Bluetooth and Online Marketing

Fortune is reporting the latest findings from Charlie Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company.

According to Wolf’s analysis of IDC numbers on Mac sales during June 2010, an enormous escalation of government spending was discovered.

Simply put, Apple is selling macs to the US government at an astounding rate. Based on the Fortune report, government sales rose better than 200% year over year for the June quarter.

“Whether the June blip was a one-quarter phenomenon or something more enduring should be revealed in future quarters,” Wolf writes.

The numbers reported in full are as follows:

• At 35%, Mac shipment growth in June easily exceeded the market’s growth rate of 20.9%.
• Mac shipments grew 31.4% in the home market, topping the market’s growth rate of 25.2%.
• At 49.8%, the Mac’s growth in business was three times higher than the market’s 15.7%.
• Mac shipments in government grew 200%, sixteen times faster than the market’s 12.1%.

Wolf, also pointed to the “intriguing phenomenon” of the European expansion of the Mac sales. “The key driver of Mac sales in the European market,” Wolf writes, “appears to be the iPhone. The iPhone holds a higher share in the European smartphone market than it does in the U.S. because it is distributed through multiple carriers in most countries in this region. In addition, the halo effect emanating from the iPhone is undoubtedly stronger than the iPod halo effect.”

As the surge for smartphones continue, the vital parts necessary to produce them are running short according to new reports.

Chip makers rolled back production during the latter half of 2009 due to the recession and are now finding themselves playing catch up as hot new devices hit the market in droves. Beyond smartphones, it’s also affecting wireless carriers — some of which are seeing delays in improving their networks — and could even raise computer prices.

Luckily, the problem isn’t an across-the-board shortage of chips, but rather problems with certain components here and there. If just one of the 20 to 30 critical chips that go into smartphones is unavailable, the whole production line screeches to a halt. The problem stems from the fact that chips that go into smartphones compete for production capacity with other chips at the gigantic factories run by contract manufacturers.

When sales went down dramatically during the first half of 2009, manufacturers scaled back production significantly to ease the burden. Although sales sprang back later in the year, factories are still having trouble scaling up production fast enough. The chip factories, or “foundries,” are running at 96 percent capacity, up from 56 percent at the depth of the recession.

Although production is again picking up steam, it will undoubtedly affect the holiday shopping season as new smartphones continue to hit the market.

Online Marketing with RSS Ray and RSSRay.com announces a new episode that you do not want to miss.

Show Date: August 25, 2010 at 1:30 pm Eastern,…

For those wondering how Facebook’s recently announced Places functionality would effect other LBS apps, it was announced yesterday that Foursquare saw its most new-user signups ever — just one day after Facebook launched a similar concept.

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley tweeted yesterday in reference to the milestone saying; “Just heard from @HarryH that today was @foursquare’s biggest day ever in terms of new user signups.” HarryH refers to Foursquare’s engineering lead Harry Heymann. While I assumed the launch of Places would have a positive effect on the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and the rest, I didn’t think it would be so substantial so quickly.

Many speculated that Facebook’s long-awaited location entrance would bring much-needed attention to the concept, and it looks like those assumptions were correct. In all the news surrounding Facebook’s launch, Foursquare was mentioned numerous times, alerting many people who may have never given it a second look before. Still, what the future holds as Facebook continues to build on the “Places” concept should be interesting in terms of how other LBS apps can keep up.

The mobile app market continues to grow by an incredible amount year after year, with new research estimating the entire market will reach $15 billion by 2013.

Mobile research firm Research2guidance recently published a comprehensive report entitled “Global Smartphone Application Market Report 2010,” which was an update for the smartphone app market for the first half of 2010. In it, the firm indicates the market has already reached $2.2B in the first six month of this year, well on track to reach the $15B estimate for 2013.

While the firm’s estimates were attributed mostly to the obvious growth of app stores like Apple’s and the Android Market, Research2guidance expects future growth to be driven by “niche stores for verticals such as business or health.” As for app downloads, the research indicates numbers reached a total of 3.8 billion in the first semester of this year, compared to 3.1 billion for all of 2009.

A primary contributing factor to the growth of mobile apps is the steady adoption of smartphones, which the firm estimates will increase from about 100 million in 2009 to nearly 1 billion by 2013.

