Mobile devices are taking over the wired world, and web interactions with mobile
phones are exploding. As recently as two years ago, only about 5 percent of
consumers had ever used their mobile phones for web interactions, less than half
the number buying a ringtone each month. But ComScore says the number of
Americans using mobile web interactions, including searches, more than doubled
from 11 million in January 2008 to almost 23 million in early 2009. Users are accessing
all kinds of content from news and information, to social networking sites
and blogs, to stock reports and entertainment. But news and information (such
as maps and directions) are still the most popular content in the mobile world,
with literally millions of daily users. And not only are more people accessing the
web while on the go, they’re doing so with mobile applications for smartphones
like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android-based G1. Forrester Research studies
indicate that 80 percent of marketers use or plan to use search engine marketing
(SEM), yet less than a third of retail marketers and one-half of consumer-product/
goods marketers expect to use mobile search in their marketing mixes. Media
companies are most receptive, with about 70 percent planning to use mobile
search in their promotion mixes.