Study: Mobile is Fastest Growing Media Among Ad Execs

Above: Kraft Foods’ new iPad app

According to a new report from Advertiser Perception Inc. (API), 46 percent of ad execs on both the marketer and agency side are leveraging mobile as part of their advertising plans – a number expected to jump to 60 percent within the next year. API projects mobile to grow at a faster rate than any other medium.

At present, the most common ad formats on mobile are banner ads (62 percent of advertisers surveyed), and text ads (60 percent) – though video is the fastest growing and is expected to grow from 28 percent to 43 percent within the next 12 months. As for mobile search, 41 percent of respondents are currently utilizing the channel, and API projects this number will increase to 50 percent in a year.

When it comes to mobile media platforms advertisers overwhelmingly favor smartphones (87 percent of respondents), though the iPad will rise the fastest. About 22 percent of respondents currently utilize Apple’s new tablet in their advertising plans, but API predicts this number will grow to 49 percent in the coming months.

To learn more about emerging opportunities in mobile, be sure to follow our summer POV series that focuses exclusively on mobile marketing. You can read our first five reports below:

• Mobile Marketing Overview
• Mobile Search
• SMS (Text Messaging)
• Mobile Social Marketing
• Mobile Applications

Old Spice Man Takes the Web by Storm – then Rides Off into the Sunset

Unless you’ve been under a rock this week, you’ve heard of Old Spice’s new campaign that ties YouTube to Twitter by having the face of the brand (Old Spice Man, as played by actor Isaiah Mustafa) field questions from Twitter and respond in short video segments on the brand’s YouTube Channel.

Old Spice and its agency partners (led by Wieden + Kennedy) were quite busy during the two-day blitz, responding to more than 185 queries by writing, producing and publishing clips on YouTube (Read Write Web has a great recap of how it all worked). Today, Old Spice Man threw in the proverbial towel. “I must ride my jet ski lion into the sunset,” he said in his final video. “Please know I consider you my dearest and closest Internet friends. I will never forget this time we spent together ….I love you, always.”

It didn’t take long for the clever campaign to become a viral sensation – capturing the attention of millions of consumers, Internet celebrities (like Alyssa Milano, Demi Moore and Apolo Ohno), brands (like Starbucks and the Chicago Blackhawks) and media outlets like the Huffington Post and Perez Hilton. According to the Financial Post, the real-time approach placed Old Spice as the most-viewed YouTube channel of the day and made it the fourth-most subscribed to date.

Report: Paid Search Spend Continues to Increase

This week 360i sister company SearchIgnite, a search optimization and digital media attribution provider, released a whitepaper that found spending on paid search in the U.S. grew 14 percent in the second quarter of 2010 (year-over-year). These figures reflect the strongest growth search marketing has seen since Q4 2008.

The whitepaper also suggests that search has become less reliant on the retail vertical to drive growth. Retail spend grew 7 percent in Q2 2010. This was the first time in more than a year that spending in other verticals grew more than it did in retail.

You can download this report and previous SearchIgnite whitepapers at http://bit.ly/searchigniteresearch.

Disney Becomes Twitter’s First @Earlybird Sponsor

After announcing its new e-commerce platform last week (@earlybird), Twitter has enlisted the first partner in the endeavor: Disney. Disney was also the first brand to utilize Twitter’s promoted trending topics service. The promotion states that users who follow @earlybird or @DisneyPictures can receive a special 2-for-1 deal on tickets to the new Nicholas Cage flick, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Mashable reports that Twitter has also enlisted partners like Groupon and Gilt – which offer similar limited time offer deals – as well as additional advertising partners like Disney. Many brands have used Twitter to promote their own special deals, though as noted by Mashable, the benefit of teaming with Twitter is that the follower base that messaging reaches may be greater and more varied. There’s potential to attract more people – and people who wouldn’t necessarily follow the brand but might be interested in the promotion nonetheless.

New England Loves Mobile: Just Ask Ben & Jerry’s & the Patriots

Two northeast passion brands – Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and the New England Patriots – announced new emerging media initiatives this week that center on reaching consumers through mobile.

