ALMOST HALF OF MOBILE DOWNLOADERS GRAB APPS MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK, according to some research from GetJar.com, a cross-platform app store. GetJar’s users are an active bunch: 15 percent download once a week, and another 10 percent do it several times a month. About a third of the 5,000 respondents in the survey say they download because they always have their phone with them, while 28 percent do it to pass the time.

A third of those surveyed say they use apps while they’re commuting or on public transport, and perhaps a little surprisingly, 27 percent say they use them at home – though this follows earlier research on mobile TV usage, which found that many subscribers also used it quite often at home as a second or personal screen. Source

The Bottom Line: GetJar has been around for several years, and is the largest independent source of mobile app downloads in the world, so its data can be quite useful to get an idea of what users of devices other than the usual smartphone suspects are doing. These figures show that it’s not just iPhone users who have a voracious appetite for apps – a point that’s often missed by many.

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ONE OF EVERY 7 MINUTES OF US MEDIA CONSUMPTION NOW COMES FROM MOBILE, according to new research from ad agency Universal McCann and AOL. They also report that 80 percent of US smartphone users are satisfied with the quality of the internet service on their mobile device. Almost 40 percent said they’d taken action based on mobile ads, and 22 percent said a mobile ad had influenced a purchase decision they made. Still, reach remains something of an issue: the survey says there are 63 million mobile web users in the US, with 19 million of them accessing the mobile web on a weekly basis. Source

The Bottom Line: More evidence that mobile is already an established part of the media landscape, and one to which marketers need to be paying attention. Furthermore, the survey highlights the viability of mobile ads and their ability to influence viewers.

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MOBILE DISPLAY ADS INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS AND RECOGNITION, says the IAB UK, based on research by Brand Driver using banner ads for Kit Kat candy. The group says that being exposed to mobile banner ads significantly raised spontaneous and first-mention awareness of Kit Kat, and was particularly effective at doing so among 18- to 34-year-olds. It also says that incentives are important to mobile ad viewers, with 51 percent in the survey saying they were more likely to interact with a mobile ad that offers something to them in return. Meanwhile, creative is also important, as 41 percent says they clicked through just because they were interested in a particular ad. Source

The Bottom Line: Taken in concert with the above data from the US, once again this research reinforces the utility and ability of mobile advertising to effectively engage audiences. The ability to incentivize advertising also gives mobile a leg up, by making it easier for marketers to offer something in return, such as free downloads or the chance to enter a competition, as Kit Kat did here.

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SALES OF LOW-COST HANDSETS AND OPEN-SOURCE OS SMARTPHONES ON THE RISE, says Juniper Research. The company predicts that annual sales of low-cost handsets will rise 22% through 2014, to over 700 million, as growth in emerging markets continues for mobile operators. Meanwhile, it separately predicts that the number of smartphones running open-source operating systems (such as Symbian and Android) will grow from 106 million this year, to 223 million in 2014. Source

The Bottom Line: Emerging markets continue to be a strong growth area for the mobile industry, and content providers should keep them on their radar. Meanwhile, the diversity of smartphone operating systems isn’t going away, meaning developers will still need to deal with the hassle of fragmentation to hit their target markets.

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MOBILE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PCS FOR YOUNG AMERICAN WOMEN, according to research from SRG. Its recent Women and Digital Life Study found that women under 25 spend twice as much time – 2.8 hours per day – on their phones, compared to the 1.2 hours per day for women over 40. The young women spend slightly more time on their PCs (2.9 hours) than their mobiles, whereas older women spend significantly more, 3.5 hours per day. Unsurprisingly, the study found that younger women also used more features of their mobile more often than older women. Source

The Bottom Line: It shouldn’t be too surprising to discover young people using their mobiles more frequently and for more activities than older users, but perhaps the biggest takeaway here is the length of use figures for PC vs. Mobile. They’re essentially equal for young women, showing that mobile can be just as viable a way to reach young women as the web via PC.

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MOBILE M&A ACTIVITY STANDS OUT, while much of the rest of the market is quiet, says The Jordan, Edmiston Group. The company tracks merger and acquisition activity in the media, information, marketing services and technology sectors, and says 171 deals worth a collective $4.1 billion were done in Q2. While activity is still down significantly over previous years, the company says it has seen an uptick in recent weeks, and that mobile remains something of a bright spot. Activity in the Mobile Media & Technology sector was up 46 percent in the first half of 2009 over the previous year. Source (PDF)

The Bottom Line: Like many other corporate transactions, M&A activity remains low given economic factors. But mobile is still a hot area, and one that’s widely tipped to outpace many other technology sectors in the short to medium term. Still, it’s a buyer’s market, at least for those with access to capital, particularly as many startups and smaller players struggle to find the funding they need to keep going, and keep growing.

