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.

Recently, a billboard in New York raised eyebrows with its bigger and better combination of social media and the QR code. The red and white billboard was for Calvin Klein Jeans – a brand that is widely known for its racy billboards normally featuring half naked women and men posing draped over each other. The billboard merely had a QR code image on it with the words “get it uncensored”. Those in the QR code know could snap a picture of the billboard and this would link them to a Youtube clip. Many were disappointed in the clip itself but nevertheless, the concept was a great one for customer interaction.

Other instances of companies or brands using QR code are artists such as Fabrice De Nola who integrated QR codes into his artwork and the Pet Shop Boys who used a QR code to reveal their album artwork. Other artists have also integrated QR coding into their installations such as the Design Exchange in Toronto, which produced a series of QR coded wallpaper.

In the information technology age, less is more and those who are clicking away on their camera receiving various QR codes feel that this mode of communication is a great interactive tool for brands who do not want to say too much initially but let their customer base be lead to their site via their mobile device. Those who decide to use QR codes for their brand must however make sure that their websites and the link that they offer are mobile friendly as if they are not, this will only make customers frustrated.

Here is an example of how toy manufacturer Lego used QR codes to entice customers to their site.

Maps have always been critical to me, walking or driving in London, (or even in South Africa these days). I was a big fan of the Nokia N95, and then the N82, especially because of Nokia Maps. I was highly disappointed when they decided to remove the tracking feature from their latest version. Up until that point was happy not to subscribe to the full version as I could just plot a route and keep myself on course. They then removed this feature and Nokia Maps became problematic for me – unless I paid them money I couldn’t use the maps for directions. Google to the rescue – Tracking was always enabled, and now they have routing and soon we will have turn by turn here in the UK. Not to mention things like traffic updates, and other experimental “Layers”. Again, great free stuff, much to the dismay of TomTom’s shareholders! Next in the firing line – Estate agents!

Some applications such as Latitude have questionable value but Picasa is really a lovely piece of software. Being able to tag people, simply share photos and upload to web albums makes life a breeze. On Android the sharing options are really broad – you can pretty much send anything anywhere. I really don’t feel constrained with my media. Videos to you tube or pictures to web albums are a synch. Just the other night I did a price comparison via an app, and wanted to save the result for later. After a briefs moment of hesitation as how to bookmark it, I just opted to “Share” and immediately had a host of options from simply emailing the link to saving it into my notes (Which automatically synchronise online and onto my desktop as well). Just so effortless! And I have not even begun to explore the masses of applications sitting in Google Labs.

But to come back to the point at hand. With mobile becoming ever more essential in our lives this platform (Android) and the ease at which I have everything at my fingertips, in my eyes, puts Google leaps and bounds ahead of any other provider. I see this as a solid foothold and being vendor independent, I believe it is only a matter of time before Apple gives up its spot as top dog! Lets not forget all this free stuff is there to gain market penetration – Google will monetise it all with ad spend, but I don’t mind – in my eyes I am getting things that make a positive difference in my life, all for free.

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.

The phone features Google’s open source operating system, ‘Android’ and will be available in the UK in early July. The Hero’s launch follows the launch of the new Apple iPhone 3GS. The Hero phone will feature widgets on the home screen as opposed to a menu, in addition, there is an “accelerometer”, which changes the view from portrait to landscape according to the orientation of the phone to name but a few of the  features found on the phone.

Google also launches AdSense for Mobile apps

After testing the concept, Google has gone ahead and launched a beta version of the AdSense for mobile apps. This will allow app developers for the iPhone, and Android phones to earn some revenue by displaying Google text and image ads. This will broaden the user base that will be exposed to Google adverts.

The smart phone market is showing good growth, and Google plans to be there every step of the way. And if history is any guide to go by, Google will be laughing it up, all the way to the bank.

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.

Mobile marketing is set to become a growing trend as more people use their iPhones for their mobile search needs. This is an area that we, as search marketers, need to pay attention to.
Statistics on iPhone internet usage worldwide differ from report to report, but the general consensus is that the iPhone is, or will quickly become, the number 1 internet browsing smart phone/mobile phone globally. Google’s attention on designing a series of features for the iPhone is proof of this. Welcome to the future.

