It was announced earlier this week that Facebook achieved their 500M User base worldwide.  In addition, it has been stated that there is about 100M of those users that are accessing Facebook via their mobile devices ( about 20%).

Moreover, when we look at the opportunity and potential for mobile, the global  market subscriber base has topped 5Billion strong thus indicating that Facebook is still only about 2% of the worlds marketplace for Mobile Social Media (or MoSo).

Repeatedly, Facebook has been one of the most downloaded Applications on the iPhone, Android, and even Blackberry devices with the amazing statistic of over 50% of all usage of content on the mobile tied to social media.   As the mobile experience has also been “coined” to be very location centric, there is another converging category called Mobile Local (or MoLo).   This is tied to Mobile Search and Location Based Services on the go.  As the Geo API has been made available via many application frameworks, it has also been available via certain browsers to bring Location-context to websites and web applications.   Twitter has included a location API recently to  their suite of unique modifiers for Twitter Search and the Geo API has been a strong debate in the developer community surrounding the iPhone in general for location based advertising.

( Picture and Statistics from Hitwise)

So with 98% of the Global Market in the Mobile Social Space and the amazing growth of Mobile Location Based Services, it is apparent that there is a new opportunity for the next Billion Dollar Company in this combined MoSo or MoLo…… or should we say MoSoLo.   The quiet battle ensues between the several mobile location based social networks such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, Socialight,  and a variety of others, but they are still all less then 10M users, thus validating it is early days for MoSoLo.

Creating a compelling experience for end-user’s to “share their location”  for not only their friends but for a unique engagement with brands is now at a very interesting crossroads of growth and evolution to the next killer app ( or massive money making app- mmm ) .   Companies like Nokia, Google, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo have all been putting up billions of  dollars  into this new contest for the next holy grail of advertising and social media, but it seems like  this MoSoLo end-user mind share is with  these new nimble start-ups at this time

Skyhook wireless, a company that has been strong in providing location information as an API for developers,  handset manufactures and Operators had recently released this “heat map” of  real time location interactions.  It will not be long before the heat map itself may be sliced and diced into different behavioral segments for real-time viewing.

Imagine seeing clusters about town of where people that tend to like the same interests or are connected to you are gathering around town at a certain point in time.

So by 2012, I would not be surprised to see a new player, jump out of the blue and take this next wave of MoSoLo or will Facebook be able to take a big chunk of this remaining 98% of the  pie?

Holiday Inn just launched a mobile solution for room keys going mobile.  I spent a considerable time today on Foursquare and although I have been overwhelmed by the grown, what I found disturbing was the lack of content for each of the places.  Companies like Yelp and other joined the bandwagon of “Check-in” but they come with considerable content. Unless the Foursquares of the world figure out a strategy to get users to post more tips and content, I just do not know how sustainable it will be.

With that said, the concept and leadership they created with the concept of “Check-in” and the database of places is clearly the next wave in location based services and mobile.  Seeing Holiday Inn take this initiative to further the entire process and build a complete engaging solution around the entire concept of ” Checking-in” without customers even going to the front desk is the usage case of mobile cross-media that is where mobile is powerful.

eCommerce and other conversion techniques exist for mobile, but the creativity of taking a brand and enabling a “full experience” that is truly convenient is where I like seeing mobile going.

At CTIA I stayed at the Hilton Hotel Convention center, and there were Foursquare banners all over the lobby to “Check-in”.  The vision was there as well and seeing Hotels and the travel industry now embracing mobile in its full form shows the power of the mobile device.

As we all waited patiently for the Third Quarter of the Super bowl on Sunday to see for the first time Google’s brand ad as part of their media strategy, it dawned on me an interesting thought about how Google really does marketing in this Web 2.0 world.

We all know that after the Superbowl on the following weekend starts the Vancouver2010 Olympics ( #VO2010, #Olympics, #Van2010). Even though there is a usage case  for people  to use search the web during the superbowl, it may not be as much high-density searching as we we are going to probably see globally during the Olympics.  Google’s ad campaign was considered Brand building, but given the fact that Google has over 70% of the search penetration in most countries around the world and on average more then 50%, most likely people at some point during the Olympics are most likely going to be coming to Google and searching for an event information, results, etc… anyway regardless of brand building. Why was it so important to start this now when Google has made a statement they do not believe in this form of advertising in the past?

Up until now, Google has not been spending money on traditional media. Moreover, for an event like the Olympics,  sponsors are dishing out 100’s of Millions of $$$ for brand building. Google has traditionally used search and its own assets in search results at the top of the page as their form of marketing.  As they have said, “We are not keen on tweaking the organic results, but always like to follow their regimented strategic algorithms for determining what gets on the top of the pages”.  Some of the best marketing during the Olympics is going to come through Search during the weeks the events are live.  What I found interesting was that Google has really built up  its own strategy as a method to get the maximum exposure to their own properties without spending money on traditional media.    Have you seen their initiative around Google Earth and the 3D creations of all the different venues as a form of sponsorship?  Google offered to do these 3D models of the venues as a service for the Olympics Events.  I find this a very interesting offer, but can only imagine that the real reason behind this is to give themselves good ranking if the Olympics puts these links on the pages of Olympics site.  They become the masters of their own game, a way to use their own algorithms to finesse the system to give Google assets high-ranking during the events; thus driving traffic to Google maps for visitors to find local information on the go during the events.  With the billions of Dollars spent by the sponsors during the events, Google may have just again gotten away with a kind-of-freebie for its own marketing efforts to potential spoof the traditional marketing system.  This is only my guess, but it somehow makes sense to me. Would love the gamet of SEO experts out there to comment on this if you can?