Ben & Jerry’s recently added augmented reality functionality to its iPhone app that grants users with special “Moo Vision,” which unlocks 3D experiences from carton lids. Departing from the AR strategy of many brands that utilizes the technology to help customers find store locations, this app allows users to view “virtual dioramas” that depict scenes from the small family farms behind Ben & Jerry’s ingredients (via ReadWriteWeb).

The New England Patriots are also testing new ground in mobile with the help of location-based startup SCVNGR (you can learn more about them in a previous 360i post). According to TechCrunch, the growing number of mysterious “Help Vince” t-shirts in the region has baffled local sports writers who wonder what the reference to Patriots standout Vince Wilfork means.

Well, the t-shirts are actually part of a SCVNGR challenge launched by the Pats, in which fans are invited to help Vince locate his “lost” Super Bowl Ring. The organization is hoping the program will spark engagement in the offseason and get fans pumped for the start of the upcoming season.  The winner of the challenge will score a special lunch with a member of the Patriots.

Which stories piqued your interest this week? Let us know in the comments below.

360i POV: Mobile Search

>>Download 360i’s report on Mobile Search (PDF).

Key Takeaways

• Mobile search is on the rise. Search engine marketing and optimization continue to matter across mobile devices, and Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are jockeying to serve as the default engines across mobile handsets. Key players are making big moves in the space – signaling even bigger moves on the horizon.
• Search is evolving with mobile devices in a variety of a ways – for example, queries are typically shorter (no matter how much better mobile keypads get) and more local. Further, Google Android devices feature a built-in search button, and the results pages themselves continue to evolve to showcase more mobile-specific content.
• Our POV also lists several mobile search best practices, such as grouping mobile campaigns separately, broadening your scope to encompass more high volume keywords and geo-targeting your campaigns.

For marketers looking to reach consumers wherever they are, mobile search is a great starting point. To get the most out of it, marketers should plan holistically, tying mobile search into their broader search marketing programs.

Read the blog and follow us on Twitter all summer to learn how you can make the most of the increasingly mobile-centric marketing future.

Search engines have responded to this demand by incorporating real-time search results into their offerings. One engine leading the way is OneRiot, a real-time search engine that provides results influenced by what people are sharing on Twitter, Myspace, Digg, Facebook and more. We interviewed Tobias Peggs, President of OneRiot, to learn more about the engine and the future of real-time search.

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[360i]: Since OneRiot launched, the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) have incorporated more real-time search functionality. How will OneRiot compete against them and stand out?

[Tobias Peggs]: Across all search engines, studies have shown that 40% of users’ queries are best served by realtime search results. These satisfy users searching for things as heavyweight as “Oil Spill” or as entertaining as “Lindsay Lohan.” Those users are expecting their search engine to tell them what’s going on right now for that topic. That’s exactly what OneRiot provides. We find the news, stories and videos that are really resonating with people right now for any topic. In addition we offer a partner API that enables 3rd party search engines to show our results to their users. We also operate the RiotWise network specifically for monetizing realtime search results – both on our own site and our partners’ properties.

Because the market opportunity is so big – 40% of search volume – it’s been no surprise to see the majors figuring out their own realtime search strategy. Some are now showing simple tweets at the top of their search result pages while others have separate sites that show tweets and Facebook status updates related to a search query. Others are working with our partner API (unfortunately we can’t say who at this time).

Whatever the approach, the key thing is to deliver real user value, to drive engagement and be able to monetize that attention. We are doing two things to stay ahead: 1) keep executing to deliver a service that adds real user value and 2) keep partnering to get our products out there to as many people as possible. In other words, we’re delivering real value at scale.

When does real-time search matter most for users?

When users want to know what’s going right now. If I’m searching for “Oil Spill” right now, I probably don’t want to find a Wikipedia page listing all the big oil spills that occurred in the 20^th century. That’s what I would get on a traditional search engine. Instead, what I want is the news, stories and videos that are relevant for right now. “Tell me what’s going on with the BP oil spill, right now!”Likewise for “Volcano,” “Michel Jackson,” “Hudson River,” “Iran Election” – all great examples of where users in their millions sought search results that could tell them what was going on right now.

