UPDATE: Today is the last day to register and get one of my specially discounted VIP passes.

Here’s a link that will take you straight there: https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/step1.aspx?dc=MSEARCHVIP

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Now in its second year the Open Mobile Summit (May 26-27, London) covers all the bases to again set the bar. I attended and spoke at this exceptional event last June and was struck by to things: the sold-out crowd and the balanced mix of speakers and authorities from companies and organizations across the entire ecosystem.

Doing business (and making money) in an Open Mobile world will require new thinking and business models. The caliber (and variety) speakers my esteemed colleague, Robin Batt, Open Mobile Media Founder & Executive Producer, has brought together for this purpose will undoubtedly deliver the audience some answers.

This is not just another mobile conference; it’s an industry happening – which is why MSG is extremely proud to be a media sponsor. It’s rare to find such an impressive gathering of thought leaders in such an intimate setting, and I look forward to connecting with this year’s speakers (participants include Spotify, Gowalla, Admob, Ogilvy, AKQA, Yahoo, the BBC, Google, BSkyB, MTV, FT.com, Opera, Vodafone, O2, HTC, Nokia and more – and all at the top executive level.

It’s just four weeks away and there are limited seats remaining, so you should register now.

MSG has 5 guest passes at just GBP850 (retail GBP1395). If you’d like one, register here with VIP code MSEARCHVIP . https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/ (First come, first served.)

WHY ATTEND

Whether you’re a start-up or a media giant, Internet company or mobile operator, ad agency or software company, mobile and Internet convergence presents a huge opportunity. Over two days the Open Mobile Summit provides participants a clear vision of how the industry will evolve in the next 12-18 months, which – in our fast moving space – is invaluable.

At the Open Mobile Summit you can:

• Understand the business drivers of all the players in this fast converging ecosystem – the key to finding a successful business model for your services
• Explore all the hot topics –mobile advertising, the future of search and discovery on mobile, the role location and social, content monetization models and mobile payments, apps in the cloud vs. the mobile Web and the impact of the iPad, to name a few
• Do business with all the influential people –operators, handset manufacturers, Internet and media giants, agencies, software and application start-ups
• Meet with me (a little humor here, of course)

So, register as soon as possible to ensure your place – if you’re quick, you might get one of my specially discounted VIP passes.

Here’s a link that will take you straight there: https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/step1.aspx?dc=MSEARCHVIP

Naturally, the news that Web giant Google was getting in on the action in mobile by acquiring AdMob created an atmosphere of excitement and optimism at the Global Mobile Marketing Forum last week in L.A. But it was more than a mood; it was a quantifiable trend. Mike Wehrs, President & Chief Executive Officer, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), reported that mobile marketing shows an increase of 40 percent over last year.

What’s more, mobile is a line item in more budgets. Mike gave us the example of German carmaker Volkswagen, which is “doing things exclusively with iPhone Apps independent of other media channels”.

Another sure sign that mobile marketing has arrived full-force was the announcement by Microsoft (just prior to the event) that it had decided to join the MMA. In fact, Microsoft became the organization’s inaugural Premier Member, reflecting Microsoft’s commitment to both the association and the mobile marketing industry. As Charles Johnson, General Manager, Microsoft Mobile Advertising, put it in a press statement: “As mobile advertising has grown in significance, the time is now for carriers, OEMs, publishers and advertisers to join forces to capitalize on that growth.”

REAL RESEARCH

Peter Johnson, VP Research, Mobile Marketing Association, provided us the latest findings from the Research and Metrics Committee.  A highlight: leveraging coupons and loyalty programs are winning customers. It is found to be the most successful of all the mobile marketing approaches (!).

Another surprise is spending. To date the average media spend by agencies on mobile is still only 1.8 percent of the total spend.  However, those agencies that have experienced successful mobile marketing have already moved mobile up to account for 2~3 percent of their overall spend.

In 2009 spending on mobile marketing was $1.7 billion in total. But there was a potential for $2.5 billion, if we think back to the boost in spending shown by companies successful in mobile marketing.

