LocalMobileSearch

Google Bows "In-Stock Nearby" for Retailers

Google promised to bring local inventory data to online and mobile shopping and the company has started to roll the program out. According to a post on the Google Mobile Blog today:

if you're searching for a product that is sold by participating retailers, including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, or West Elm, you can just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it's available in a local store. If you see a blue dot, you can tap on the adjacent "In stock nearby" link, and you'll be taken to the seller's page where you'll see whether the item is "In Stock" or has "Limited Availability" near you. You'll also see how far away the stores are from you -- as long as you've enabled My Location or manually specified your location.

(Emphasis added)

It's big boxes and major retailers for now, but Google is inviting any and all retailers to participate. This is the "killer app" for Google Shopping, which has generally been a lackluster destination. 

This is currently available only for mobile and on high end mobile devices, specifically iPhone, Palm and Android. It's also US only.

There are others that already do this in the marketplace, including Krillion and its various distribution partners, Milo.com, NearbyNow (although its model has changed) and Channel Intelligence (for a few retailers). It's very much a feature consumers want and will use so this is a smart move that will send Google's major competitors scrambling to match it. 

Update: I've spoken to Google about this and have a more detailed post at Search Engine Land. 

Target to Mainstream Mobile Coupons

Mobile couponing has been something of an exotic and unfamiliar beast to both retailers and consumers until fairly recently. However, now, just like American Idol mainstreamed (if I can use it as verb) text messaging for US users a couple of years ago, Target is potentially going to do the same for mobile couponing.

The company has launched what it calls the "first-ever scannable mobile coupon program." The announcement has been widely covered, but the release explains the mechanics of the program: 

Guests can opt-in to the program on their PC at Target.com/mobile, on their phone at m.target.com or by texting COUPONS to 827438 (TARGET). After opt-in, guests receive a text message with a link to a mobile Web page that contains multiple offers, all accessible through a single barcode. Offers are single use and expire on the date listed.

Issues with the POS and redemption, which have historically plagued mobile couponing (outside SMS), have reportedly been resolved with a technology upgrade that permits the retailer to scan barcodes at the register:

Target's point-of-sale scanning technology makes mobile coupons possible, and Target is the first major retailer with the ability to scan mobile barcodes in all of its stores. 

Retailers are on the vanguard of mobile marketing and finding success in early trials with advanced, as well as integrated, digital marketing approaches. Witness also Placecast's geofencing SMS marketing program with retailers. 

Perhaps no other retailer, save Wal-Mart, has the kind of clout and visiblity to push mobile couponing quickly into the mainstream. Target it must also be said is not a mainstream retailer from a digital marketing perspective. The company has been very systematic and progressive in developing digital strategy, including mobile.

YouTube Launches Ads on Mobile Website

Google announced the launch of display ads on YouTube today in the US and Japanese markets:

[T]oday, we're launching ads on the home, search, and browse pages of the American and Japanese YouTube mobile websites (m.youtube.com from your mobile browser). This is a great way for advertisers to reach YouTube viewers across multiple platforms. In fact, at launch YouTube will immediately provide one of the largest audiences for a mobile ad campaign anywhere on the mobile web. And because YouTube mobile attracts early adopters, the site can deliver to advertisers a coveted demographic of tech savvy trendsetters. 

YouTube has always been part of Google's display advertising story, now extending into mobile. The company has moved to acquire leading mobile ad network AdMob, which has not been finalized. Interestingly, the YouTube iPhone app doesn't feature any ads. And I wonder if Google is trying to avoid running afoul of Apple's somewhat murky policy against doing geotargeted ads against non-geotargeted content (assuming that geotargeting is available).

The Mazda ad on the homepage that you see below appears to be a pure national awareness ad without even a dealer locator. The image below (on the left) is of the mobile Web version of YouTube and (on the right), the iPhone App:

Google reported that traffic to the mobile version of YouTube was way up:

The . . . site traffic grew by over 160% in 2009, and now millions of people all over the world are streaming tens of millions of videos every day on their mobile phones.

Android Growing, 29% Accessing Mobile Internet

Android has seen some impressive growth over the course of the past quarter, according to new numbers out today from comScore. CTIA counts over 270 million mobile subscribers in the US; comScore argues there are 234 million ages 13 and older. Here are the subscriber figures for the four largest US carriers:

• Verizon -- 91.2 million
• AT&T -- 85.1 million
• Sprint -- 48.1 million
• T-Mobile -- 33.8 million
• Others -- 13 million (approx)

There there isn't likely a causal connection, Android's gain is just a little greater than WinMo's loss.

Here are the big data points from a usage standpoint in the chart below:

• 63.5% doing SMS (this number may be low)
• 28.6% using mobile Internet (with some degree of regularity)
• 19.8% downloaded apps  

You can see in these numbers very directly the caparative reach of each of these "platforms."

If we use a compromise figure of 250 million mobile subscribers, then number of mobile Internet users in real terms would be 71 million people in the US. 

Top US handset makers:

Skyhook: Location a Gateway to Community

I caught up with Ted Morgan, CEO of Skyhook Wireless, and he gave me a preview of some exciting stuff to come out of the Boston-based firm. However I'm forbidden from discussing any of it right now.