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%.

com.Score Mobile Gaming Stats from Cellular News

And the most popular gaming smartphone? Guess; and the first two don’t count.

Answer: the iPhone, of course, followed by the BlackBerry Curve. iPhoners are the most prolific gamers. Nearly 33% of iPhone users downloaded a game in November 08, while only 3.8% of all other mobile phone users could say the same. According to com.Score senior analyst, Mark Donovan, the reason for this is that the iPhone makes it so much easier to download games with a platform that is run along the same lines as iTunes.

And while teenage users are particularly well-represented in the demographics, the over-35 age group gave them fierce competition as far as the fastest growing user-group is concerned. And this, according to Donovan, has to do with the increasing sophistication of mobile games in general. So, while the PS3, Wii and X-box still offer plenty of adults the opportunity to fulfill childhood dreams of warrior/racing driver/gang leader greatness, many are getting the same kicks from their phones. And when you consider the expense of setting yourself up in PS3 gaming paradise – systems, chairs, consoles, steering wheels – vs. the cost of a smartphone contract, mobile gaming starts to make even more sense.

I’ll cite yet one more source and then I’m done: according to an article by Marin Perez (informationweek.com) the mobile gaming market is set to be worth more than $4.5 billion in 2009, and that’s considering the bone-crushing, college fund-eating recession.

Just one more reason for marketers to embrace mobile this year; as if they needed one.

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.

For more cool stats and an optimistic impression of mobile’s future, take a look at my uber-cool mobile search presentation (I say with all modesty and humility and absolutely no sign of exaggerated self-importance or inflated ego). I would love to know what you think about the whole mobile search phenomenon and where you think it’s going, so please comment away.

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).

The idea is that a person can browse through a website using a browser control and selectively analyse the page for its features, which include:

- Complete source code listing
- Listing of META keywords
- Listing of META description
- Listing of all META tags in the document
- Tag counts – this feature counts all the tags in a document to give clues about composition.
- Contents of the tag.
- The body of text with tags removed
o Percentage of body words that are stop words. Stopwords are not counted by the search engines, so you can determine how effective your marketing copy is by knowing how much of what you’ve written will be ignored.
o The total word count of the document for words that are not determined to be numbers
o Phrase counting for phrases that are 1 to 5 words in length; this helps you determine repetitive phrases in the document
- The anchor tags in the document, and more specifically, if there is an image in the link text.
- The inner HTML of the of tag. This is the same as the link text.
- All the image tags in the document
- The the text of the image “alt” attribute

Essentially, you can do a bit of site analysis on your way to a client meeting, do some research on a website ahead of a big presentation in the city or even whilst you are abroad on a deserted beach because your laptop has been banned by your other half. Its SEO tools on the go…

I am curious to see how popular this tool will be. Go iPhone.

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.

Google already has, and will continue to, squash Microsoft along with the rest of the market in search, as they boast around 63 percent of market share for search worldwide (against MSFT`s 8.3 percent), 77 percent of search ad share (including contextual) in the US and 90 percent of the European search ad market. Ballmer claims MSFT is the only company that is capable of competing with Google as the advertising consumer base flocks online to find products.

Ballmer also thinks that they will cut forward and lead in the mobile sector, as “The smartphone market today is a lot like the PC market in 1983”. Microsoft also continue to budget significantly for acquisitions, aiming at maintaining their rhythm of buying about 20 companies every year, and will keep about 9 billion dollars a year available to devote to internal research and development.

With the Google/Yahoo search ad space deal going on, it will be even harder for MSFT to gain an advantage in this field. They are putting much faith in the acquisition side of development, claiming they are partially integrating Powerset, a recently acquired semantics engine, into their search. Ballmer calls the strategy Microsoft is taking a “five year long term task”, reassuring shareholders that they will eventually begin to perform in this area.

I think they will need more than cash flow to secure a rise in search share over the next few years. I think they will need tremendous devotion to improving the user experience that Google and Yahoo have adhered to since the beginning. It is this devotion to relevance that has got Google the number one spot, and MSFT will need to switch their focus to making life easier for their users, with better products, better coverage, and better prices.