Visa Inc. and Bank of America Corp have announced a new mobile payment program that will test in New York City starting next month, potentially paving the way for smartphones to be as common a fixture in American shoppers’ hands as plastic cards.

What the credit card brand and the U.S. banking chain propose is more like a debit card than a charge card. Select participants will have small chips supplied by Visa installed in their smartphones, which will emit radio signals. As Reuters describes it, “Customers would then ‘bump’ their phones with point-of-sale devices in stores–actually they need only wave the phones near the devices–and their bank account data would be collected and their purchases completed.” Reuters also reports that US Bankcorp also plans a similar test program with Visa, starting in October; the Bank of America pilot will continue through the end of the year.

The news sounds exciting in the United States, but similar payment systems utilizing consumers’ cell phones are old hat in other countries. For example, in Japan mobile users can purchase drinks from vending machines simply by waving their handsets at them. “It’s kind of dangerous,” laughed a former roommate from Japan, “because it’s easy to think, ‘wow, this was free’ when actually it’s not free at all”–but it is certainly a boon for the marketers and sellers of canned

The latest headline on the Google Mobile Blog says it all: “To 100 million and beyond with Google Maps for mobile.”

Following its introduction to the mobile world some five years ago, Google Maps for mobile has reached a significant milestone.

The number of individuals now using their mobile phones instead of a piece of paper to determine their destination route (via Google Maps for mobile) has exceeded 100 million per month.

Not resting on their accomplishments, the folks at Google have been ramping up efforts in recent weeks and months to make Google maps for mobile an even more integral part of our daily lives and journeys.

“Lately, we’ve been especially focused on helping you find the right place at the right time,” the company noted, drawing specific attention to the addition of Place Pages, which allows users to pick a nearby place and browse relevant information such as opening hours and review other “snippets” about surrounding places.

Adding more excitement to the offering’s growth are “Search by voice” and the new Places icon on Android. “With this latest Android version,” Google says, “we’re happy to see that you’re now searching for places almost three times as often, doubling how many Place Pages are seen a day.”

To read all the deserved praise and glory directed toward Google, check out the Official Google Blog.

Flush with numerous smartphone services that it offers consumers who own its devices, Nokia will soon be better able to serve mobile marketers too. Today the Finnish mobile phone giant said it will purchase Motally, whose mobile analytics service offers in-application tracking and reporting and helps app-creators better develop their products according to the way users engage.

We’ve written about Motally, based in San Francisco, several times this year. Its import APIs allows for the uploading of bulk data directly to Motally for processing, making it especially useful for platform providers who want to send large quantities of data for analysis on behalf of their user base. Its two-way mobile app communications allow developers to make changes in real-time without having to resubmit their app to app stores and go through the strenuous process of re-approval. In short, Motally makes it possible for marketers to create the most effective mobile campaigns possible–and then measure their success.

Nokia, meanwhile, has long believed in integrating services and apps with hardware. Back in 2000 it had created Club Nokia, a Web portal allowing phone owners to download ringtones, to the disconcertion of mobile operators who wanted to offer such services–and reap revenues therein–themselves. But the walled garden failed, since consumers hated having fake Internet access mostly focused on things to buy from the carrier. Thus since 2007 Nokia has integrated its devices with

Mobile coupons are becoming big business, as one German marketing company can prove.

Kuffer Marketing GmbH recently announced that its iPhone mobile coupon app, dubbed “Gutscheinbuk” or “Voucher Book, was downloaded 50,000 times in the first three days after launch — or an average of once every 15 sec. In no time at all, the app rose to become one of the Top 5 apps for Germany in the Apple App Store.

To be fair, “Voucher Book” was already a wildly popular coupon-based Website in Germany that offered a simplistic approach to offering money-off coupons, but its mobile success is still worth mention. The site had been around for the past four years and currently boasts over 7,500 active coupons that are now available via its iPhone app.

The simplistic nature of the app both from a retailer’s point-of-view and the end-user is what’s helped catapult the app to the top. A retailer that uses Voucher Book can manage its own coupons using a variety of metrics –- selecting distinct offers to be sent at different times of day, or in different cities for example. As a user, you can simply open the app and select what kind of voucher you’re interested in and Voucher Book delivers anything that’s useable within a short distance of them.