Success breeds success – and encourages more spending. To get there from here the industry needs more education and a sharing of best practices. To this end the MMA is working to encourage knowledge sharing worldwide and making sure best practices are better evangelized.

BRAND SUCCESS

But the real proof that mobile is at the top of the agenda comes from the major players pushing the envelope.

COCA-COLA COMPANY: Tom Daly, Group Manager, Strategy and Planning, Coca-Cola Company, revealed what it looks for in mobile agencies. It may not be easy to get into Coca-Cola, but it’s worth it. According to Tom, Coca-Cola is “working with over 400 brands in 200 countries with a minimum of $8K per brand per country, and it is growing and we are looking for new partners.” His checklist for agencies: The company looks for three things.

1) Talent and environment
2) Thought leadership
3) Account management process.

As he summed it up: “We look for best in class to take Coca-Cola to the world leaders in creative mobile marketing and transparency is key.”

AT&T INTERACTIVE: Matt Crowley, CMO, AT&T Interactive, argued local and search are the real drivers for mobile advertising. As he put it: Today the total of mobile ad spend is about 70 percent (display and SMS) compared to 30 percent search. But he expects this will change to 25 percent (display and SMS) and 70 percent search in 2013. In fact, local search is the driver.  “We have seen over 250% YOY mobile search network growth and our goal is to pre-load the YP mobile app with local search on every device.” Matt added that AT&T counts 79 million subs and 22 million on Medianet, AT&T’s mobile portal. “There is over 22 percent access of Medianet daily.”

CNN: Louis Gump, VP of Mobile, CNN, talked about the future of news on mobile. He asked the audience how many look at news on their mobile before they get out of bed in the morning and about 30 percent answered they did. No wonder mobile is at the center of their strategy. CNN has a freemium model (offering the mobile website free and a paid CNN app).

The company debated the pricing for this, but decided on the $1.99 price as a way to keep mobile moving forward as a profit center to propel initiatives across all the mobile strategies of CNN. As Louis put it: “We wanted a dual revenue stream, and at $1.99, yes, there was debate over prices from $0.99~9.99. But we chose that price as we doing this for marketing. We want mobile as a sustainable business platform.  He continued: “We need not only the one-way free route, but a way to sustainability 3.5 and 10 years down the road.” To date 34 percent of users access CNN news only on their mobile phones. This means over one-third of users are only getting their news from CNN and only via mobile. Connect the dots, and “mobile is now the channel for CNN to reach a different demographic of people.”

Interesting to note: CNN doesn’t limit its focus to the iPhone. Instead the mobile strategy is holistic and covers four platforms:

1)    Mobile website (with 11~12 million users  per month – free and ad-supported)
2)    Text messaging (breaking news alerts)
3)    Video- on-demand and streaming (to distribute clips much more widely)
4)    Apps (and here the news is the September 27th  release that has changed the way news is consumed on the iPhone)

FUTURE OF MOBILE

Charles Johnson, Head of Mobile Advertising for Microsoft led an engaging panel on the future of mobile advertising. Ken Wilner, CEO,  Zumobi, stated that that key to mobile is “engagement”. Yes, acquisition is important, but once you obtain a consumer, the on-going engagement is second to none as mobile is with the consumer all the time, everywhere. Frank Babieri, CEO,  Transpera, was particularly bullish about the outlook for video. In his view, of the users that access online video that also access mobile video, “more then 62 percent of the time they will access it from mobile.” Another data point to keep in mind (from Charles): We replace our phones every 12~18months and we’re due to make those purchases soon. Smartphones will likely be the ones we chose, attracted by all their cool features and the great mobile Internet experience. Thus, 2010 will be the year of mass-device transition, and that will accelerate our industry even further.

BANKING: Bruce Withers, Head of Mobile, Wells Fargo, shared his mobile banking vision. He should know. Wells Fargo has been nominated as one of the top mobile banking solutions in North America and part of that success is linked to their sharp focus on youth (Gen Y and Millennials) that are part of the larger group of mobile professionals that need banking services on the go. Some key stats illustrate the success of a multi-approach mobile strategy.

