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July 1, 2009

Bing, ChaCha Launch User-Generated Content Contests

Get out your cameras, it's time for a couple of search-related contests. If you enjoy the large images Bing features everday on its homepage, now you have the chance to see one of your images featured on the brand spankin' new decision engine. Bing is holding a photo contest where the winner's image will be featured on Bing.com for a 24 hour period.

Photos are submitted via Facebook. You have until July 16 to submit your photos. The winner will be determined by public voting, via the Facebook application. The winning image will appear on Bing.com on August 3 and will include "hot spots" created by the Bing team, just like you see with the daily images.

Meanwhile, ChaCha has launched a video contest. The theme of the contest is "Life with ChaCha." The deadline for submissions is August 10. Judges will pick 5 finalists and the winner will be chosen by a public vote.

There are three criteria that the judges will use to choose the 5 finalists. They are:

Showing ChaCha to be a "smart friend" (50 percent)
Originality (25 percent)
Humor (25 percent)

The prizes here are worth moolah. The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 in cash as well as an Apple Final Cut Studio 2 and a Sony HDR-XR500V 120GB High Def Handycam Camcorder. The runner up gets $1,000 and third place gets $500.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

June 2, 2009

iPhone Safari Browser to Integrate Geolocation

Computerworld (CW) has the goods on news involving the mobile Safari browser that Apple includes on the iPhone prepping to include geolocation. This means you won't have to type in your zip code or hopefully not have to be asked a million times if an app can use your location.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The possibilities for advertising and search are enormous. Targeted ads and results could use location via the browser. This could really be a huge boost for advertisers and yes, consumers. Better ads = more conversions for advertisers and better info on local stuff for consumers. And whichever search engine serves up the most relevant, local results could see a boon as mobile search continues to rise.

iPhone's Safari browser isn't the only one interested in geolocation. According to CW, most browsers are heading in this direction.

Privacy concerns are sure to arise, but hopefully the browsers will include the option to turn off geolocation should a user wish to keep their location super-private.

What do you think of geolocation in browsers? Let us know in the comments below.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 27, 2009

Android, iPhone Web Requests Higher Than Their Market Share

AdMob has released its April 2009 mobile metric report and, as expected, the iPhone is rocking the mobile web. While it doesn't dominate the market share for handset sales (yet?), it does produce the most mobile web requests. The iPhone comprised 8% of smartphone market share, but generated 43% of ad mobile ad requests last month.

Android has similar stats, but on a much smaller scale. Android consisted of 1% of smartphone sales but generated 3% of mobile ad requests.

Smartphones on a whole generate far more web requests than their market share. They only make up about 12% of sales but 35% of AdMob's ad requests. Phones using the Symbian operating system (primarily Nokia phones) enjoyed 52% of handset sales in April 2009, but only generated 36% of mobile web requests.

24% of April's requests were made over a WiFi network. The top 5 devices making Wifi requests were:

iPhone
iPod touch
Sony PSP
HTC Dream
HTC Dash

Compared to March, global web requests were down 2% for April, but compared to April last year, mobile web requests are skyrocketing:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 5, 2009

AdMob Runs Publisher Bonus in May

Between May 4 and May 18, mobile advertising network AdMob is giving publishers a 35% bonus on any money transferred over to ads. For example, if you transfer $100 of money made through published ads to actually running an ad yourself, AdMob will add an additional $35 worth of advertising.

With the economy the way it is, I suspect we will continue to see these incentive-based campaigns. It was just yesterday that news came of social search site Scour offering $1,000 in search-based prizes. And Microsoft claims it has had success with its incentive-based programs such as Cashback and Search Perks.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 30, 2009

Yahoo! Tops March 2009 Mobile Benchmark Study by Gomez and dotMobi

Gomez and dotMobi have collaborated on mobile benchmarks, and for the mobile search category, Yahoo! snagged first place overall in March 2009.

There were five categories used to measure. Yahoo! tied for first place in two of them: discoverability and readability. Here's the five categories and how they're measured:

Discoverability -- how readily a consumer can find the mobile Web site using different URLs.
Readiness -- how well the mobile Web site renders on popular mobile devices.
Availability -- the percentage of successful transactions or the availability of a Web page.
Response time -- how long each page takes to download and the duration of an entire transaction.
Consistency -- how well the mobile Web site performs on different mobile carriers, in different geographies and time frames.

Here are the results:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March 19, 2009

Mobile Internet News & Info Grows 107%, Mobile Social Grows 427% in 1 year

comScore has released quite the interesting data on the growing trend of mobile internet usage. It seems daily usage among unique users has grown over 100% from January of 2008 to January of 2009.

But get this - that's just the number for accessing news and information. It doesn't even include social networking. With mobile Facebook and Twitter apps, it's no surprise that the growth rate in that space is monumental:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March 4, 2009

AdMob Lowers Minimum Bid Prices for Geo-Targeted, Non 'Big-4' Carrier Ads

Mobile advertising vendor AdMob has made changes to its minimum bids for geo-targeted ads. Already in effect, the changes affect the following:

For iPhone ads targeting all United States traffic (i.e., all US with no further targeting options selected), the minimum bid will decrease from $0.10 to $0.05.
For non-iPhone ads targeting all countries and carriers (i.e., no further targeting options selected), the minimum bid will decrease from $0.03 to $0.01.

