Australian mobile phone users are in for a Google onslaught. Seeking to entrench its hold on the mobile search market in Australia, Google has launched a new, more powerful version of its existing mobile search tool better customised for the land Down Under, ITwire.com reported last Feb. 27.

Google is claiming to have a faster and more intuitive search interface for mobile phones, as the company wants its mobile search tool to dominate on mobile phones just as it does on the desktop. Although mobile Google search has been available on phones for some time, Google promises that more relevant results that are just a click or two away, and that Australians will get results that best fit what they’re looking for.

You can find Googles new mobile search service on any phone with a web browser by visiting www.google.com.au/m.

Similar to the mobile search services of Yahoo Go or Windows Live, Google says they combine search results from different bodies of information, so users don’t need to sift through both mobile and regular web results, or specify their search type. Instead, Google searches through the whole web, mobile web, news articles, local business listings, and image index to get the information needed and then provides the most relevant results.

Mobile search has definitely become more intelligent, and thanks to Google and other such trailblazers, one can expect a growing number of users to start searching  or keep searching  on their mobile phones.
Google says they remember a user’s recent search locations, providing relevant local results in subsequent searches with no need to retype the location every time. So whether you’re in Perth or Sydney, once you have entered a location, searches for weather or restaurants, for example, return information tailored specifically to that location.

“We’re excited to introduce Google’s new mobile search service, which will make it easier and faster for people to find what they’re looking for anytime, anywhere, said Googles Group Product Manager Carl Sjogreen. With millions of mobile phones in use in Australia, our goal is to make the Google search experience even more useful and relevant for users on the go.”

It may not be that noticeable, but local search and search engine marketing are undergoing rapid change. What was once a one-dimensional, text-only environment is now full of other forms of media, including, most significantly, video.

According to RealSEO.com, a lot of search engines and directory publishers are currently paying close attention to video and seem to offer higher rankings to video search results. This new mixed approach to search engine results allows local businesses to use it to their advantage to generate leads, as well as increase brand awareness, market virally, and market socially. Search engine marketers that do take the plunge into video are reaping their efforts at the moment.

Superpages.com and YellowPages.com are already offering video-based advertising on their sites. This in essence could allow you to reach your local shoppers with a media-rich ad which may end up having a higher ROI than a simple entry in their directory, wrote Mark Robertson of RealSEO.com. YellowPages.com is already running television commercials in some states promoting this new service wherein some old ladies are looking for knitting needles and accessories and end up in a tattoo place with needles in the name. They then go on to state that a video-based ad would have prevented such a mix up. (Clever and funny!)

But there are also issues that need to be resolved. Robertson says IYPs need some help when it comes to online video strategy, specifically with regard to video search: For example the yellow pages sites haven’t properly made their video content discoverable in their own space and search results, let alone bothered to create a way to get it listed in the other major search engines. Additionally the video ad content is not even submitted to the large video-only sites like YouTube. So how exactly are conversions happening if at all?

According to the sites, advertisers with video elements in their ads will receive better placement, but early reports show that there has been no increase in advertisers search-based traffic. The higher placement in the yellow page sites themselves seems to have had little effect, however it seems that self-promotion of the video in other sectors has accounted for some of the success, he says.

Advertisers have been turning more to places like Facebook and Myspace to virally market and distribute their videos. These types of social networking sites, whether posted by the advertisers themselves, or through other friends or accounts seems to have a faster ROI clearly due to the mass exposure.

The solution? In order for IYP to become viable outlets for video advertising they need to make them search engine friendly so that the search engines that go out looking for video content can readily find it on their sites and identify it, Roberts says. This might be done by including all video ad content in a video sitemap with basic details of each video. They could promote the content via MRSS feeds and/or sitemaps and they themselves should have some system in place that submits the content to search engines when the client uploads the video. They should also make video a searchable option in their directories. This would then allow people to search for ads specifically with video attached to them.

If such issues are not solved, Roberts says, video-based advertising in the yellow page sites will run second to self-promotion via social networking, video search engines and other outlets.

The future of mobile technology looks bright, but gizmos and other such tech-savvy tools shouldn’t only target enthusiasts but regular users as well. This was the sage advice of mobile experts and executives from digital marketing agencies, IT World Canada reported.

An expert of panels questioned the limited longevity of gizmos versus the simple mobile technologies for the regular user. Mobile technologies do exist in quantity, but the majority are sophisticated devices targeted at the enthusiast, said Chad Stoller, executive director of emerging platforms with New York-based digital marketing agency Organic Inc. Mobile developers, he said, need to give the regular user a real compelling reason to adopt handheld technology, like offering practical functionality that complements everyday needs.