Of course, in addition to these global topics, there is a big demand for realtime results on a local scale (“what’s going on in my city right now?”) and even hyper-local (“why has the traffic stopped at junction 241 right now?). Although there are different optimal solutions for each of these types of queries, the underlying point is that realtime search results matter most when you want to find out what’s going on right now for any subject.

Why should marketers pay attention to the growing influence of the real-time web?

The “realtime web” has brought with it the biggest shake up in the Search Industry for a decade, and marketers will need to change too.

Historically, the big search engines were based on an exhaustive index of all the pages on the web. They then determined the relevance of each page, and ranked their search results, based on factors like the number of in-bound links to that page. This document-centric approach treated the web like a big reference library. Top results were authoritative but static. Search for “BP” and the top result would be the official BP website or a Wikipedia page for the oil company. Marketers have been learning how to work with this system for many years now with SEO and SEM techniques. They know how to get content ranked high and found on a search results page. And while those efforts are still valuable, marketers will now also have to learn to optimize for the realtime web.

Rather than exhaustively indexing the web based on link structure, realtime search engines like OneRiot index the pages that matter most to people right now. We do this with a people-centric view of the web, based on “social signals” – the content that users are sharing because it’s interesting or important to them at any moment. For example, links that are currently being shared by friends on services like Twitter and MySpace, or “liked” on Facebook, reflect what’s resonating with people right now. At OneRiot we index those pages in realtime. Then we rank our results in order to reflect current social resonance of a particular web page – what we call the “Pulse” of that page. This means looking at realtime social signals, rather than inbound links, to determine how relevant a page is right now. We’ll look at factors like the Velocity of Social Syndication (i.e. how fast is a link being shared right now across the web) and People Authority (i.e. who is sharing a link and how influential are they) to help determine our top result.

So, just as marketers had to figure out SEO and SEM techniques to rank high on library-style web search, they’ll now need to develop new techniques to rank high on realtime web searches.

You recently unveiled a new look & feel to OneRiot. How did you decide which elements to change? What are some of the coolest features to the redesign?

One of the coolest features added to the redesign are the trending topics that now stream across the top of the home page. These topics are driven by a new Trending Topics Engine (http://bit.ly/TrendingTopics) which detects breaking stories and emerging trends faster than anyone else.

While OneRiot is known as the leader in realtime search, we’re also blazing a trail by monetizing the realtime web. We do this with RiotWise – the first ad network for the realtime web ecosystem. We now feature RiotWise content on our homepage and SERPs. (http://live.oneriot.com/company/ads.html)

These design changes not only help make the realtime search experience more engaging, they also build a compelling showcase for realtime search and ads to our OneRiot partners. The majority of OneRiot action occurs on partner sites through our API (http://oneriotdevelopernetwork.com/), so it was important for us to build a site that showcased what partner can do with our content.

Which story currently trending on OneRiot intrigues you most?

The product guy in me is always looking at how fast we find new trending topics, and how fast we surface relevant content. I’m always pleased when we break a story first on our home page, or surface really buzzy content on our search results pages – and I’m intrigued to know which part of our trending topics detection engine found it first.

The business guy in me is always looking at search queries and trending topics that generate great quality ads and good ad coverage. So I guess I’m most intrigued by the rare instances when that doesn’t happen, and I want to know how we can make it better next time!

Meanwhile, the Englishman in me is most focused on the Soccer World Cup right now, and how my team is doing. So I keep a tab open on a OneRiot realtime search results page for “England World Cup” and watch the realtime results roll in for England’s chances. To be honest, I’m more intrigued about the state of my team than any search technology for this one!

Report: Online Ad Market Rebounds in First Quarter of 2010

New comScore data signaled a display advertising rebound in early 2010, with U.S. Internet users receiving a record-high 1.1 trillion display ads during Q1. This figure reflects a 15-percent jump year-over-year. ComScore estimates that total display ad spend reached $2.7 billion in Q1 at an average CPM of $2.48.

In a press release, comScore Senior Vice President Jeff Hacket said he sees a strong resurgence in the online display ad market. “The first quarter of 2010 posted strong volume in online display ads, coinciding with increasing expenditure from advertisers and higher CPMs for publishers,” he said. “This pickup in activity should bode well for the online advertising industry as we move forward in 2010.”

