Adobe just published the results of their latest Mobile Commerce Survey which include a few interesting nuggets for all marketers who are thinking about going mobile in some form or another.

Key findings of the survey include

• Mobile websites are the predominant presence of businesses in the mobile channel not downloadable application. More than 80% of respondents were planning or have already deployed a mobile commerce website versus 8% with a downloadable application-only strategy.
• Marketers identified four key areas of execution for their mobile strategy: 1) promotions, 2) commerce, 3) product information display, and 4) branding. Promotions emerged as the top strategic element, followed by online commerce.
• Rich, full-screen image zoom and videos are the most effective ways to browse or display products, according to a majority of the respondents. Grid viewing of thumbnails is deemed most effective for browsing multiple product images.
• Overall, visual merchandising features are deployed by less than one-third of the respondents. However, as many as 81% of the respondents indicated they are planning to deploy those features, suggesting richer mobile experiences will be created over the coming months. 

The below chart qualifies the above somewhat as it shows that many marketers (50%) actually embraced a combined mobile website and downloadable mobile application strategy. Very few (8%) had a strategy based solely on mobile downloadable applications (i.e. without a mobile website). Only 3% had an iPhone application-only strategy, while 1% had a combined iPhone/iPad-only strategy.

If you were wondering how your mobile websites or applications are stacking up you might be interested in the below chart which shows the percentage of online traffic used by each mobile website/application. Of all mobile traffic, mobile websites drew the most traffic; mobile applications’ traffic across the various platforms collectively lagged the mobile website traffic, ranging as low as 1% to as high as 8% of the total traffic.

A social revolution is dictating dramatic changes in how companies run their websites, and their business. With the advent of social feeds - a live stream of friends’ activity shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter - consumers can more easily rely on trusted personal relationships to determine what’s worthwhile to read, watch, play and buy online. For many, the conclusion is startling; referral traffic is as significant from social networks as it is from search engines, making Social the next Search.

Using Firefox, Safari and Chrome at the same time I sometimes come across some interesting a/b tests and this time it's Google. Looks like the search giant is experimenting with a new search results page design making the local and vertical search customisation options more prominent than before, i.e. the left hand pane is open by default rather than hidden and a location auto-detect function has been added.

In cas you ever wondered where your Google Analytics data goes if you opt in to share it with the world, here is your answer: "To improve the quality of our site traffic estimates, we have upgraded our traffic estimation model. Our model uses a hybrid methodology that combines sample user data, from various Google products and services, with direct measured site-centric data. The model's direct measured signal is pulled from Google Analytics customer accounts that have chosen to opt-in to sharing their data with Ad Planner."

Nine months ago, when Google first introduced behavioral ad targeting, it also rolled out an ad preferences manager. The page allows Web site visitors to edit their advertising interest categories -- for instance confirm an interest in cars or entertainment -- or to opt out of behavioral targeting altogether.

As it turns out, relatively few users visit the page, and among those who do only a small fraction opt out, according to Google. The finding suggests that those who seek out the page are predominantly comfortable with Google's behavioral ad practices.

"A good percentage of users are saying they'd rather control [behavioral targeting] than opt out," said Wong.

A rough calculation suggests that at the most, about 6,600 of Google's users are opting out of ad targeting per week. The figure is based on a generous estimate that the site captures 99,000 visitors on an average week -- the most possible if the site is indeed capturing tens of thousands yet not more than 100,000 visitors, as Google indicated to ClickZ.

Under this estimate: 6,600 (number of users opting out) x 4 = 26,400 (number of users editing preferences) x 10 = 66,000 (number of users taking no action). The sum of those three is 99,000 -- again, the maximum number of weekly visitors to page, according to Google.

1. Remember that innovation requires no fixed rules or templates -- only guiding principles. Creating a more innovative culture is an organic and creative act.
2. Wherever you can, whenever you can, always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is "Public Enemy #1" of an innovative culture.
3. Have more fun. If you're not having fun (or enjoying the process) something is off.
4. Always question authority, especially the authority of your own longstanding beliefs.
5. Make new mistakes.
6. As far as the future is concerned, don't speculate on what might happen, but imagine what you can make happen.
7. Increase the visual stimuli of your organization's physical space. Replace gray and white walls with color. Add inspiring photos and art, especially visuals that inspire people to think differently. Reconfigure space whenever possible.
8. Help people broaden their perspective by creating diverse teams and rotating employees into new projects -- especially ones they are fascinated by.
9. Ask questions about everything. After asking questions, ask different questions. After asking different questions, ask them in a different way.
10. Ensure a high level of personal freedom and trust. Provide more time for people to pursue new ideas and innovations.

Read about the 40 remaining ways to foster innovation here
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2009/12/50_ways_to_fost_1.shtml

All marketers would have seen the below graph before and understand how the theory behind it impacts their marketing campaigns but most might wonder in which phase certain products actually are. Some might know for their own products based on sales numbers but these might not be that easy to come by in large organisations and when it comes to competitor products the guesswork really starts.

So why not use search term trends provided by Google free of charge to establish what lifecycle stage a particular product is in? The search term volume over time shows the change in interest in the product pretty well. Check out the below search term trends for the most popular N-Series Nokia products and how closely each resembles the lifecycle curve vs. the iPhone.

The below graphs shows nicely how the interest in the respective Nokia product grows over time with adoption and then finally drops back down with new products being introduced. Overall sales numbers probably correlating quite nicely with search term volume.

Interesting is the trend for the iPhone. As you can see it doesn't follow the standard product lifecycle curve at all but so far manages to keep growing rather than declining which is a prime example for how you can keep products alive by introducing additional features and services. Just think about the iPhone integration with iTunes and the growing number of applications and you get the drift.

Read some more about the product lifecycle theory here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle_management

Check out the original Nokia Google Trends data here
http://www.google.com/trends?q=n95%2C+n73%2C+n96%2C+n70%2C+n82&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=all&sort=0

Check out the original iPhone Google Trends data here
http://www.google.com/trends?q=iphone&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=all&sort=0