several weeks.  The study goes on to talk about how people would use social media – discount hunting, checking out wish-lists for friends and family, and searching for coupons.  The mobile twist?  About 19 percent of the sample population will be using their mobile devices to do the research, bargain hunting and actual shopping.  Check out the full article at ClickZ.

600 million

That is the number of people worldwide who will be accessing their social networks via mobile technology by 2013, according to a new forecast issued by eMarketer.  Of this 600 million, more than 56 million will be U.S. users, which is an astounding 45 percent of the nation’s entire mobile web-user segment.  The opportunity?  As this segment grows and matures, we as marketers and PR people will have more targeted and better access to our customers.  For example, there are already plenty of location-based applications out there right now such as Loopt and Google’s Latitude that add an additional layer of “sharing” by showing friends where exactly they are located.  In addition, Twitter CEO and cofounder Evan Williams commented in October that the company is convinced that the mobile platform represents the future of the service: “The best business models come from where people can create the most value.  I think Twitter can create the most value on mobile phones, because it is more immediate.”

Matt Smedley