Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Google 'Mobilizes' As Smartphone Search Tops PCs

Surging mobile usage has tech giant Google "mobilizing" resources to adapt and profit--with important marketing impacts. Marking a clear tipping point, Google announced this May that its influential search engine now has more search requests on mobile devices than on personal computers in the U.S. and many other parts of the world, according to an Associated Press report in The Washington Post. The growth in mobile use --for e-mail, search, social networking, even shopping and donating--has been rapid since Apple first introduced the iPhone in 2007. Among Google's strategies to accommodate mobile preferences was the launch in April of a "mobilegeddon" change in its search recommendation system to favor websites that easily read and load on smartphones. The change sent websites scurrying to make themselves mobile-friendly to avoid demotion in search results. Google also has been introducing advertising formats that tend to work better on mobile devices. For instance, rooms can now be booked within hotel ads, and car ads can be swiped to comparison shop, the report notes. Mobile ad prices are on the upswing, too. Previously, marketers were unwilling to pay as much for commercial messages displayed on the smaller smartphone screens, but the race for mobile space is heating up. The AP story quotes Google as saying that mobile ad prices are climbing steadily and will continue to do so. Jerry Dischler, Google's vice president in charge of its “AdWords” service, summed up the urgency of a mobile strategy for today's marketers: "The future of mobile is now." See the complete AP story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-searches-on-mobile-devices-top-those-on-pcs/2015/05/05/cccd64de-f366-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html

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