Google’s mobile ads are becoming more location-aware. Today, Google is introducing mobile display ads for both the iPhone and Android phones which can be geo-targeted. Advertisers will be able to check a “location extension for display” box and their ads will become geo-enabled when viewed in mobile browsers or apps.  A little double-arrow will open up the ad and show the business pinned on map with two big blue buttons to get directions or call the business.  Google will only charge for calls or clicks.

Google already offers so-called “location extension” ads for mobile search, but this is the first time it is expanding the concept to mobile display ads.  Google says that mobile ads that offer a location generally see an average 8 percent increase in click-through rates over plain-vanilla mobile ads, and click-to-call mobile ads see a 6 percent increase in clicks.

Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is simply the ability to conduct business transactions through a mobile device. With smartphone sales rising 49% in the first quarter of 2010, never before has it been so easy to shop, anywhere, anytime from the palm of your hand. There is an enormous amount of ongoing market research, and though there has been a variety of numbers estimated and reported, they all conclude that mobile commerce is a profitable and rapidly growing market.

By 2015, it’s estimated that shoppers from around the world will spend about $119 billion on goods and services bought via their mobile phones, according to a study by ABI Research released this past February. In the United States alone, mobile shopping rose from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009, and mobile campaign spending also increased by 25 to 30% over the past year, with companies shelling out just under $313 million according to the same study. Senior Analyst Mark Beccue, said that he’s forecasting U.S. sales to reach about $2.2 billion in 2010.

Here are five mobile commerce trends to keep an eye on for the remainder of 2010.

1. Bargain Hunting
2. Mobile Ticketing
3. Banking
4. Tangible Goods
5. Marketing

Despite the hype, there is sporadic use of app stores outside the Apple and Android platforms. Our survey of 400+ mobile developers found that only four percent of Java respondents used App Stores as their primary channel to market. Windows Phone and mobile web developers find app stores little more relevant, with fewer than 10 percent of such respondents using one as a primary channel for taking applications to market.

This contrasts completely with platforms that have ‘native’ app stores. Over 95 percent of iPhone respondents use the Apple App Store as their primary channel, while the percentage of Android respondents using Android Market is just below 90.

In terms of the incumbent mobile platforms, around 75 percent of Symbian respondents that use app stores, use the Nokia Ovi Store. The significant number (20-25 percent) of Symbian developers who also use iPhone and Android app stores reveals the brain-drain that is taking place towards these newer platforms. This is a particularly critical migration of developer mindshare, considering that the Symbian platform is the hardest to master. Thus, the size of developer investments on Symbian being written off is substantial.

Besides the growth of apps, app stores are the cornerstone of another major transformation that has taken place in the mobile industry: the mass-market use of mobile as the next marketing channel beyond the Internet. We would argue that it was app stores that triggered the influx of apps – not the open source nature of Android, or the consumer sex appeal of the iPhone.

App stores triggered the sheer growth in app numbers and diversity that led to the cliché, “there’s an app for that”. Another cliché, “the screen is the app,” tells the other half of the story. Combined, the app store and touchscreen were the two essential ingredients behind mobile apps as the next mass-market channel beyond the Internet. These two ingredients inspired just about every media and service company to commission companion or revenue-driven apps as extensions to their traditional online channels. In effect, this phenomenon fueled the app economy, even beyond what app store numbers alone suggest.

Speeding up time to market
App stores have revolutionised time to market for applications. To research exactly how radically the time to market for applications has changed since the introduction of app stores, we analysed two parameters:
- the time to shelf, i.e. how long it takes from submitting an application to that application being available for purchase
- the time to payment, i.e. the length of time between an application being sold and the proceeds reaching the developer’s bank account

Our findings show that app stores have reduced the average time-to-shelf by two thirds: from 68 days across traditional channels, to 22 days via an app store. These traditional channels have been suffering from long, proprietary and fragmented processes of application certification, approval, targeting and pricing, all of which need to be established via one-to-one commercial agreements. Moreover, app stores have reduced the time-to-payment by more than half; from 82 days on average in the case of traditional channels, to 36 days on average with app stores.

You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone.

But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud.

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.

