Mobile search is such a hot topic these. But an interesting headline in SearchEngineLand.com caught my eye: Why Mobile Search is Irrelevant to B2B Marketing?

According to the SEL columnist, Jon Miller (VP of Marketing for Marketo, a provider of marketing automation software that helps B2B marketing professionals improve marketing accountability), mobile search (especially mobile paid search) is basically irrelevant for most business to business marketers.

The promise of mobile search is access to information whenever and wherever you need it, not just if you happen to be at your desk. For consumers, this is incredibly powerful. According to iCrossing’s report, How America Searches Mobile, a mobile searcher’s top priority is his or her immediate needs. The most popular searches are maps and directions, weather, and local information, followed by news, entertainment, sports, and finance.

But consider how B2B buyers use search, Miller wrote. As I’ve discussed before, B2B search is quite different from B2C search. The majority of B2B buyers use search early in their buying process, typically a few weeks to a few months before the actual purchase. By far, their intent is to research a industry, product, or service.

He also added that mobile searchers tend to use fewer keywords, making it harder to target the more complex keywords in B2B. These keywords just doesn’t match how people use mobile search.

But most importantly, Miller says, one must consider the goal of B2B search marketing. Because search happens early in the buying cycle, most B2B marketers want to use search marketing to capture leads in this early phase so they can nurture those leads until they are ready to speak with a sales rep. This means that the landing page is a critical component of a B2B search process and the lead capture form is one of the most important pieces of the page.

Amid predictions that ad-sponsored directory assistance through mobile phones will grow from 270 million calls in 2007 to 2.1 billion calls in 2012, the competition for mobile marketing and local search is quickly heating up.

There is Google and their 877-520-FIND, followed by 800-GOOG411. Then there is Microsoft, which acquired mobile directory service Tellme. As of late, even AT&T has joined the bandwagon. AT&T has leveraged its Yellow Pages via mobile services that mimic the blend of local business ads and listings in the traditional directory.

Despite the sudden surge of mobile devices and smart phones, “people still want the familiar Yellow Pages phone book that was in a drawer in their kitchen but now they want it in the handset in their pocket,” said David Huntley, AT&T SVP of Customer Information Services, in an Oct. 1 article carried by Adweek.

AT&T discovered that many consumers want user-friendly audio, graphic and text directory services to fit a variety of circumstances, like while they’re walking, shopping or stuck in traffic.

The most recent addition to AT&T’s lineup of local directory programs for mobile phones is the free, ad-supported 1-800 Yellow Pages Directory service. According Huntley, their research revealed that people will listen to short sponsorship ads if it means they’ll receive free information. They also noted that 411 directory service currently costs anywhere from 25 cents to $3.49 per call, depending on the carrier.

Essentially, the new service enables a mobile or landline caller to receive a listing and as an option an automatic connection to a specific local home or business, or to get a list of nearby merchants by category and location.

In exchange for the free information, the user must listen to a maximum of four ads that run 5-10 seconds each, beginning with a general sponsorship ad that comes on right after dialing; the other ads are heard after each interaction.

If a caller asks for pizza restaurants in a certain area, for example, she might hear up to three ads for nearby pizza joints; if she asks for a restaurant by name, she might hear an ad for that restaurant or for another nearby spot. The number of ads per call depends on how many advertisers in that specific category have signed up for the service, wrote Joan Voight of Adweek.

1-800 Yellow Pages was tested in California in July and introduced Sept. 10 in nine southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Plans call for it to be rolled out nationwide in 2008, sources said.

“Yellow pages companies such as AT&T are executing on a multi-channel ad business,” reported The Kelsey Group’s “Mobile Advertising Forecast. “Mobile represents a critical link in this multi-channel strategy where these companies will try to dominate ad share.”

Top Finland-based mobile phone company Nokia has acquired Enpocket, a U.S. cellphone screen advertising firm, according to Reuters. The world’s leading handset maker pushes into a market which is expected to swell in the coming years. Mobile companies are slowly making moves into the potentially lucrative market, aided by new technologies and the widespread availability of more advanced phones.