Overall, the app’s success is a boon to mobile coupons in general, which are just now starting to catch on in a big way. Whether it’s a

New data out from Nielson and Forrester Research indicate that smartphone owners will surpass those with feature phones by the end of next year, indicating an interesting shift in what the future mobile user will be doing with their device.

Mobile phone penetration today already surpasses that of computers, and by the end of 2010, more than 240 million U.S. consumers — or almost 78% of the population — will have a mobile phone subscription, according to a new study from Forrester Research entitled “Profiling U.S. Online Mobile Consumers.”

What’s interesting is that while smartphones were once only the “playground of businesspeople on the go,” 22% of the population now have a smartphone, which opens the door to a host of new mobile activities, the study says. Breaking down the demographics, the study notes that mobile phone owners with web access who use the mobile Web at least monthly tend to be “younger, smartphone-owning, wealthy males who are driven by entertainment,” the study says. 69% of these consumers own a smartphone; 26% a BlackBerry and 20% an iPhone. 13% own a Samsung, 11% a Motorola and 11% an LG, the study says.

The goal of the respective studies were to open the eyes of mobile marketers to the increased possibilities of smartphones and the future of mobile media. “If your target market does fall into the group of regular mobile web users,” the study concludes, “you should ensure that your mobile Internet

Microsoft has big plans for its upcoming Windows Phone 7, and it’s focusing much of that effort on mobile advertising.

The company has been putting key executives and mobile-ad sales teams in place to position themselves to best capitalize on a segment the company has lost years of progress to Apple and Google on. Microsoft announced it will move Paul Lyonette, head of emerging platforms at Microsoft Advertising, to oversee the expansion of its mobile sales division and boost the headcount of its European mobile ad sales team.

More importantly, the company has put heavy emphasis on improving the quality of its mobile-ad display technology and platforms, including heavy emphasis on advanced geo-targeting. It’s no secret that Microsoft has lost out big on both the Online and mobile advertising growth we’ve seen in the past several years, and this could be a last chance effort before they completely loose relevance in the market.

In another interesting move, it recently emerged that Microsoft is offering financial incentives to mobile developers to produce apps for its Windows Marketplace app store in a bid to close the gap on market leaders Apple and Google. Tom Brix, a senior director at Microsoft, confirmed the company would compensate developers if the apps don’t sell as much as initially expected. This could help in the beginning, but swaying developer interest away from Apple and Google will be a tough

RIM today issued an update to its BlackBerry App World that includes some added bonuses for consumers, but takes a larger cut of ad-revenue away from developers.

On the consumer side, RIM is slowly adding much better billing options, including direct credit card payments and carrier billing to the mix. In addition, it’s also lowering the minimum price to 99 cents and $1.99 per app from a much higher minimum of $2.99 before. The addition of carrier billing will be a huge milestone, as it’s always been the preferred method of payment from a consumer point-of-view.

RIM said today that AT&T will be the first carrier to support carrier billing and others will start to support in the coming months, but it will be up to the carriers to announce. The addition of better payment options will help induce higher revenue potential for Blackberry developers, but RIM also announced today that the revenue split will move to a 70/30 model instead of the previous 80/20. This is the same model both Android and Apple use, but RIM had long been admired for giving such a generous revenue split.

Still, the update is a welcomed one for Blackberry users and was more than due. RIM has a long way to go to catch up to both Apple and Android, however, and it will start with the developers. Why would any developer want to promote their wares on Blackberry instead of Android or Apple? The generous revenue split helped, but now that’s not the

Apple today announced that starting in September Quattro Wireless will be shut down, allowing the company to focus 100% on iAd instead.

“As of September 30, we will support ads exclusively for the iAd Network,” read a statement posted on the former Quattro home page. Apple said it will no longer accept new campaigns for the ad network and will wind down existing campaigns across different devices and platforms, effectively ceasing the once thriving independent mobile-ad network.

Even though iAd has seen some rough patches since its inception, Apple still has high hopes for the concept. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Apple doesn’t want to invest more time and effort in keeping Quattro running as it did. ”I think it all comes down to resources,” said Phuc Truong, who leads mobile marketing efforts in the U.S. for Mobext, the mobile marketing arm of Havas Digital. “Given the focus they’ve chosen, Apple must have a very rosy view of where demand for iAd is going.”

