Google's Think-Mobile, held on 29th June 2011 in London, aimed to promote mobile as an advertising channel to brands, advertisers and agencies – something that Google appears to be been fairly successful at given its $1B annual mobile ad run rate disclose in 3Q 2010. During the event Google presented stats from a joint survey it conducted in the UK with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). A few stats stood out that I will comment on:

• 53% of users engage their mobile phones or tablets to do something (e.g. email, browse, games, etc.) while watching TV.  From an advertisers perspective complimenting an expensive TV advertising spot with a mobile engagement campaign makes sense as audiences sit in front of their TVs with their connected devices. Mobile engagement includes ensuring that a mobile website is synchronized with the TV ad spot (so that information relevant to a TV promotion is immediately prominent), through to broadcasting QR codes to drive engagement and simultaneously measure campaign effectiveness. According to Fiona Hall, Innovation Manager at Waitrose, a speaker at the event, a QR code broadcast during a Christmas TV ad was apparently very successful - this was a big surprise to me! I expect the incentive to scan a QR code in an advert needs to be attractive if the novelty is not to wear off in future! The topic of how the mobile can complement the TV screen will be discussed by Strategy Analytics in an upcoming webinar scheduled for the end of July and available to WMS and WML clients.

• 17% of top advertisers on Google have mobile friendly sites – Mobile optimization becomes a priority for businesses once 10% of traffic to their websites comes from mobile devices. Once this tipping point is reached there is clearly a need by transactional sites to optimize their mobile site for commerce. High profile web retailers (such as Amazon) have indicated strong growth in mobile initiated commerce, while PayPal claims it is on target to process $3 billion transactions by year end. Consequently, to help enable SMEs to mobilize their websites Google announced the launch (in beta mode) of ‘Google Sites Mobile Landing Pages,’ a template enabling any business to launch its own mobile site - for free. Using this tool SMEs will be able to integrate click-to-call and map location functionality. This product also supports Google Checkout to enable commerce and is clearly targeted at small businesses that rely on Google for leads but have little resource to develop a customized mobile solution – consequently while it is basic I expect there will be plenty of takers. 

Social gaming companies are being acquired right, left and center. RIM has just splashed out on Scoreloop. The top 2 Japanese social networks have been active in getting involved in mobile social gaming. Following the move of its rival DeNA, which spent $403m buying US social mobile publisher ngmoco in October last year, GREE has bought social games platform OpenFeint in a $104m deal.

There’s a lot of activity and a lot of companies playing in this space. Xbox Live is part of WP7, Sony is almost certainly bringing social gaming connectivity to Android with PSN (see my previous blog on the topic), Apple’s Game Center, ngmoco / Plus+, OpenFeint, and one could argue Facebook Connect as well. How many gamer identities do I have to have? The simple fact is that today, each game will only use one platform, but as an end user with multiple games, that means I have to sign up to multiple social gaming platforms. The pertinent question is which ones I sign up to (and actually use) because this will determine the winners and losers.

The advantage ngmoco, OpenFeint, and Facebook Connect (if you count that as social gaming) have is that they cut across gaming platforms and so perhaps have a greater chance of achieving critical mass. That will be a major factor in deciding the winners. With all the other platforms having some sort of built-in audience, the onus is on OpenFeint and Plus+ to woo developers and end users while they have a window of opportunity. Facebook Connect lacks gaming features, Apple’s Game Center is a poor effort, and there is time before Xbox Live/PSN hit mobile in any serious way. However, stumbling now could be game over for these (previously) “indie” platforms.