Article Highlights:

• Mobile marketing and advertising are all about building mutual trust
• Too many mobile marketers forget about conversing with and listening to the consumer
• If you want to build a strong, ongoing relationship with the customer, don't go into it like a one-night stand

Just the Highlights

Disclosure out of the way, here are the latest findings, highlights first:

• 92 countries generated more than 10 million request in May 2010, up from 27 countries in May 2008
• Nokia leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe
• Apple leads in North America, Oceania and Western Europe
• In May 2010, smartphones generated 46% of traffic in the AdMob network, up from 22% 2 years ago
• 24% of May's traffic was via Wi-Fi
• Mobile Internet Devices (including the iPad, PSP and iPod Touch) consistently have accounted for 10% of traffic over the past year
• 57% of Apple devices in AdMob's network are outside the U.S.
• Traffic from the Android platform has grown 29% month-over-month since May 2009
• iOS and Android users spend 79 minutes per day using apps
• iOS and Android users download about 9 apps per month

Android Gains Thanks to New Devices

The introduction of numerous Android-based phones has allowed the mobile OS's market share to increase dramatically over the past year, AdMob finds. But what's most interesting is seeing what those gains look like, graphed out.

In this chart, for example, you can see a sharp increase in Android's market share while Apple's iOS market share drops. In February, Apple appears to have a 50% share, but by May, it's down to 40% worldwide.

Google's mobile OS has climbed rapidly over the prior months, having gone from around 5% in January 2009 to 20% in May 2010, stealing away market share from other mobile OS's, most notably Apple's, whose iOS dropped from 75% share to 59% during that same time frame.

Also of note, these numbers were calculated prior to the EVO's launch, the highly anticipated "4G" Android smartphone which sold out within days of its launch. Adding that into the fold, the next Quantcast report will likely offer even more gains for Android at iOS's expense.

While the specific applications vary from platform to platform, the most popular apps across smartphones were pretty consistent in this report: Maps, weather, Facebook and music all had strong showings.

Check out this chart, which breaks down the five most popular apps by smartphone OS:

Quick Tips for Creating a Mobile Optimized Site

Last year mobile web usage increased 148% worldwide. In the near future as smarthpones become more and more ubiquitous this number will continue to shoot up. As a developer, the time has arrived for you to seriously consider whether you should begin accommodating your mobile audience.

5 Can´t-Miss Usability Tips for Mobile Website Designs

Finding your way around a majority of the mobile websites that exist has become a nightmare with the lack of proper usability being implemented into their designs.

This has caused the quality of designs (especially the mobile usability factor) to decrease on a larger scale when compared to the sites that not only practice good mobile aesthetics, but allow their users a smooth transition between the regular site to an enticing experience on their mobile devices.

Because of the instability in a lot of the mobile web design information that is being distributed on the web, a lot of websites have very poor mobile interface designs. Below, we’re going to cover a few simple, yet prominent steps to designing a much more effective interface and increasing the quality of a mobile websites usability.

The text above is only two of 10+ resources given on the page..
Some of the content is a bit old but overall it's a great collection of resources..

In partnership with Luth Research, MMA surveyed 1,000 U.S. adult consumers from a demographically representative sample and found that, as of mid-March, 91% of the respondents have a cellphone and 26% of that group has used a "map, navigation or some other mobile phone service that automatically determines your current location," reads the MMA release on this data.

Perhaps more surprising is the level of engagement between these location-based service users and the geo-targeted ads. Nearly half of those who noticed ads while using a location-based service took some action.

Think about that for a minute and let it sink in.

For comparison purposes, a banner ad on the Web getting a 2% click-though rate (CTR) is considered fairly successful, but most campaigns now receive just 0.2%-0.3% CTRs.

That may not be a true apples-to-apples comparison, though. Location-based mobile ads don't necessarily have CTRs - they can be anything from standard Web banners to creative interactive video displays that respond as you move the phone around, such as was the case with the Dockers ad - the world's first "shakable" ad.

In fact, all forms of mobile ads do well. SMS ads saw 37% engagement, and ads seen while mobile Web browsing saw 28% engagement, notes the survey.

A few other interesting findings:

• 10% of cellphone owners use location-based mobile services at least once per week
• 63% of iPhone owners use location-based mobile services at least once per week
• Adults ages 25-34 are frequent users of location services, with 22% using them at least once a week.
• Consumers are interested in allowing their phone to automatically share their location in exchange for perks, such as free use of mobile applications and mobile coupons.