Competing ad-networks can rejoice as well, as Quattro once held a 7% share of the mobile advertising market before its acquisition by Apple in January, and that stake is now up for grabs. ”This will create new opportunities for other ad networks, especially for inventory Apple represented on Android devices,” said Boris Fridman, CEO of mobile ad technology provider Crisp Wireless. He suggested mobile publishers have already been looking to switch to other mobile ad networks

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal today, Blackberry-maker RIM is in the market for a mobile advertising acquisition of its own. Those close to the matter indicate RIM has been in talks with Millennial Media, a leading independent ad-network, though it’s still speculation at this point.

According to those familiar with the negotiations, RIM has reportedly been in talks with Millennial over the past few months, but largely put it to rest after neither party could agree on a sale price. Reports indicate Millennial has asked for between $400 million and $500 million, though RIM has backed down saying both Google and Apple overpaid for their respective acquisitions of AdMob and Quattro Wireless, and they don’t intend to do the same.

Millennial is unlikely to sell according to an interview with its CEO from early August with The Wall Street Journal. Millennial Chief Executive Paul Palmieri said that the company hopes to make a public offering of shares rather than be acquired. ”We are on the path of being an independent company,” he said.

Regardless, RIM needs to make a move quick to bolster its fledgling business models. While the Blackberry maker still shines in the enterprise circle, its consumer segment lacks considerably when compared to the likes of Apple and the plethora of

During the lead-up to Facebook’s announcement of their new check-in/location functionality, many wondered what effect it would have on other LBS startups that occupy the same market — namely Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and a host of others.

That question was answered today as Facebook announced their new API to go along with its “places” functionality. Reps from Foursquare and Gowalla even took the stage during the announcement to talk about how they plan to leverage the new API to their advantage. In short, Facebook made it clear that they intend to play nice with other LBS apps.

Both Foursquare and Gowalla, along with additional launch partners Booyah and Yelp, will allow you to check-in and publish the data to your Facebook feed using the new API. Your badges/rewards/pins will transfer over as well. Booyah has taken it a step further and will even launch a brand new app called “inCrowd” to specifically take advantage of the places API. Other LBS apps and future startup will definitely want to take advantage as well, as leveraging Facebook’s 500M users is obviously advantageous.

What should be interesting to find out is how the new tagging feature introduced along with places will be accessible via the API, and how other LBS apps utilize it. Basically, tagging in terms of

Facebook has just announced its long-awaited location strategy in the form of “Places,” a new check-in/location functionality baked into existing apps, starting with the iPhone in an updated slated for later tonight.

The new functionality is similar to other LBS offerings like Foursquare and Gowalla whereby users check-in to various locations to notify and be notified of friends in the vicinity, but differs in a few key areas. For one, users can tag friends who are checking in with you, which is an important feature going forward given Facebook’s massive social graph. In addition, you can tag people in photos and status updates using the familiar “@” sign which creates a “story” on both users’ walls. This “tagging” function will play an important role in the future of Facebook’s strategy.

Other differences include how “place pages,” or “venue pages” are represented. Each place page displays a recent activity section — or “News Feed” of sort for that specific place — and on the Web, there are a number of different section with data about previous check-in history and other venue-specific data. To the right has a cluster of profile images so you can see friends who have visited, etc. ”Places is not about broadcasting your location to the world, it’s about sharing where you are with friends,” explained Mark Zuckerberg during the announcement.

Facebook was careful to mention the privacy ramifications of

SMS is a vital element in the mobile ecosystem and still surpasses both face-to-face conversation and email in popularity around the world. It’s a ubiquitous technology that’s available on almost any mobile phone around the world, and as such, plays a vital role in mobile marketing as well.

Starting with the first text message sent by an engineer with the simple message “Merry Christmas” back in 1992 to nearly 5 trillion SMS messages being sent annually by 2009, the technology has come along way and plays an important part in everyday life for most people. Using data from a variety of sources, Mashable put together an awesome infographic that details the “Rise In Text Messaging” both in the US and worldwide…

Placecast today announced a new partnership with Location Labs to bolster the ability to track device location for its unique ShopAlerts location-based marketing platform.