Gizmos, the attendee pointed out, may be cool and initially fun to use, but often quickly lose their value, the IT World Canada article stated. The regular mobile user who needs basic technologies for everyday functions remains a large untapped market, acknowledged another panel speaker David-Michel Davies, executive director with New York-based Webby Awards, an international award that recognizes Web sites.

Stoller also said developers will eventually have to figure out a social graph or rules, based on the logic behind daily communications, to influence how mobile devices affect users lives.

Users don’t want to receive location-based alerts every time they pass a targeted point of interest, said Eric Breitbard, senior vice-president of clients services with Los Angeles-based interactive agency Schematic Inc. Location-based intelligence will play a large role in the future of mobile devices, Breitbard predicts, adding the ability to set relevancy rules will be valuable to gaining control.

Eventually, the mobile platform will see the emergence of toolsets to address those communication challenges, predicted another panellist Derrick Oien, president and co-founder with San Diego, Calif.-based Web-based mobile platform provider Intercasting Corp. Speaking of the mobile arena in general, Stoller said it’s always impressive to witness an innovative idea that doesn’t rely on sophisticated equipment.

As digital marketing strengthens its grasp over the industry, it would be wise to remember the basics. And as the pull of technology gets more tempting, the message more than anything is still what matters. The best way to move forward, after all, is to take a step back.

In a nutshell, this was the sage advice John Sawyer, the chief strategy officer at the Grey Matter Group, dispelled at a seminar on interactive and digital marketing held during the recent inaugural Ad Fair 2008, Michigan Business reported.

“This enthusiasm about this new technology gets them going in a certain direction, and we find out later it wasn’t the right use of their resources,” said Sawyer. “They forget about their objectives or their marketing strategy.”

While digital marketing is a venue that companies must include today in their marketing plans, Sawyer said ad buyers and marketing directors need to avoid putting all of their spending into one area. Even in the digital age, a good strategy remains predicated on maintaining that critical mix of media buys, he said.

Sawyer cited data showing there are more than 17,000 magazine titles today, versus 8,400 in 1960, and 13,500 radio stations, about three times that of nearly five decades ago. The average household receives more than 82 television channels. In 1960, it got 5.7 channels. Those forms of traditional media exist amid millions of Web sites and billions of Web pages, Sawyer notes.

“We don’t want our clients to abandon traditional media,” he said, emphasizing that media has gone from mass market to niche markets. Yet it’s digital media that’s seeing the highest spending growth.

The Chicago-based Forrester Research estimated interactive marketing spending in the United States will more than triple by 2012, to $61 billion annually, representing a 27 percent compounded annual growth rate. Interactive marketing now accounts for eight percent of all ad spending. Forrester Research projects it will grow to 18 percent of ad budgets in five years. Here’s a look at the growth of various categories:

Search-engine marketing will grow to $25 billion a year by 2012 and experience a 26 percent annually compounded growth rate due to increasing costs of a paid search, more spending on optimizations tools and services, and global expansion.

Online display advertising will hit $14 billion by 2012.

E-mail marketing will grow to $4 billion by 2012, driven by services and integration.

Online video ads will grow significantly to $7.1 billion by 2012, a 72 percent increase.

Mobile marketing through personal devices will grow to $2.8 billion by 2012.

Free online phone directory TelephoneNumber.com seems to have succumbed to the fun side, at least with their new audio feature. Just two months after officially re-launching their website with a host of new features, founder Mike McManigal already has something new and engaging up his sleeves.

Last Feb. 26, he announced a new feature, the Phone Number Audio: telephone numbers spoken in a number of foreign languages, impersonations, and sounds. Users can learn their telephone number in different languages, or just listen to their telephone number being played back in other languages, funny sounds, accents, or impersonations.

The Phone Number Audio feature is being released with a varied list of languages from Arabic to Zulu, and offers users the opportunity to contribute their sound bites as well. For example, users are urged to contribute a language not already available, or an audio file of their impersonation of a favorite character. Users will then be able to hear
their telephone number played back in voices such as: Robert De Niro, Elvis, Scooby-Doo, Donald Duck, and more.

TelephoneNumber.com provides comprehensive online searches of U.S.White Pages, Yellow Pages, Area Codes, ZIP Codes, and reverse number and address searches. Plus, TelephoneNumber.com offers free text messaging to cell phones, and the ability to create a free website with the users telephone number used as the web address.

“We thought it would be fun to let our users hear their telephone numbers spoken in a foreign language or by a fellow user impersonating someone famous,  the founder said in a press release. Phone Number Audio is one more feature that sets us apart from other online directory service providers. TelephoneNumber.com’s telephone directory is not only useful but now a bit more fun!” (I think I am going to pick Elvis!)