If any of you have seen an image online or in a magazine or newspaper that looks like something that is a mix between those optical illusion posters that you used to have stuck to your wall when you were little and an alternative version of Pacman then this rather strange image you are witnessing is no secret code but rather a QR code. The QR (Quick Response) code is making its mark (literally) as a way for brands to entice the public to access their information and ultimately visit their site.

Basically, you take a picture with your smart phone (your iPhone or Blackberry) and your phone will read a code, therefore giving you access to a weblink and content. QR codes are not new and have actually been around since 1994 but only recently have been used for more social media based interaction and are made by using a QR code generator and downloading the QR code image. According to Wikipedia, they are used to store information received from magazines, signs and business cards and were originally designed for car manufacturing tracking, but it seems that QR codes have turned over a new digital leaf.

Once again I am delighted at yet more free stuff from Google, with Google Buzz gracing our smartphones (albeit some fairly sever privacy issues, and corresponding lawsuits)! I have an Android phone, made by HTC, and have been absolutely loving it! I can safely say it is the best phone I have had and it is very much down to the freedom that the operating system offers. Google integration is naturally seamless – enter your account information once when setting up the phone and everything thereafter just works. Whether I am on my desktop computer or out and about, it all just comes together (I can hear the voices out there muttering “But what about privacy!” but actually I am not that perturbed – in my opinion it means I need to wade through less cr@p and get targeted stuff instead)!

Google has been all over the mobile market in the last few months. It has launched one assault after another trying to make its mark on the mobile market. Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report was recently released and reveals that mobile Internet search is growing rapidly in the UK. Facebook has just toppled Google as the most viewed site, with Google slipping to number 2 in the mobile space, but it is still the mobile search engine of choice in the UK, and most regions in the world.

So what have they done lately?

Google has partnered with HTC, the Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer to create a new social networking mobile phone known as the “Hero”. The phone is touted to be a real Apple iPhone beater, and according to industry insiders is a giant step up from previous iPhone rivals. This has been said before, but there is a feeling that technically, the HTC is superior, but aesthetically, it is quite an ugly piece of work when compared to the iPhone.

It seems Google is determined to leave no stone unturned in its quest for omnipresence. Google has apparently begun to advertise on apps downloaded from Apple stores. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land captured this image in his related blog.

Here, we see that the “Urbanspoon” app has an advertisement for Pizza Hut that appears on top of the actual page.

If you click on the link, then you are immediately taken to the pizza hut page on your iPhone browser.
This follows the already extensive work that Google has put into using the iPhone as a marketing platform. For instance, Google will attempt to use sophisticated software to deliver search results using iPhone’s new voice search option.

Google’s Adsense ads have been available on the iPhone’s browser. The appeal of the iPhone as a marketing platform is that it fully supports HTML, which makes it an attractive target for digital marketers interested in mobile marketing.

Phoning, texting, surfing the net, keeping up with Twitter, drafting and sending business email: what else is a smartphone for? According to a recent com.Score report, the answer is Gaming, and that’s Gaming with a capital G. The case for upper-case is obvious once you take into account the fact that 8.5 million mobile phone users have downloaded at least one game to their phones. That’s 3.8% of all mobile subscribers, which may not sound like all that much, until you consider that the number of mobile gamers increased by 17% from November 07 to November 08.

But not any old phone will do. Smartphones are where it’s at, which is probably why Dell and Acer have decided to climb aboard the smartphone gravy train. Cellular News sums it all up in this crystal clear table, where you can see just how big smartphones are in mobile gaming, and how, like non-smartphones, are like, so last November. Smartphones experienced a year-on year increase of 291%, while the run-of-the-mill variety actually lost ground – a whole 14%.

Time for a little blatant self-promotion. As part of our dedication to continuous learning and development, and creating valuable resources for the online marketing community, MediaVision staff will showcase weekly presentations on a number of SEO/SEM related topics.

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting mobile search, with particular reference to SA and UK markets. I’ve taken a bit of a shine to anything mobile over the last couple of months, not only because it is touted as the way to go, but also because I find the whole subject absolutely fascinating. I especially love the lead that Japan has built over the rest of the world, and the fact that most of the future developments are expected to come from the emerging markets in Africa, India and South America. It’s also nice to know that the US market seems to be at a loss for once, and is pretty well surpassed by UK, European and even South African mobile penetration.

Finally, the news that many SEOs have been waiting for, and that provides even more incentive for us to get our hands on an iPhone.

The popularity of the iPhone has grown significantly since its launch. Brett Tabke from Webmaster World states that iPhone owners access the internet via their phone 5X more than owners of other mobile devices, including laptops. Considering most SEO fanatics are techies at heart this stat makes sense and so does this tool .

The ProSEO – SEO Content Analyzer, which was released by Infinidigm can be download directly from I-Tunes to your phone. According to Infinidigm, “ProSEO is an SEO tool written for the iPhone that helps website owners determine several important features about almost any webpage“. The tool was developed so that anyone can determine key “On-page” factors that affect a page’s performance in the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages).

CEO of MSFT, Steve Ballmer, stated in an interview at a Churchill Club Event in Silicon Valley that although his company resides in third place in the search race, it would continue to devote 5 to 10 percent of all operating cash flow to try and push forward to raise their command of the market share.

My questions are: what are they doing with that cash allocation, and will it be enough to get anywhere close to where Google and Yahoo are within the time that is available? Google and Yahoo have been at this game for years, and although Microsoft have made improvements to MSN search and Live Search, such as the overhaul Live Search received back in October 2007, they are still currently far behind the leaders.

MSFT remains diligent in their drive to meet Google in the future of search share, as well as in the mobile space. Basically, they want a total monopoly because they`ve been spoiled by their dominance in the operating system and office suite product market.

Microsoft has been doggedly chasing after Google for years. For spectators it`s a bit like watching a Chihuahua tackle an eisbein bone – you feel kind of sorry for it. The little dog is doing its best to peel off the good meat and has vague hopes of getting to the marrow inside the bone, but you just know that a Great Dane is going to come along and walk away with the prized treat. Microsoft got into IT first, it was the first IT company to be really global and then Google came along and stole all of Microsoft`s kudos. It`s got to hurt.

Many experts, Tom O`Reilly among them, believe that Microsoft should just let Google go. It has been so obsessed with usurping Google as a search giant that it has let a number of other opportunities pass it by. In a recent blog post O`Reilly focussed on Microsoft`s missed mobile opportunities and claimed that Windows Mobile “is a mess”. In O`Reilly`s opinion, Microsoft hasn`t kept pace with the evolving mobile market, it has no distinguishing features or applications, it`s complicated and it`s in danger of falling too far behind to ever hope of catching up.

It`s been making headlines in search engine news for some time now, but many people, SEO`s included, still aren`t aware of how big the mobile revolution really is. And it is huge. Smartphone sales are rising and even regular cell phones are starting to incorporate a limited range of smartphone-like capabilities to support internet functions. It`s time that search engine optimisers pulled their noggins out from the sand and addressed the mobile phenomenon head-on.

The very first thing that SEOs need to realise is that people don`t want their pc (or laptop) web experiences to be replicated on their mobile phones. They want a whole new experience that is far simpler and more relevant than the current levels of desktop searching. And that is where SEO can either come into its own or fall apart completely.