Minimum bids for ads targeting specific carriers is also being affected. Targeting the big 4 US carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile & Verizon) will NOT change, and ranges from $0.11 - $0.15. Targeting for all other carriers will decrease from between $0.11 - $0.15 to $0.05.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 10, 2009

Cisco Projects Mobile Traffic Growth to Grow 131% by 2013

Cisco has released the results from its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Mobile Forecast for 2008-2013. It projects mobile traffic to grow 131% by 2013.

Most of that traffic will be for video. By 2013, 64% of mobile traffic will be video. Mobile video will grow 150% between 2008 and 2013.

More data from the forecast:

Mobile broadband handsets with higher than 3G speeds and laptop air or data cards will constitute more than 80 percent of global mobile traffic by 2013.
Latin America will have the strongest mobile growth at 166 percent CAGR, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 146 percent.
Asia-Pacific will account for one-third of all mobile data traffic by 2013.
Global mobile traffic will exceed two exabytes per month by 2013.
Global mobile data traffic reached one exabyte per month in half the time that fixed data traffic did.

"More personalized services and applications are becoming available on a wide range of devices. The key to success will be delivering video-rich any-play services to users, enabling them to move freely throughout the world while maintaining connectivity to others," said Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president, service provider routing technology group, Cisco. "As a result, service providers will have to take into account the need not only for more bandwidth when planning their network architecture but for greater network intelligence as well."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2008

Microsoft Goes after the Verizon Default Search Deal

Microsoft is attempting to pull the rug out from under Google's talks with Verizon to be the default search engine on its mobile phones. And they're doing so by dishing out the dough.

It's no secret that Microsoft has a bunch of cash on hand. They've been using some of it to create incentive programs like Cashback and SearchPerks to essentially pay people to search.

Now, it looks like they're willing to shell out some green by offering Verizon a larger piece of the revenue-sharing pie than Google has thus far offered.

Could this be why Google was unwilling to spend moolah on a costly court battle defending its now-defunct search advertising deal with Yahoo? Both Google and Yahoo said they could have won the suit, but Google declined to pursue it.

Could this be why Steve Ballmer is saying he's not interested in acquiring Yahoo anymore (depsite the blue light special)?

Mobile is hot and it's only going to get hotter. Becoming the default search engine on the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. (Verizon recently won approval for their acquisition of Alltel) is prime real estate indeed.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 16, 2008

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in Favor of Freeing Up White Space TV Spectrum

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is in favor of freeing up the "white spaces" in the tv spectrum between television stations. While concerns over interference have been made by some groups, testing has not shown that to be a problem. As Techdirt points out, the complications found in testing were from failed devices, not interference.

Martin is seeking a vote from the full commission on the matter as early as November 4th, which just so happens to be another important election day.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 15, 2008

ChaCha Selected by Rock the Vote for Mobile Answers

ChaCha has been selected by Rock the Vote to provide SMS search for the duration of the 2008 elections. Rock the Vote is the effort by MTV to make voting cool among youth.

Users can text questions RTVOTE (788683) on their cell phones and receive nonpartisan answers from "politically-trained ChaCha Guides." Texters can learn where their polling place is, candidate issues, and whether or not it's possible to remain nonpartisan in this election anymore.

“As the presidential election continues to heat up, we've seen a sizable increase in questions about the election,” said ChaCha Co-Founder and President, Brad Bostic. “ChaCha has rapidly become a popular, trusted resource for young people who want information while on the go. By making credible answers easy to access on virtually any mobile phone, ChaCha and Rock the Vote are providing unprecedented access to the information voters need to make informed choices.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 17, 2008

ChaCha is Fastest Growing Mobile Text Search Service

Since launching a mobile text search service in January, ChaCha has answered 27 million queries, already gaining 7% of the U.S. mobile search market. They tied Yahoo in mobile search market share by the end of June 2008.

ChaCha experienced an 800% growth rate in the second quarter of 2008.

"Mobile search is growing at an incredible pace,” says Chris Quick, mobile media analyst with Nielsen Mobile. “Within the mobile SMS search category, ChaCha is the fastest growing service, increasingly competitive with other mobile search providers. We're therefore keeping very close tabs on how ChaCha will affect the mobile market.”

Looks like refocusing their business model on mobile text search is working out pretty nicely. I've used ChaCha myself, and I find it quite useful. I can text a question, keep going about my day and then get the precise answer I need a few minutes later. It saves me time, because I can get stuff done instead of sifting through a bunch of different search results, which may or may not be relevant.

What do you think of ChaCha's mobile text search service and growth? Direct your thoughts to the comments section.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

September 11, 2008

MapQuest, Google Launch Blackberry Mobile Apps

Both MapQuest and Google are have launched new Blackberry Mobile Apps.

MapQuest's application is called "MapQuest 4 Mobile" includes hybrid imagery, traffic information and a GPS “find me” feature. Users can also conduct their usual MapQuest business, such as conducting a search for a business. At first, MQ4M will only be available through Sprint on the BlackBerry 8830 and AT&T on the BlackBerry 8800, 8820, and 8310. Other handsets will be added in coming months.

Google's new Blackberry app is a downloadable search application similar to the one for iPhone. Google says that searching via the app is faster than accessing Google via mobile web. The app includes Google Suggest and has quick links to other Google apps including Calendar and Docs.

Earlier this year, Google added Voice Search for Blackberry Pearl, and updated Blackberry search results pages.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 5, 2008

Incentives Key to Mobile Marketing Success

Incentives can help mobile users overcome their initial negative reactions to mobile advertising, according to survey data released by ABI Research.

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