•    Text messaging alerts: the user averages about 19 requests per month
•    Mobile website and iPhone application: users engage in about six sessions per month.
•    Location: Wells Fargo has added unique features in their iPhone App, including an ATM finder and direct links to wellsfargo.com.

CROSS-MEDIA: Mike Carter, CEO, MyThum and Tiffany Gerhard, Sr. Manager, Marketing- Emerging Capabilities, BestBuy, had a great session on the success of cross-media marketing for a retail brand.  For me it was one of the highlights of the day – particularly if we consider that BestBuy was doing NOTHING in mobile two years ago. Now, they have holistic strategy and results that speak volumes (literally). The strategy includes mobile as part of the marketing mix, but it is also core strategy to the company’s CRM strategy. Tiffany pointed out that mobile is a key link in clinching the sale – and everything that follows. “The use case quite good for us is when many of our customers come into the store that find when a product is out of stock. They can just go to their BestBuy application and click-to-buy in one action and then have the product delivered right to their home” But it doesn’t stop there. Mobile allows the company to support the buying process with information and interaction with customers. “Everyday now is a learning process for us to get better with mobile.”

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Throughout the event execs and speakers raised a variety of interesting points and challenges.

•    Zaw Thet, CEO, 4Info, brought our attention to the need for an industry-wide initiative to establish a mobile cookie.  Today the next best thing is the user’s telephone number or UID on the iPhone.  By using this we can recognize and build cross-media campaigns for targeting users from platform to platform.
•     Chetan Sharma, Chetan Sharma Consulting, stated we are finally seeing the growth of the networks. Now, mobile has surpassed the data card (!).
•    Michael Shim, Head of Mobile Sales, Yahoo, reported that Yahoo’s growth of 54.8 percent is greater then the average for the industry of 45.4 percent with the mobile Internet.  Yahoo is doing unique ad solutions for apps and working on a slew of cross-media campaigns (with clients such as Subway) that link the Web to mobile.

INSIDE INNOVATION

The MMF event also recognized companies and campaigns pushing the envelope and spearheading mobile adoption. The MMA received hundreds of submissions in 12 categories from companies across the globe and winners for the Fifth Annual Global Mobile Marketing Awards were selected by the MMA Awards Selection Committee, a body comprised of global industry leaders from wireless carriers, technology and content providers, agencies and industry publications.

I had the honor of sitting on the panel of judges, a privilege that gave me a first-hand look at the campaigns. The campaigns that were real eye-openers for me in terms of real ROI and creative excellence came from agencies such as: Mobile Dreams Factory (Mini Mobile Dealer), AKQA (Gap Style Mixer), F.biz (Trident Fresh) MyThum (Rogers/Live Nation live ticketing solution) and the Pizza Hut iPhone App from Pizza Hut.

My takeaway: We kicked off the MMF event asking ourselves if 2009 was the “year of mobile” – again. Maybe not. But 2010 is going to be an adventure.  With budgets coming back, mobile showing up on marketing budgets and the advance of smartphones, the stars are aligned for 2010 to (finally) be the year of mobile is 2010. With the stars aligned it’s up to the industry to deliver – with solutions that scale and turnkey cross-media strategies with mobile at their core.

Editor’s note: Matthew Snyder is CEO and Founder of ADObjects-Inc, a cross-media strategic consultancy focused on revenue-generating, customer acquisition, brand building and business development solutions for clients determined to make the most out of mobile. Clients/Partners include: Bing, CBS Radio, Canadian Music Week, Nokia and Mobility Ventures, as well as a variety of media companies and major brands. During his career at Nokia, where he held a number of positions including Device Program Manager and Global Director of Strategy in the Multimedia Group, he architected Nokia location-based services strategy and mobile search application. MSearchGroove is proud to be an associate of ADObjects, joining a vibrant team of professionals including Chetan Sharma, Founder and President of Chetan Sharma Consulting, a management consulting and strategic advisory firm, and Roman Kikta, a renowned venture capitalist, wireless pioneer, seasoned entrepreneur and author. Feel free to contact Matthew directly (matt@adostrategies.com) or follow him on Twitter (matsnyder2001).

