Has Mobile Search Finally Arrived?
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There are roughly two billion people on the planet who use mobile devices. A large percentage of these devices are Internet-enabled. Most people who use the Internet use search engines. What do you get when you do the math?
In theory, what you get is a whole lot of mobile web surfers performing Internet searches. To all indications, practice is finally catching up with theory, for a variety of reasons. This has implications for anyone who engages in search-related advertising, because, as it turns out, web surfers don't search in quite the same way, or for the same things, on a mobile device as they do when they're sitting in front of a nice big desktop computer monitor.
This starts with the fact that users interact differently with their mobile devices from the way they interact with their desktop machines. It's not just the difference in the size of the screen and the interface, either. Most users seem to think of PDAs, cell phones, and other mobile devices as more personal than their personal computers. Just think about the variety of different ring tones you hear every day (and the growing ring tone market). Clearly, at least some mobile device users think of them as a way to make a statement or express their individuality.
The other big difference between desktop computers and mobile devices is that users tend to take their mobile devices with them everywhere, and they're almost always on. This allows for greater spontaneity in their use. That's a curse for noise pollution in cities, but it can be a blessing to the marketer who figures out what that population of users is looking for, and how best to reach them. In point of fact, users searching the Internet from their desktops aren't looking for the same things as users searching from their mobile devices, and they don't have the same expectations either.
Next: Great Expectations, Growing Market >>
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