Location Labs provides detailed device location data direct from national carriers rather than requiring users to download an app or otherwise. In doing so, Location Labs can instantly acquire the location of more than 180M potential consumers across the US — regardless of carrier networks or whether the user is using a smartphone or a feature phone. Given its technology and expansive reach, Placecast saw it as a perfect opportunity to leverage.

Using “geo-fencing” technology, Placecast’s ShopAlerts provides a robust permission and location-based marketing platform by creating pre-determined boundaries around a certain location. Consumers double opt-in to receive notifications through a variety of ways – including at the store, Online, via text-message, mobile Website or social network. Once ShopAlerts is activated, the service automatically alerts the consumer about a

On the heels of advertisers expressing frustration over long delays associated with Apple’s tight control over iAd, Greystripe has announced a 5-day turnaround for rich media mobile-ad campaigns on its network.

Greystripe uses a proprietary method for delivering Flash-based creatives as iOS-compliant HTML5 to the iPhone and iPad, creating rich media ad-units that rival what iAd provides. With it’s technology and quick turnaround, Greystripe is definitely leveraging Apple’s bad publicity to promote its similar offerings.

“For brands looking to target the back-to-school season, getting ads mobile-ready now is critical. Apple’s iAds have recently come under scrutiny for the eight to 10 weeks it takes for an advertisement to be developed,” Greystripe said in a press release. ”This long lag is driven by Apple’s tight control over the creative process and reliance on HTML5 for ad development. With Greystripe, advertisers have full creative control over proven, high performance rich media ads that can be turned around in the shortest possible time and developed using industry standard Flash tools.”

If its reach brands are worried about, Greystripe also ensures its network currently reaches over 30M US smartphone users. Greystripe has a good track record of delivering innovative mobile ad-units that look and function just like iAds — add to it an equally

Millennial Media today published its “Mobile Mix” report for July, highlighting device trends from OEMs and others in the mobile ecosystem.

Apple devices and the Android OS still reign supreme as Android is now the second largest OS on Millennial’s platform for the first time and Apple’s devices now account for nearly 35% of total impressions. Motorola showed growth for July as well, with the Droid moving into the top three in July’s “Top 20 Mobile Phones” with a 5% share of impressions and the Motorola Cliq entering the Top 20 for the first time.

Surprisingly, Nintendo made its entrance to the “Top 15 Manufacturers” in July, coming in at number 15, while the iPad continued its insurgence with a 32% increase in total requests. Also interesting is news that RIM is growing in popularity with developers, as RIM apps now represent 11% of the “US Developer Platform Usage Mix” for July.

Much more data is available in the actual report, which can be downloaded here.

Mitek Systems today announced it has received a U.S. patent for technology that makes check deposits possible with just a camera smartphone.

Titled most scientifically as the “Mobile Deposit mobile Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) application,” the technology lets a user snap a photo of the check, using a mobile phone, and then transmit all the deposit information via a secure network. Mitek, which specializes in advanced-image analytics and mobile document capture applications for phones, claims that deposits using its mobile technology are successful on the first try 95 percent of the time.

Mitek’s newly-patented technology builds on what consumers are already used to doing. Certain banks allow people to deposit their checks by scanning them a computer image scanner, and then transmitting the scan to the bank, and Mitek CEO James DeBello says camera phones are themselves portable scanners. He also says that the Mobile Deposit app helps banks entice customers, appealing to the “millions of people who have embraced smartphones and the apps that make them so useful.”

Meanwhile, financial institutions are already engaging in mobile banking services for consumers, and tying them in seamlessly with mobile marketing endeavors (mobile websites, SMS alerts and campaigns, etc.) The Mobile Deposit application is set to make a consumer really feel like one’s bank is right in one’s pocket.

It’s not quite the Verizon headline many Apple fans are hoping for. But it’s a start.

Despite the ongoing rumors that the iPhone is inbound for the Verizon network, it now appears that Verizon and Apple will first partner up on a new iPad venture.

At least, that’s what Verizon seems to be hoping for.

On Wednesday, Verizon said that “it expects next year to launch a software application that will allow FiOS TV customers to watch live television on tablet computers.”

With a heightened awareness of the importance of content in the mobile video and live TV space, Verizon Chief Information Officer Shaygan Kheradpir says his company is now “in talks with content providers such as Time Warner Inc. to gain rights to extend programming agreements to tablet computers.”