Only a few weeks since I teamed up with Inma Martinez – a leading digital media strategist and advisor to venture capitalists who has been referred to as a “free radical” by Red Herring and Fast Company – to co-host Mobile Groove. The overwhelming positive response to our no-holds-barred monthly podcast (which speaks out on developments impacting the mobile industry/investment community at all levels) is encouraging and we are gearing up for our September podcast, a program sure to showcase the highlights of the events and exclusive interviews/briefings/chats Inma and I experience first-hand over the next weeks.

Inma has been invited to attend Mobilize in San Francisco (September 10), a conference that explores the industry vision for the future of wireless and also offers 10 cool startups a platform as part of the Launchpad. As review of these companies (which include: Pageonce, mataio, Waze, Toktumi Line2, Glympse, Ondeego, Square Connect, Locle, IQ Engines and Distimo) shows: the real innovation is in the mix-ups and mash-ups at the intersection of content and context. Inma and I will integrate her observations and first-hand encounters with entrepreneurs into the next in the Mobile Groove series, so be sure to connect with her during the show. To meet up or catch up, email her directly at imartinez AT stradbrokeadvisors DOTcom.

While I won’t make the trip, I have teamed up with the organizers to promote this and all GigaOM events going forward. All have assembled world class speakers and all will be prominently featured on MSearchGroove. (For example, this week’s conference features keynotes by Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola and Cole Brodman, CTO of T-Mobile, presentations that anchor a stellar line up of telecoms and web industry speakers including Andy Rubin, co-Founder of Android and Len Lauer, COO of Qualcomm.) Thanks to Surj Patel MSearchGroove readers can register for a special $100 discount on the ticket price. Please click here to take advantage of this offer (standard: $545), and be sure to enter the discount code: MPSALZ100.

While Inma makes her way to Mobilize, I am gearing up for the Mobile marketing Forum (MMF) Europe in Berlin (September 9-10) -  a Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) event that brings together a who’s who of mobile companies, operators.

In addition to my own one-on-ones and a lunch with Mike Wehrs, MMA President and Chief Executive Officer, I also look forward to conducting industry interviews with long-time MSearchGroove friend and partner bnetTV, the online destination for quality industry news and commentary. (Over the past two years I have worked with the bnetTV team to create some 40 video interviews, segments that I invite you to explore in the bnetTV video jukebox featured in the right-hand sidebar on the homepage.)

The filming schedule is hectic, but exciting (!), and features interviews with senior execs from companies including (in no special order) AdMob, GetJar, AKQA, We Love Mobile, Openwave and Out There Media. We have a super-busy schedule, but some slots are still available, so please contact me directly (peggy ATmsearchgroove DOTcom) to schedule a video interview.

I look forward to seeing you there!

At the other end of the spectrum, this shift in mindset also turns up the pressure on mobile search providers to develop services that are (likewise) more useful, engaging and personal. Indeed, improving the mobile search user experience is at the center of a sustainable and successful mobile search and advertising strategy. Users are encouraged to explore the wealth of content and applications at their fingertips, and their urge to discover leads to more queries and more opportunities to deliver paid search advertising. It’s not quite the fixed Internet all over again, but there are similarities.

The outcome is a virtuous cycle where useful search results and targeted advertising convince users that mobile search is a useful way to find content and applications that matter to them. What’s more, the advance of app stores (similar to the excitement the industry experienced when content portals were the rage) underlines the critical importance of a better interplay between search and advertising moving forward.