Back to the Superbowl…..so then why did they buy advertising the week before?  Again I am only thinking and guessing and I do not have facts to support this, but again it makes sense to me in the greater scheme of things this kind of thinking:

If Google is getting all this search traffic during the Olympics for somewhat free at the expense of the traditional sponsors by leveraging their own algorithms to their own advantage, it might just kick-up a stir amongst traditional media  in the effect that Google using its own engine to get marketing value and  not spending money on traditional media.  ” Oh No”, they can say….. did you see we do spend money on traditional media as well. Did you see our ads that ran last week?  So by spending money on traditional media from time and again makes for a good balanced media strategy when the pundits start to sniff…..Smart I would think.

Again, I am only thinking from the standpoint of business strategy and it makes perfect sense to master mind the shell game of spending money on different media.  In this case for them,  the pea is under all the shells?…… for us, maybe there never was a pea?

mSearchGroove’s Peggy Salz presented a collaborative piece on how to best leverage location services on your business at the 2009 International Information Innovation Conference held on the 30th September & 1st of October 2009 at the George Hotel with the awards ceremony being held aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh.

Now in its sixth year the directory assistance conference and awards supports the leading innovators and newcomers in the information services and search marketplace. To recognise the developments in the industry from 2010 the event will be called theInformation Innovation Conference & Awards.

ADObjects-Inc worked together with mSearchGroove to present real stories and solution for online directories to embrace a mobile strategy leveraging their content and location as a key driver for a syndicated business.  Here is the presentation from the event.

I am really excited about the App becoming a loyalty card and a payment mechanism. I was discussing this issue with the head of marketing from Blenz here locally in Vancouver about 6 months ago, and he mentioned that the real problem with using a phone to purchase in more creative ways beyond using it just like a regular card was to leverage the location of the individual.  He described to me that coffee shops all have to maintain there quality level and to keep the coffee fresh and hot. We discussed the possibility of using Geo-fencing technology of the user to recognise if they entered a certain location circle, the coffee could be made ready for pick-up.

This way the purchaser of coffee would only need to buy it and then pick it up.

In the picture below shows what a Geo-fence could look like…. Image buying a coffee like an Song off of iTunes  and the minute you entered the Geo-Fence they would start to make the coffee for pick-up!  You just need to show your designated ID off the phone and pick-up the coffee.

As I have been an early adaptor for just about anything mobile, when Google launched this new product, http://www.google.com/latitude [PCWorld] I thought about giving it a try.  For me, I have always felt in control with Facebook and others, and when it is about user opt-in and control- that is my motto.

I slept on it, and decided to go for it and install Google-Latitude.  As it installed, it gulped my contact book in my Google Gmail account and before I knew it, many friends and not so close friends were getting pinged left and right with the invitation. I felt in control, but the ease with which it spreads is a bit nerve racking.  Once they were invited, I kind of asked myself- this is a bit creepy, is it not, even my picture is a bit strange the way they show it.

Before, i knew it, I was getting acceptances from a variety of different people and the application was now in action. What I found interesting is that it only just tells you where your friends are?

I have not found the real value in an application that just tells you where your friends are with such precision.

For me, I have started to become an active user of Facebook’s instant messaging presence application. What is so powerful is to know that certain people are now online and I can have a quick chat with them. There are many of my friends that are just as busy as I am, and they are hard to reach in real time with email. However, with this app on facebook, we are connected when we are both in that mind-frame to connect ( why else would be be looking at Facebook to begin with?).   However, with Google latitude, I can see where my friends are now but can not connect.  This is where I see the total flaw in this application.  If you are going to launch a social media application where you can connect with friends, there needs to be the ability to connect with those friends…… not just follow them around like a stalker.

Why did they not include GTalk or somekind on IM capabilities in the application? Why is only a reference and directions to getting to your friends?

The other question I ask, is why now at this time and on many devices ( my Nokia E71) but not on Android yet? I guess they are just testing the market.

As Google has been a platform company where many companies have been building thier own mash-ups on top of the Google API, why go head-to-head withthe many of the companies that already have social media applications that use a similar methodology? Take Loopt for instance?  The were one of the first true Social Compasses.  Is Google trying to disintermediate  Loopt? http://www.loopt.com

When I tried to download Loopt  to compare the user experience, I found that Loopt is not available in my region of Canada.  Carriers do not yet support it.  So Google did go independent from the carriers now globally with this Location product and especially in Canada.  However, one of my friends in Japan said they were unable to install the application. So I guess they have not found a way to get into Japan as easy as Canada.

I think the application works great, and another great release for Google, but the product does not make sense yet to me at this time. Why are they coming out with products of this type when others are looking to Google as the platform to build on top of with these kinds of services.  If it is about user data and advertising, to make better recommendations to the friends around me, then this is an interesting opt-in and ad sales proposition I am very excited to see how they do it.

Well for all those folks out there that got my invitation- please note, I am just trying this out, nothing more.  If I find it useful, I will let you know, but in the mean time if you have a problem with my ping, Sorry about that.

-MS