In fact, when the Nokia made their plans public last month, the company’s shares rose by 0.8 percent. Nokia did not disclose financial details of the deal which is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

The Boston-based Enpocket offers the Enpocket Platform, is described as a “carrier-grade mobile campaign management and delivery system” designed for operators, advertisers and publishers. It has customers in Europe, Asia and the U.S., including Vodafone, Pepsi, Telefonica, AT&T, British Telecom and Sprint.

It is a very interesting move, according to analysts. It gives a clear picture of the speed in which Nokia’s new organization is expanding into software and services,” said Jari Honko of eQ in the Reuters article.

Another analyst, Eden Zoller of Ovum, also stated that Nokia does well in acquiring Enpocket, because the company is a strong mobile advertising specialist whose technology platform has a solid analytics component. Enpocket gives Nokia a leg up in mobile advertising and credibility that it needs to be taken seriously in the space.

Nokia also unveiled its new Ovi service, which will combine a new digital music store and a gaming service with its navigation offering.

“Effective interactive advertising on the mobile device can create tremendous value for the mobile industry while bringing new Internet services to people around the world,” Enpocket President Mike Baker said in a statement.

Last Sept. 25, the Kelsey Blog noted that Google and AOL teamed up to commission a survey from TNS Media Intelligence that shows favorable user (and advertiser) metrics for online video.

The survey’s high-level data points include the following:

1. 75 % of users watch more online video than they did one year ago, and 52 % expect to watch more over the next year.

2. 78 % feel online video ads offer as much or more capability than television to learn about an advertiser.

3. 63 % say they prefer video advertising in order to keep content free.

The survey measured response rates from online video, coming up with numbers similar to those in TKG’s User View. Specifically 64 % of the TNS study respondents claimed taking action after seeing a video ad (44 % went to a Web site, 33 % to a search engine, 22 % to a physical store, and 21 % discussed with friends).

This supports something we’ve said many times that online video combines the traditional strengths of video advertising (entertaining, informative, ability to elicit emotional response), with the direct response capabilities of the internet,  wrote Mike Boland of The Kelsey Group.

The trick is to integrate ad formats that catch those reactions and offer an optimal response medium. Video is a double-edged sword in this sense because it is more complex and content-rich than text offering more potential hooks against which to apply contextually relevant ads but it’s also a great deal more complex and hard to decipher context in an automated way.

Recently, we’ve seen contextual ad overlays (otherwise known as inline ads) that insert small animated windows for a few seconds, during appropriate times in a given video clip. This includes technologies from ScanScout, Adap.tv, Blinkx and YouTube.

Providing the most favorable format and response capability will become more important if users are responding to online video ads in the ways shown by User View and the TNS survey.

Slacker, a new startup led by a team of veterans in the digital music arena, aims to offer what it considers a new level of “personal radio” by combining elements of Internet radio, portable music and satellite distribution, while letting users choose the tunes, genres or artists they want.

Here’s how it works: users who log on to Slacker can begin listening to music from more than 10,000 stations that are built around specific artists and preprogrammed genres. Users also can create their own stations by indicating what types of songs they want and letting the Slacker “DJ”  a mostly automated system based on complicated algorithms fill out the station program with more content.

Customization adjustments to stations include choosing “more popular” versus “more eclectic,” or newer versus older music. Users can click on a button to ban a certain song. Clicking on a “heart” button will mark the track as a favorite and cause the song to be played more often on that station. Users also will be able to e-mail their friends with their favorite stations.

After the Slacker players become available, users will be able to have their personal radio stations delivered to the portable devices. Slacker says it will push radio tracks to the portable players or car kits, on which they’ll be stored for playback. The gadgets will not have to be connected to a wireless network for playback. They’ll refresh the music data whenever the devices detect a Wi-Fi or satellite connection.

Last month, Slacker already landed deals with major music companies like EMI Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, to make their music available on its yet-to-be-launched Slacker Personal Radio portable digital player. It already has a deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

Like its rivals Pandora and last.fm, Slacker’s radio services Slacker lets users personalize what they hear based on their tastes. But the founders aim to go one step further by letting them take favorite stations on the road via a Wi-Fi-enabled digital music player.

The Slacker Personal Radio Player, which is about the size of a deck of cards, sports a 4-inch color screen and can also store and play back digital music and videos that a user owns.

Early prototypes of the player look promising, some insiders say. But, the question is, will everyday consumers get it? Only time will tell. Stay tuned.