Business Center Launch Positions Twitter as a Stronger Marketing & CRM Tool

On Tuesday, Mashable confirmed that Twitter has launched a beta test of the Twitter Business Center, a set of tools which provides more legitimacy and greater flexibility to businesses operating on the platform. Official businesses, both large and small, will soon have a prominent “verified” badge on their profile pages, along with a suite of new features.

Bravo is one of the first companies on board Twitter’s new Business Center.

While it’s surprising that it took so long to release this functionality (Twitter has had badges for “verified” individuals, such as celebrities and political figures, for a long time), at 360i we see this as an important step in Twitter becoming an even more powerful marketing and CRM tool. Read our full blog post to learn about the new features and what they mean for marketers utilizing Twitter for their businesses.

Survey: Search Marketing Remains Strong for Retailers

A recent study from Internet Retailer found that search engine marketing (both PPC and SEO) remains a strong source of traffic and sales for retailers. More than a quarter of respondents said that SEM efforts were responsible for 50%+ of their online sales. Half of the respondents said a quarter of their site traffic comes from paid search.

Via Internet Retailer

Nearly half of the retailers surveyed said they increased their paid search budgets in the past year, and a similar proportion say they plan to increase it in the year head. More charts from this study are available on the Internet Retailer website.

Study: Women Embrace Personalized Advertising on the Web

According to a recent study by Q Interactive, women have positive perceptions of ad targeting and would like to see more targeted offers from “brands they trust.”

Key Findings:

• The large majority (88 percent) of users surveyed would like to see more targeted offers from trusted brands.
• Two-thirds said such personalized advertisements were “cool,” compared to only 10 percent who thought the targeting was “weird.”
• More than 50 percent of women surveyed said they formed relationships with brands and websites prior to targeting.
• The top way for brands to establish positive relationships with women online was to provide exclusive offers and deals.

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Starbucks Teams Up with Brightkite for Mobile Frappuccino Promotion

MobileMarketer reports that Starbucks has partnered with location-based social network Brightkite to launch a mobile prong of the coffee brand’s integrated push to promote Frappuccino Happy Hour. Starbucks is promoting the special across several social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, foursquare and MyStarbucksIdea.com.

Via MobileMarketer

The Brightkite promotion works by allowing users to earn a Starbucks badge if they check into a location during the Happy Hour via the Brightkite iPhone app. Starbucks spokeswoman Lisa Passé told MobileMarketer that the Brightkite integration “links the real time in-store experience to the online community.”

Image via Businessweek.com

A quick glance at John Battelle’s resume is evidence enough that the founder & chairman of Federated Media Publishing is somewhat of a modern-day renaissance man. In addition to leading FM – the publishing company behind many of the most prominent blogs, sites, social networks and brands – he’s also a respected businessman, journalist, author, professor, blogger and conference programmer.

John’s diverse repertoire of expertise allows him to provide valuable insights about emerging trends in the digital space. He regularly addresses a number of hot-button topics on his blog, Searchblog, which covers the fusion of search, technology and media.

At 360i, we’re interested in those same topics as they pertain to the work we do on behalf of our clients in all areas of digital marketing and advertising – and we are always looking for ways to share thought leadership and continue the conversations that will ultimately propel our industry forward in new and exciting directions. I spoke with John about a few of the most “now” trends in digital, as well some things to look out for in 2010. The interview follows below:

[David Berkowitz]: Social search has been a hot topic for years, but now Google is experimenting with integrating results from one’s social graph into search results. Do you expect this kind of social search to now go mainstream?

[John Battelle]: Absolutely. “Social” is now mainstream, and search cannot but reflect the habits and usage patterns of the mainstream. Recent announcements of the integration of Twitter and Facebook into Bing and Google are harbingers of this. The real question is whether we’ll even need search “portals” anymore as our habits shift to a more mobile, social and less destination-driven interface for search.

[DB]: What will the value of real-time search be for marketers?