According to Reuters, Verizon “had 3.8 million customers for FiOS Internet customers and 3.2 million for FiOS TV at the end of the second quarter.” The FiOS network, however, has been launched in markets with about 18 million people.

Naturally, some will see this latest move on the part of Verizon as an entree to bigger and bolder moves into Apple territory. But for now, we simply have to take the news on face value. Verizon wisely sees huge potential in the mobile space and is hitching its wagon to the iPad’s star – one of the smartest courses of action the wireless carrier can possibly take to capitalize on a prime opportunity.

It’s not TV, it’s HBO.

That’s what the premium cable network is fond of saying.

Well, now it really isn’t TV. Thanks to HBO’s aggressive posturing in the mobile space, the cable network could ultimately attract more viewers on the iPad than on television screens.

The Time Warner-owned TV powerhouse is expanding “HBO Go” streaming video service for Apple’s iPad as well as other mobile device in the very near future.

Bloomberg reported this week that HBO is eager to capitalize on the dwindling video rental marketplace by making it easier than ever to access popular HBO original series and movies (both new and old) while on the go or even at home. This exclusive availability of HBO content could be a big win-win for the network and its viewers, say the folks at HBO.

“There is value in exclusivity,” HBO co-president Eric Kessler, noting that viewers “are willing to pay a premium for high quality, exclusive content.”

As reported from Bloomberg, by early 2011, “HBO Go” will be available to HBO’s paying subscribers (all 29 million) at no additional cost “through all major cable systems, on Apple Inc.’s iPad, on mobile devices and elsewhere.”

We love infographics around here, and luckily there’s been an influx recently in relation to the mobile marketing industry. We covered one from PromotionalCodes last month that gave us an interesting look at the growth in mobile coupons, and Mobclix followed that up with one about rich media video ads on the iPad. Just this morning, Tatango provided eight interesting graphics that compared SMS marketing to email and social media channels, and now we’ve discovered a killer one from Flowtown as well [embedded below].

Flowtown decided to illustrate the findings of an interesting survey conducted by eROI in which they aimed to determine the impact of mobile marketing in email and web marketing programs — in addition to identifying the importance and impact of social networks in relation to their email and web marketing efforts. Of the more than 500 marketers

Great news for people who keep up with their favorite shows via online video: Vimeo today released its Universal Player that allows viewers to watch embedded videos on mobile devices.

It’s a move that, methinks, will help force content owners to start making their videos available to mobile consumers. Last week I opined the inability of mobile phones–even those with Android 2.2 and its Flash capabilities–to play videos on Hulu, due to copyright owners not wanting their material on the platform. But Vimeo has long been a great, er, alternative to official network video sites. (I waver on the term alternative since, rather, it’s one of the unofficial sites that got networks and production companies to realize they needed to put their materials online themselves.)

“With the latest generation of browsers and devices, we’ve had huge demand for an embeddable player that works with HTML5 and on devices like iPad and iPhone,” Andrew Pile, Vice President of Product and Development for Vimeo, said in a press release. “The new embeddable code is highly scalable and allows us to continue to add support as new browsers and devices are released, for example serving HTML5 to IE9 and our Flash mobile player to Android phones running Flash 10.1.”

This means forward-thinking marketers who create user-generated content, and post on Vimeo, are guaranteed to reach mobile consumers. And you know, so are promoters of big-name shows whose loyal viewers would be thrilled to

Yellow Pages recently released data in conjunction with comScore that dove into the mobile search sector with an emphasis on local mobile search. While the concept is obviously growing, the data shows some interesting insight into how consumers are interacting with the medium.

The research shows that the number of mobile subscribers accessing business directories on a mobile phone increased 14 percent year-over-year to 17.3 million users in March 2010. This increase outpaces the 10 percent growth in the number of mobile media users who browsed the mobile web, used applications or downloaded content during the same time period.

The most interesting part of the research had to do with local mobile search via the mobile Web compared to mobile apps. According to comScore, the mobile browser was the most common access method for users, with 10.8 million subscribers in March 2010 and 21 percent year-over-year growth. However, mobile apps show 42 percent year-over-year growth, indicating an interesting trend going forward.