I am therefore encouraged by improvements (from companies such as Yahoo), and excited by the increasing popularity of new mobile search paradigms, ranging from multimodal search (which has received a much-needed boost thanks to the iPhone); to approaches that integrate human input/judgment to deliver search results we’re much more likely to appreciate. (I am currently compiling a comprehensive directory of mobile search providers, so please contact me to be included. If your story is interesting, I will also profile your company on MSG.)

A category of mobile search high on my radar is visual search. (Companies include: Idée, IQ Engines, Kooaba, Mobile Acuity, Searchme, SnapNow and SnapTell.) I am pleased to report I am close to confirming a date for a podcast with Philipp Schloter, Nokia’s general manager of Point & Find. Nokia (which MSG covered here) just last week took the wraps off a new beta of its visual search service. The technology is cool but the real excitement is about the fit with mobile marketing campaigns. As Julian Pate, Client Partner at interactive marketing agency AKQA, put it in a statement: “The Nokia Point & Find service marries the digital world with the physical world in a way that actually has meaning for brands and consumers. Not only does it allow consumers to engage with brands in an innovative way but provides brands ‘point and purchase’ opportunities with an on-the-go audience.”

This same value proposition is echoed by SnapNow, a U.S.-based visual search company I profiled in my regular column for EContent magazine.

In it I examine the proliferation of pilots and projects that harness mobile to hyperlink images and items, enabling consumers to access information, make purchases or just browse the Web for similar cool content, by simply snapping a picture using their cameraphones. I also interview Tony Keaveny, Head of Sales for SnapNow UK, who updates me on what the company is doing to “snap-enable” content ranging from print to video.

As Tony puts it: “Your phone becomes your mouse and the world around us becomes the Web. It’s about transforming print, packaging, video, outdoor, or just about any other advertising into a portal enabling communication and – more importantly – commerce.”

Tony walks the talk, which is why he has also kindly offered to “snap-enable” the MSG logo, which means you can get more information about MSG by taking a picture of the logo with your cameraphone and sending it to pic@snapnow.co.uk. I’ll think of a contest to make it worth your while. In the meantime, this is  great (!) because MSG is in demand as a media partner and now you can connect to MSG via the  logo on brochures and posters  at industry conferences such as the Open Mobile Summit, June 10-11 in London, a top-notch industry conference organized by OpenMobileMedia, where I chair the session on mobile advertising.  I invite you to read the column here – and to explore the other great content at EContent.

On a personal note, I am proud to be a contributing editor and look forward to collaborating with Michelle Manafy, EContent Editor-in-chief on a special social media issue sure to set the bar. More about that when I put out a call for pitches here and on Twitter (@peggyanne). Michelle is also the programming chair of Information Today’s Enterprise Search Summits (ESS), annual events that encourage deep discussion and practical analysis of the search space. The next one is May 12-13 in NYC. This week Michelle wraps up Buying and Selling EContent Conference, an event that brings together leading executives knowledgeable in the techniques for buying and selling content. She gives her views on the marketplace and the role of user-generated content in this pre-conference audio interview.

But visual search is just one of the 15 categories I have identified in the process of compiling a comprehensive overview and SWOT analysis of the major mobile search players, together with Rudy De Waele, Mobile Web 2.0 luminary and founder of dotopen, an open innovation consulting firm advising start-ups and established companies helping them define business models, forge alliances and pursue funding opportunities.

Our work is in preparation for a workshop on Mobile Search Future Prospects organized by JRC IPTS (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission), an organization providing customer-driven support to the EU policy-making process.  The purpose of the workshop next week in Seville, Spain, is to identify mobile search trends and recommendations for policy makers. I cannot attend the event, but look forward to publishing a summary analysis of key points raised during the workshop on MSG.

Connect the dots, and mobile search innovation is shaping up to be a major focus in 2009.

The last word on the increasing importance of mobile search comes from Nokia (via AltSearchEngines.com). During his presentation Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President of Nokia’s new Markets unit, told the audience mobile is the future of search. (Hmmm…Does this conviction mark a new chapter in Nokia’s own mobile search strategy? It’s a topic I’ll raise in my upcoming podcast…)