Since teaming up with Rudy De Waele, blogger at mTrends and  dotopen founder, to develop mobile search case studies in preparation for a workshop on Mobile Search Future Prospects organized by JRC IPTS (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission), and seeing the positive response to our work to date, I’m convinced mobile search is back again at the top of the industry agenda. And with good reason: Search is the de facto interface to all things digital in the online space, and there is every indication that it will be the same in mobile.

From mobile advertising, where our queries trigger the delivery of related advertising (in the best case scenario, we’re not there yet), to social media, where the content we appreciate and discuss across destinations ranging from MySpace to Twitter allows us to restore balance in an otherwise purely algorithmic approach that tends to promote search engine optimized websites over what we find genuinely relevant and useful, mobile search is where the action is.

But as Rudy and I have both pointed out in our recent presentations, mobile search is not about the usual suspects (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft). Rudy spoke at Next09, and you can find his slides  further on in this post; I spoke at the European Mobile Media Conference, and my deck can likewise be found after the jump.

Indeed, context and personalization change all the rules (!)

A highlight of our recent presentations: A comprehensive overview of the market and (thanks to Rudy) a SWOT analysis of the players that stand out in their category such as Google (universal search with a poor mobile offer and an even weaker grasp of social search), and Twitter (a case of mobile search + social media = real-time results that really reflect what we discuss/share).

In my own mobile search research – an on-going project that began back in 2004/2005 when I wrote the first report on mobile search and content discovery, a 220+ page report published by Informa Telecoms & Media – I have recently identified some 60+ companies and 10+ categories of mobile search I would like to share with you (below) for your feedback.

INTERACE

• Text: ChaCha, 4INFO,MINFO, textperts (acquired by 118118), Answers.com, AnyQuestionAnswered, Ask, AskMeNow
• Voice: Google, Yahoo, Vlingo, Microsoft, ChaCha (Watch this space for an expert assessment of the voice-enabled services offered by Google, Vlingo, and ChaCha. ( I am proud to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Peggy Albright, MSG Associate and founder of Albright Communications, and even prouder of the results.)
• Visual: IQ Engines, Kooaba, Mobile Acuity, Searchme, SnapNow, SnapTell, Tin Eye Mobile, Nokia
• Navigational: Boopsie, kannuu, Nuance (through Tegic acquisition)

ACTIONABLE

• Universal: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL (based on Google), Medio Systems, JumpTap (although a much stronger focus on mobile advertising)
• Federated: MCN, Motricity (managed mobile search platform providers)
• Operator-centric search: Amdocs, Qualcomm, IBM and this company coming out of stealth mode
• Alternative search: Defined as every service except for Google, and includes a long tail of 1500+ search engines (tracked by AltSearchEngines) with ambitions to go mobile – some sooner than later
• Vertical/content-specific search: abphone, vtap, Truveo
• Local search: Hundreds of players that offer local search via SMS services, on their own WAP sites, and/or as part of a nearby shopping scheme. (Fortunately, the local mobile search landscape is the topic of an upcoming column on MSG from Martin Wilson, founder of Indigo 102, an independent consultancy with a focus on mobile local search and services, so watch this space!)

SOCIAL

• abphone, ChaCha, Hiogi, Taptu
• Twitter in a class by itself!

It’s work in progress, but it’s all the more exciting if we remember that – in mobile search – the players that matter and the business models that deliver are wide open to discussion.

Indeed, the central role of mobile search in a wide variety of mobile services around sharing, advertising, location, and context-aware activities turns up the pressure on an even broader range of businesses (operators, brands, agencies, enablers – everyone!) to understand what mobile search delivers (and doesn’t) and the companies/models that do it best.

To help mobile professionals and practitioners navigate this tough terrain, Rudy and I have joined together on a project to produce the definitive mobile search market overview, a work that will draw from primary research, case studies, and exclusive forecasts to document this exciting space and present our recommendations for strategies to harness growth opportunities on the horizon.

I still have the opportunity to take your views and perspectives into account, and I would welcome your input. The project, widely distributed via our sites and via our network of sites, supporters, and influencers, will also offer a commercial opportunity to companies interested in conveying their value proposition to a growing community of senior executives and decision-makers in the mobile space.

If you are a mobile search company with an interest in being considered for an interview, please contact me directly or send an email to my assistant Andrea Henninge (andrea@msearchgroove.com).