[JB]: If there’s a brand marketer who doesn’t want to know “what people are saying about my brand, right now,” I haven’t met them. Particularly if those people happen to be customers, potential customers, or influentials to the brand. So, the first use case is customer insight. The second use case is response: after listening, now I can respond in real time, using the tools of real-time search. One way is to market (i.e. put my responses next to real time search results), but another is to join the conversations and influence them by having my own brand platforms that are part of a particular real time conversation, and in that way become part of real time organic search results. Given that the platforms to join the conversation through marketing have yet to be built (but are coming, trust me), I recommend that brands build those platforms now. Once the marketing services are available, you can use them to supercharge your brand platforms.

[DB]: Has Twitter changed how you blog?

[JB]: Yes – in that it’s given me a lot more to blog about! Also, I use it to notify readers of new posts. And sure, I might post a quick observation to Twitter that I otherwise might have written in longer form on my blog.

[DB]: While Bing is the most literal Google competitor right now for search and advertising, do you view Twitter and Facebook as Google competitors?

[JB]: Without question. So does Google, in my humble opinion.

[DB]: While you’ll undoubtedly be blogging about this, what’s one Web 2.0 prediction you want to make for 2010?

[JB]: Yes, we’ll see both how I did in my 2009 predictions and what my 2010 predictions are in about a month or so! For now, the one prediction I am happy to make is that there will be more mobile searches than there will be PC-based ones on a monthly basis by the end of the year.

Now that Google’s sandbox beta engine has stabilized – it was previously too volatile to run comprehensive and accurate testing – we’ve evaluated rankings for a sample set of 40 retail keywords. We looked at ten major retail brand names (keywords), ten retail head terms (single keywords), ten retail torso terms (two-word phrases) and ten retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases) and compared the search results on the first three pages of both engines (standard Google and “Caffeinated” Google).

40 Retail Keywords Used in the Analysis

Six things stood out to us as notable differences that could impact marketers when Google makes the switch.

1. Domains and rankings will fluctuate.

How much would a shift from Google in its present state to Google Caffeine affect search rankings for your keywords? Our prediction: substantially. Our exercise shows that rankings would definitely experience a shake-up.

In comparing Google now (Decaf) to the future (Beta Caffeine) against our sample keyword set, we found a significant percentage change for domains across various positions (see chart below).

While 40 retail keywords do not comprise a huge sample size, this exercise shows first page rankings (1-10) shift about 15 percent in Caffeine. Looking at only the head and torso keywords, these one and two-word phrases saw up to a 50 percent difference in the domains appearing within results 1-10*.

* Percentage Gained/Dropped represents the percentage of domains that ranked in Decaf and no longer appeared in results on Caffeine for these positions.

2. The index size, or “competition,” of single keyword search relevance will increase.

Your domain will compete against a larger pool of web catalog pages indexed for single word brand or head terms. It appears that Google will index more pages on the Web, so the potential “results pool” will be greater and thus more competitive for those trying to get to the top of the page. This adds value for searchers because it will ideally increase the accuracy of results.

3. You’ll see a boost in relevance for long-tail searches.

In contrast to the increased number of pages being indexed for single word brand and head terms, the index size for multi-keyword phrase searches in Caffeine appears to yield less competition via Google’s Web catalog / Index. Therefore, if Google were to get a “Caffeine” jolt, your pages would likely compete against a smaller pool of pages for more exacting searches. This might be the key to Google’s logic when it comes to improving accuracy. This could also give larger brands an advantage for their product and deep level pages, which could potentially see a boost in relevance for long-tail searches.

4. You’ll get results (SERPs) in half the time, on average.

While it would be hard to notice with the naked eye, the new engine appears to generate SERPs in half the time. This would improve usability and user experience on Google. After all, searchers want accuracy– but they also don’t like waiting around.

5. Blended results will increase.

Expect the average number of Universal listings to increase slightly within the first three pages of results. This includes blended instances of video, news, images, books, blogs and local search results. Google’s Caffeine will have a greater consideration for Google’s other vertical databases, or those outside its standard web catalog.

Text/Web Listings VS Percentage of other Universal Listing Types:

Vs.

6. There will be a social jolt.

Overall, Google Caffeine would have more social media listings compared to Google Decaf due to a lift in YouTube listings.