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.

Meanwhile, Google is storming ahead with Android, which admittedly still has a lot to prove and a long way to go before it can realistically compete with the iPhone and Blackberry (which are well established and very comfortable in the smartphone market). But Android at least has the potential to be serious mobile competitor. As an opensource application it has the potential to improve quickly to meet demanding user-needs. It is also not dependent on a single mobile model but can be used across a range of phone types.

And then there is Chrome, which also hasn`t had the major impact that Google probably would have liked, yet. The thing is that with some forethought, Google has created web services that will enable Chrome to run on mobile phones. Joe Wilcox calls Chrome the glue that will make Google web services “stick” to end users.

Martin Stoddart, senior product manager for Microsoft`s Live Search business group, insists that the search war is not over, despite the company being way, way behind in terms of market penetration. And it seems that it`s also working on its mobile market strategy. It has acquired companies such as Tellme and Powerset to improve mobile user interfaces and, hopefully, mobile search, it has extended its relationship with RIM (Blackberry manufacturers) so that Live Search will be available on Blackberry home screens without users having to download it, and it has teamed up with Nokia so that Nokia users will have access to Microsoft corporate email.

Microsoft has also released a new version of its Windows Mobile operating system – version 6.1. This version is intended to make mobile internet use look and feel the way it does on a desktop. The jury is still out on its success or failure.

Wilcox sums it up nicely for all search spectators when he says, “Microsoft`s fiercest competitor is itself.” And until it realises that it can`t afford to be continuously distracted by Google and search, it will keep on shooting itself in the foot.

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.

As with desktop SEO, keywords are crucial, but mobile SEO requires keywords to be shorter and more relevant than they`ve been before. Many search engines (Google) offer predictive search options based on the first few letters or the first word of a mobile search. This makes it infinitely easier for users, who then don`t have to wage war with little keys but can scroll up or down to select the phrase that they want. Location also becomes very important in mobile search, particularly because many mobile searchers use their phones while on the move and need information relevant to their immediate surroundings.

In a guest post on searchnewz.com, Pierre Far says that SEOs should avoid URLs (and keyphrases) that make repeated use of the same phone key, such as BBC, CNN and MONO. These take time are likely to frustrate already impatient mobile users. But for many established companies this means creating a whole new domain specifically for mobile purposes, which they are understandably reluctant to do. Other SEO experts (i.e. those working at Media Vision) believe that a far more practical solution would be to simply make sure that your original site is structured correctly for mobile use, which would then load easily on mobile phones. Another alternative is to implement redirects, so that mobile searchers are redirected to mobile compliant site from the original.

Far also emphasises the importance of keeping your mobile site pages short and simple because cell phones, even high-falutin` smartphones, aren`t capable of dealing with big flashy sites with lots of images and aeons of text. He recommends that you place your most important information at the top of the page and wind your way down to the fluffy details. So if, for whatever reason, the download gets interrupted, at least your key message still gets relayed. CSS is a must, while flash and Javascript are definite no-go zones.

Mobithinking.com also has a lot to say about mobile SEO, with particular emphasis on the findability and accessibility of your site. For your site to be easily findable for users, it first has to be found by crawlers, which basically means that you should use only valid XHTML code and ensure that you adhere to the principles laid out by the WC3 and dotmobi. Navigation is also more important on mobile phones than desktops simply because it is more difficult on mobile phones. Mobile screens are smaller and the keys are more finicky, so traversing a site to find relevant information can be righteous pain in the nethers. Easy to use internal links can mean the difference between mobile success and a slow and painful mobile death.

Sean Owen, from Google`s mobile search site, says that interoperability is one of the key factors in mobile SEO. And this means external links – preferably to other well-structured, easy-to-find mobile sites.

The easiest way to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly is to get to know the mobile environment, and the best way to do that is to get a few web compliant mobile phones (different models to see how pages load on different phones) and mess around with them. Load mobile sites to see which ones work and which don`t, and test your site for mobile ease of use. For emerging technology such as this, the best way to learn is through experience, and with so many phones with so many applications on the market, learning your way around mobile SEO is bound to be fun as well as informative.