The bottom line: This is sort of a chicken-and-egg situation. Does the fact that roughly a fifth of tweets come from mobile users make location information slightly irrelevant, or will the availability of the location info drive more mobile usage? We’ll take the glass-half-full view: getting 20 percent of tweets from mobile devices is a solid amount, and giving users the chance to leverage their location should increase it further.

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MOBILE AD BUDGETS BUCK THE WIDER DOWNWARD TREND, and will hit $5.7 billion by 2014, says Juniper Research in a new report. While overall ad spending is being hit by budget cutbacks, mobile is set to grow, as it offers engagement with the consumer and a more quantifiable ROI than other mediums.

Still, that $5.7 billion will only account for 1.5 percent of the total global ad spend in 2014, with many advertisers as yet unconvinced that mobile has a big enough reach to justify higher spending. Source

The bottom line: Mobile advertising’s characteristics – quantifiable ROI, direct engagement with consumers – mean that it’s more than just a fad, and will be a valuable tool for marketers. Still, questions persist about reach, even if they show a slight misunderstanding of mobile, because it’s not particularly a broadcast medium. Where mobile will succeed is in getting advertisers connected to the right individuals directly, rather than by the broadcast, shotgun approach.

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US MOBILE MUSIC CONSUMPTION DOUBLES, BUT REMAINS LOW, according to new research from Forrester. The firm says that 10 percent of US adults listen to music on their mobile devices at least once a month, compared to a quarter of people in the UK and a staggering 70 percent of Chinese citydwellers.

Revenues remain low, though, and are projected to hit just 866 million euros in Europe and $263 million in the US in 2013, with almost two-thirds of US people surveyed saying they had no interest in buying songs on their phones. Source

The bottom line: Mobile isn’t immune from the malaise in the wider music business, with consumers reluctant to pay for songs on their handsets. This shouldn’t be at all surprising: there’s really nothing about mobile that makes it much different than any other platform, since consumers haven’t shown a lot of interest in buying songs over the air. Streaming and radio-like services look like they might enjoy more success on mobile.

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SMARTPHONES GRAB THE HEADLINES, BUT FEATURE PHONES GRAB THE SALES, says NPD Group in a new report. In the second quarter, feature phones accounted for 72 percent of all handset sales in the US, though this is down five points from the previous year. Smartphones accounted for the other 28 percent, although they saw almost 50 percent growth from the previous period. Overall, NPD says that unit sales were up 14 percent in the US in Q2 from the previous year, with the ASP up 4 percent to $87. Source

The bottom line: It pays to keep in mind that while the likes of the iPhone dominate media coverage, the vast majority of users are still on feature phones – so developers, marketers and content producers need to keep them in mind.

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SMARTPHONE APP STORES TO DELIVER 6.67 BILLION DOWNLOADS IN 2014 in the US alone, says Frost & Sullivan. The firm appears to believe that much of this will come from free applications, but doesn’t offer any guidance on revenues. Source

The bottom line: It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to see lots of app downloads coming as more and more app stores come online from handset vendors, OS providers and operators. But if most of these apps are going to be free to download, where are the revenues going to come from? Paid sponsorship by brands or in-app ads?