Looking at the differences more closely, Caffeine currently appears to be indexing less “Communication” sites (i.e. blogs, message boards and review sites) and “Collaboration” sites (such as Wikis and directories). However, it is indexing more “Multimedia” sites such as video/music/photo sharing sites and “lifecasting” social sites such as Facebook for the keywords we tested.

Vs.

Categories defined:

• Communication: Blogs, microblogs, social networking, “answer” sites, message boards, etc.
• Collaboration: Wikis, Directories, Office Apps, Social Bookmarks, and generally any site designed for document publishing and revision
• Entertainment: Virtual worlds, online games, and generally any site designed for an entertainment experience
• Multimedia: Video sharing, photo sharing, lifecasting, music and audio sharing sites, etc.

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What does all of this mean for marketers?
Marketers will need to keep a close eye on their own set of keywords and determine how results change if a switch-over does takes place. Since this is not an algorithm update, altering your best practices or natural search tactics drastically is not recommended. However, if your keywords shift in rank, you will need to refresh your strategy and focus in on any results drop-offs, or take advantage of subsequent wins.

We reviewed a relatively small sample set of keywords for this test and Caffeine is still in beta, so it is possible that the differences outlined here could change before the launch of Google’s updated engine. Nonetheless, it’s clear that with Caffeine, Google is trying to improve the search experience with faster, more relevant results from a wider swath of the Web’s content. This is good news for everyone – Google, consumers and marketers.

-Martha Mukangara, SEO Analyst at 360i, contributed to this report.

Facebook has done so well blowing out its core social features – the News Feed, Mini Feed, brand Pages, virtual gifts, applications, and Facebook Connect, to name a few – that it’s amazing how frustrating it is to use some of the basic functionality like search and email. Part of that’s finally about to change, now that Facebook is rolling out trials of an upgraded on-site search engine.

Here’s a snippet of the preview from Facebook’s blog:

With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone.

This is a start. As Read/Write Web notes, this inches closer to the real-time search features that make Twitter so useful, but Facebook’s focus seems to be helping users search their friends’ content, rather than content across all of Facebook. It’s also unclear right now if they’re fixing other fundamental problems – for instance, when you search for groups or Pages, you can’t sort them in any way, such as by the number of members or fans. [Update: TechCrunch reports Facebook will soon make it possible to search content from everyone, and will update privacy options accordingly.]

There’s also a lot Facebook could do to build on this. It’s not as far reaching as Twitter Search, and it’s not as captivating as Google Hot Trends, from what’s been released so far. Really though, it would be a relief if their search engine just worked.

One dream scenario: Microsoft has alerady invested in Facebook, and Bing powers the basic Web search function on Facebook. Now that Microsoft has shown how it can at least deliver a competitive search offering on its own (in some ways, it’s even innovative), it would be fun to see what it could do with Facebook.

Regardless of what the final product looks like when it’s open to all users (it’s live for a small number right now), the big relief is that Facebook is finally getting back to basics. With any luck, upgrades to email will follow in turn.

Google is suffering from some sort of outage this morning, and judging by the hysteria brewing on Twitter – it’s a Google world and we’re just living in it.

Here’s a live look at how people are reacting:

The issue does not appear to be affecting everyone. Some Googlers are reporting that they’re able to use the search engine just fine; however, many users are reporting limited functionality if not downright outage.

We’ll update you if and when we learn more.

The panel was Search as We See It, “Search Insiders’ view of the Future: Industry Trends, Challenges and things to keep an eye on.” The panelists included:

• Ron Belanger, VP, Worldwide Agency Sales, Omniture
• Daniel Boberg, VP, Advertiser & Agency Professional Services, Yahoo
• Brian Boland, Director, Media Auctions, Microsoft Advertising
• John Nicoletti, Head of Agency Operations, Google

Q: What was different compared to the Search Insider Summit in May 2008?

Everyone mentioned the economy to some extent, often to the full extent. Ron said profit optimization was big, as was customer retention. Yahoo mentioned that the economy has led to declines in click-through rates for commercial times, and lower order sizes. John noted economic issues, brought up the expanded use of universal search, and plugged Google Flu Trends (the only swine flu reference I recall hearing at the events.

Q: What will we be talking about a year from now that wasn’t well covered here?

