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July 7, 2010

According to a new survey released by Compete Inc., smartphone users are increasingly tapping into the advanced features of their mobile devices, and are performing more and more Internet searches on them.

Compete notes that during the first quarter of 2010, about 31.2 percent of smartphone users have either called or stopped into a local business after discovering the information using a local search application on their smartphone.

The report also found that about 29.8 percent of consumers with either an Apple iPhone or a smartphone powered by Google's Android operating system discovered at least two new businesses that they were not previously aware of as a result of using mobile search apps.

Compete's research also revealed that an increasing number of wireless users are turning to their mobile devices to stay in touch with Facebook and their other social networks.

The research firm also notes that about one out of three Twitter users with a smartphone primarily send tweets from their phones and that a similar percent prefer to read others' tweets on their iPhone or BlackBerry.

Compete's study also revealed that of consumers that access their Facebook accounts from their mobile device, about two thirds also read news feeds, 59 percent post status updates, 61 percent read or reply to private messages and a little over 43 percent post photos from their smartphones and mobile devices.

The Compete report also underscores that 51 percent of iPhone users have at least five games loaded onto their mobile device, and that they play games more frequently that do owners of other smartphones with 37 percent of iPhone users reporting that they play games at least daily on their device.

However, mobile phone users with Research In Motion's Blackberry devices are at the other extreme with 46 percent of Blackberry users surveyed saying they have no games on their device, and that they use their phones mostly for business and for reading & sending emails only related to their jobs.

“With the increasing popularity of local search, retailers should ensure their sites are optimized for mobile browsers," said Danielle Nohe, director of technology and entertainment for Compete. "Making it easy for consumers to discover businesses via their devices opens local companies up to a whole new customer demographic, and savvy businesses should make sure they're maximizing this opportunity."

The battle is intensifying rapidly in the mobile apps segment of the wireless industry, especially now that Apple has launched its venerable iPhone 4 last week, with resounding success.

What's more, last week's iPhone apps update added an important piece of missing functionality to the wildly popular smartphone.

Now the iPhone 4 can run third-party apps as a background process. Such a multitasking ability opens up a whole new world of options for mobile apps developers in the rapidly growing segment of location-based social networking, commonly referred to as GPS/Social.

Meet Loopt, a geo-tagging mobile app with a little over 2.96 million users. The mobile app developers at Loopt have now introduced a new version that allows wireless users to update their locations automatically as they move around.

It's a rather big improvement from such rivals as Foursquare which requires mobile users to manually check-in as they visit every place they go. Now all that can be done automatically, thanks to the new Loopt app available for iPhone 4 users.

Loopt's version 3.0 upgrade uses the new iPhone's iOS 4 to let its users continuously share their locations with specific friends for up to 8 hours, with no further action on their part. If a Loopt friend is nearby, a notification pops up. Friends appear on a Loopt map, which updates in real-time. Real cool.

But manual check-ins are still available for sharing with a larger group of friends, however. Loopt developers are hoping to fix that issue with Loopt 4.0 that should be available in the next couple of weeks.

Sam Altman, CEO of Mountain View, Calif.-based Loopt says "This is a huge deal for us, because this is what we imagined when Loopt launched almost two years ago. Background-updating is absolutely the next great mobile app. Everyone else we talk to in the GPS and location space is moving toward it."

GPS and location space is a booming field, thanks to Generation "Y-ers" who have grown up in the Internet age and have no objection to broadcasting personal information of where they currently are and what they are doing.

Overall, the number of GPS and location-based services on smartphones today is largely expected to rise to over 80 million installations this year, a tenfold increase from just eight million last year, according to a report released a few days ago by iSuppli Corp.

"Given the increasing popularity of Facebook, Twitter and other social sites, it's natural that users are eager to access these outlets on their phones. Based on our findings, I recommend marketers start thinking about new ways to maximize consumers' use of smartphones on social sites, as mobile adoption will likely only increase with time," added Nohe.

"It's very clear that iPhone owners have embraced mobile gaming. Mobile app developers should turn their attention to targeting other smartphone users in an effort to even out the discrepancies in mobile gaming adoption," said Nohe.

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Source: Compete Inc.