Google earns over 1 billion dollars from mobile platforms in 2010.

“Mobile is on an annualized run rate of over $1 billion. This means the people who are accessing our products and services through their mobile phones are adding a $1 billion annually to our existing revenue streams. Clearly, this is the future of search in the Internet, more people in more countries coming online from these smartphones. Our mobile search queries have grown five times over the past couple of years. And of course, a lot more of those queries are now coming from Android phones.”

According to a Gartner research Android will have a market share of 30% (currently 18%) at the end of 2014 and becomes market leader. 

Foursquare is a location based mobile application which allows users to check in on their favorite locations. By checking in all of the friends of the person can see that a certain person has checked in and users can also earn points (badges) by checking in.
This real-life location based “game” is a big hit. Currently foursquare has half a million users.

Starbucks starts cooperating with foursquare by granting users who check in at Starbucks an extra badge. Starbucks wants to start giving regular customers which use Foursquare extra offers in the physical store too.

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Coffee shops have always been very active in mobile strategy and this seems like a new step in the right direction. 

Hyves, the largest social community website in the Netherlands with over 9,5 million members (in comparison with 16 million inhabitants of the Netherlands) introduces a mobile payment application. Users of the social network site can make payments to other members as well as several companies.

Large catering players such as New York Pizza, The Spare Rib Express and several other companies will participate in the project. Also one of the largest bar chains in the Netherlands, De Drie Gezusters, will use the system for paying drinks inside the bar. People can order their drinks using their mobile phone and the drinks are paid instantly. 

This development might introduce the first fully operational and fully adopted mobile payment system in the Netherlands. The technology is based on Minitix, a product of the Dutch Rabobank.

Will other large Social media websites such as Facebook follow? And will Apple allow payment of tangible goods using their AppStore?

Trendwatching.com is a leading website regarding the last trends in consumer behaviour. Recently they introduced the 10 consumer trends for 2010.

Number 7 of the consumer trends is  ”Tracking and Alerting”.

First of all, ‘TRACKING & ALERTING is the new searching’, as it saves consumers time, makes it impossible to forget or miss out, and thus ultimately gives them yet another level of control. Count oneverything being tracked and alerted on (there’s more than FedEx packages!): from friends (MASS MINGLING!) to enemies to fuel prices to flights to authors to pizzas to any mentions of oneself.
Oh, and ALERTING, when done well, is of course the ultimate in INFOLUST: relevant informationfinding consumers, based on (voluntarily revealed) preferences.

This gives huge possibilities for mobile advertising, since the mobile phone gives the ability to give relevant information anytime anywere, and using location based services it’s possible to give extemely relevant information. As a marketeer you can let your imagination speak and think about the possibilities of SMS related to this trend.

This trend is closely related to infolust

this desire for relevant information is insatiable, and will soon move from the online world to the ‘real’ world to achieve true ubiquity

In short, people will start looking for information anytime anywhere and are not bound to the online,  behind-the-desk world. Mobile phones will play a major role in this development. A lot of tools of the mobile phone make these development possible. Think of location based services (GPS), mobile bar codes (QR Code), codes linked to sms and maybe and hopefully soon RFID.

It’s up to you as a marketeer to use this trend to fit the needs of consumers to the product en services you offer.

BizzSms strategy for P&G