Ron noted search will be used even more for campaign planning. Brian expected a greater emphasis on contextual advertising and performance display. John said we’ll hear more about mobile (which was barely touched on at all this event). Dan thought semantic structuring would play a bigger role, and was bullish on Rich Ads in Search (the Yahoo push, also mirrored by Google, to start including images and video in search ads).

Q: Where is mobile search now?

Overall, there was a lot of skepticism for how big this will get how fast. Brian surveyed the audience and fairly few in the room conducted mobile searches on a daily basis, and this was more of an early adopter crowd, especially for search. Ron noted the searches on mobile are far more directional, such as for Facebook and MySpace and news/weather sites, and the commercial searches are more for local listings and services like movies and other spots nearby. Ron said mobile display presents the much bigger opportunity.

As for will it all be Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft in mobile search, panelists from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft collectively said, “Yes.” They all noted the challenges of creating a viable search rival. During the audience Q&A, there was some optimism for voice search, where Google and Microsoft both have live offerings.

Q: Here I channeled my inner James Lipton (better than I expected to) – as covered by Joe Mandese on MediaPost’s blog, and asked, What does social search mean to you?

Panelists didn’t have great answers for this one, and two didn’t answer at all. That’s a sign for a moderator that the question sucked. Ron discussed a bit of how social actions already inform search rankings, but as this wasn’t a favorite topic of the panelists so I wasn’t pressing here. During Q&A, John reiterated the importance of universal search, and Dan noted his

Q: What about Wolfram Alpha, the highly buzzed about search engine? I noted that when Stephen Wolfram sneezes, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington gets him a tissue. Is it a Google killer? The holy grail of search? The next Cuil?

Again, panelists were largely nonplused by this, seeing it more as an academic solution rather than something most consumers will find useful. I asked Brian if he could share anything about what Microsoft was doing with Powerset, the one-time rumored Google killer that Microsoft acquired. Yes, Microsoft was doing something with it. No, he couldn’t talk about it here.

There was one other question I had to cover. I’ll return to MediaPost’s coverage:

“Can I ask how much each of your companies has bid for Twitter,” Berkowitz inquired of the Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Omniture dais. No answer.

“I just watched Frost/Nixon,” Berkowitz explained, adding, “So I’m trying to bring people to tears now.” Mainly, they laughed.

Big news or just juicy gossip? Either way, 360i’s David Berkowitz says the deal would be a slam-dunk for marketers.

The rumor mill’s working overtime today as competing stories fly about how badly Google wants Twitter. In one corner: Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who says talks are far along with Twitter’s founders, who previously sold Blogger to Google. In another corner: Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, who says Arrington cried wolf about Google acquiring Digg and Bebo, while noting that no one’s buying the well funded but poorly monetized Twitter for some crazy valuation. Backing up Swisher’s point is a story in Ad Age about how Google allows recent Twitter posts (or “tweets”) to be included in AdSense ads, which would signal that Google may be seeking to partner with Twitter rather than acquire it.

Let’s put the “will it or won’t it” debate on hold. If Google does acquire Twitter, what does this mean for all parties involved? We see it as the best possible scenario. Here’s why:

Search first, talk later: While only a certain percentage of marketers and consumers will use Twitter to communicate, every marketer and business small and large can take advantage of Twitter Search.

Part of your recommended digital diet: Monitoring live conversations through Twitter Search (or, perhaps, another service that replaces it down the road) has the potential to be one of those staples for businesses, along the lines of updating their directory listings (YellowPages.com, Google Local, etc) and making sure they have a decent domain name.

In Google we trust, this time: Twitter could be in good hands with Google. Google does have a mixed bag with communications start-ups — see Jaiku and Dodgeball as examples of two promising start-ups that Google let languish. Yet Blogger has been a good fit, as Google largely let Blogger be Blogger. Go to Blogger.com — you have to squint to see it’s a Google service, with the only giveaways being the request to sign in with a Google Account and the Google copyright in the footer. Expect Twitter to have the same kind of hands off approach if Google acquires it.

Continue reading 360i’s stance on Google’s potential acquisition of Twitter on Ad Age’s Digital Next blog.