We also spoke about the state of the major smartphone platforms and Morgan gave me some visibility into app developer perspectives on each of them. "It's not that different writing code for HTML5 apps vs. a native app." 

We also got into Windows 7, the iPad, Apple vs. Google and some other juicy and off-the-record topics. 

Skyhook provides location technology for the iPhone and most of the major location apps on the various smartphone platforms, although most of the action, from Skyhook's point of view is still on the iPhone. Skyhook in one way or another is seeing the activity on 80 million devices across North America, Europe and Asia and the company is sitting on a mountain of interesting data as a result. 

Morgan told me that Skyhook's servers see 300 million location lookups every day. Yet only about 5% of the apps across the apps stores are location aware. In particular Morgan said that there were about 8,000 location-enabled apps in the iTunes store, out of roughly 160,000 total. That's a kind of a paradox if one operates from the premise that location is at the heart of the mobile experience. 

Morgan discussed another more subtle and complex use for location on mobile devices, beyond finding places and people. He sees a location layer or location awareness as a way to build community: for example, news apps or music apps that show what's popular in a particular geography. Location is a layer or aspect but not the center of the experience necessarily. 

Morgan believes that learning about what people near and around you think is valuable or interesting can help these apps and sites build community and loyalty. Location becomes a basis for community because it makes the abstractions of news, photos, music more concrete in a local or offline context. Location offers a shared circumstance that can enable people to discover and connect with one another. 

With community and loyalty, Morgan believes, come new opportunities for monetization as well. 

Where Launches 'Hyper-Local' Ad Network

uLocate, which operates popular mobile site/app Where, has launched WHERE Ads, which it's positioning as a new "hyper-local" ad network. Last week I spoke to Where marketing kingpin Dan Gilmartin about it.

Gilmartin told me this initiative grew out of the company's (and it's users') frustration with conventional mobile display advertising and third party networks that too often supplied ad inventory wasn't very relevant, he said. The company has thus created its own solution and is going to make it available to third parties. As part of that Where also distributes local ads from other networks and sites (e.g., CityGrid).

The ads are geographically and usually contextually relevant. They appear at the bottom of pages, fairly unobtrusively -- one might even argue almost too unobtrusively:

The release says that "Click Through Rates (CTR) on WHERE Ads has exceeded other mobile ads by as much as three times." Gilmartin discussed this better performance during the trial period with me fairly extensively during our earlier call.

I'm narrowly avoiding the cliche that relevant ads are "content" when I say these ads don't appear to be "ads" because of their immediate relevance to the category and location. Although they're not contextually relevant all the time. (I don't recall if there's behavioral targeting going on however.)

The more relevant the ads the more consumers will respond; it's pretty simple.

The general challenge has been getting the LBS inventory to provide enough fill. Now, networks such as CityGrid, V-Enable and Where are providing more specific LBS ("hyper-local") ad inventory, beyond the more conventional geotargeted inventory from traditional mobile ad networks. 

Dan Gilmartin will be on my panel on LBS monetization at Where 2.0 on April 1. Also on the panel will be Google, Placecast, de Carta, and Citysearch. 

HP Slate Readying iPad Attack: 'The Full Web'

Adobe is in full damage-control mode as it seeks to convince the world that Apple and not Flash is the true pariah in the new world of mobile computing. In the first new imagery since its introduction by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES, HP and Adobe present the forthcoming HP slate device and demonstrate how it provides users with access to the "full Web and not just a part of it" -- as opposed to Apple's "incomplete" Web capability.

Notice in the video below, which is a "preview of Flash player and [Adobe] Air on HP's slate device," the repeated indirect critical references to the iPad without the mention of Apple or its anti-Flash devices:

My belief is that the iPad will be a success and devices that merely reproduce the PC experience on a slate without a keyboard will fail because they're a weaker version of a laptop -- that is unless they're very cheap.

Survey: iPhone 'Addicting' for Some Students

A Stanford University anthropology professor conducted a survey of student iPhone owners (n=200), most of whom (70%) had owned the device for less than a year. Many of these student-repondents expressed the idea that the device had become indispensable to the point of "addiction" for some.

Here are the top-level findings: 

• Nearly 85 percent of the iPhone owners used the phone as their watch
• 89 percent used it as their alarm clock
• 75 percent admitted to falling asleep with the iPhone in bed with them
• 69 percent said they were more likely to forget their wallet than their iPhone when leaving in the morning
• 74 percent said the iPhone also made them feel cool

Ranking the addition on a five point scale, "with five being addicted and one being not at all addicted":

• 10 percent of the students acknowledged full addiction to the device
• 34 percent ranked themselves as a four on the scale
• 6 percent said they weren't addicted at all

And among those who didn't consider themselves completely addicted:

• 32 percent expressed worry that they would become addicted someday.
• 15 percent of those surveyed said the iPhone was turning them into a media addict
• 30 percent called it a "doorway into the world"
• 25 percent found the phone "dangerously alluring"
• 41 percent said losing their iPhone would be "a tragedy"

Next up: iPhone Anonymous