As seen at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and Mobile World Congress, tech companies are focusing more than ever on smartphone and tablet devices. Companies such as Sony, LG, Asus, and even HP unveiled new devices that will enter a market already largely controlled by the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Amazon.

What mobile devices do you intend to acquire this year? Let us know in the comments.

What is somewhat surprising is that many of these companies might actually have a chance, considering how quickly the mobile industry is growing. On March 4, ABI research estimated that mobile users will download 14 billion tablet apps during 2013. Almost three-quarters of those apps will be running on a iPad device, but Android devices are now set to lead in the number of smartphone app downloads, which ABI predicts will reach 56 billion in 2013.

For consumers the proliferation of more devices with a wider variety of features could mean confusion and burnout. It also means that consumers have never had more choice, and more power, than they do now. The choices they make this year about the devices they purchase and the technologies they adopt will shape the technology landscape for years to come.

Apple stock has had a rough winter, in no small part to the Apple Maps debacle and the fact that the iPhone 5 failed to iterate significantly on the device’s past models. While Android devices are introducing larger smartphones, NFC technology, wireless charging, and features such as water resistance, Apple’s credibility as a innovator in the market segment it created is shrinking.

As Apple now begins to follow industry trends with the iPad mini and a less expensive version of the iPhone, Samsung is poised to become a market leader. The Korean company will unveil its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S IV at an Apple-like announcement in New York on March 14. Samsung’s hefty manufacturing capabilities and willingness to mimic Apple have propelled it to the forefront of Android smartphones, but the company’s new marketing (another thing it has taken directly from Apple’s playbook) is also beginning to become part of the cultural zeitgeist.

The mobile market right now might be considered tablets and smartphones, but later this year Google will introduce a completely new type of mobile product with Google Glass. Though the device’s success is far from certain, it could introduce an entirely new mobile category, propelling the industry forward with even more constant connectivity. Glass’ ability to record on the fly also brings privacy concerns, meaning laws and social norms will be further tested by advancing technology.

With all of these changes coming to the mobile space, it’s worth considering how advertisers will adapt. While having consumers constantly connected and consuming content may seem preferable for advertisers, the abundance of that content can make it difficult for ad campaigns to target their audience. At the same time, the abundance of content and metrics can put consumers in control of much of the advertising they see.

As Susan Wojcicki, senior VP of advertising at Google, recently put it in a Google Plus post, “We are living in uncharted territory.”

Wojcicki argues that as always-connected devices continue to proliferate, advertising will quickly move into a “choice-based economy” where users will be able to control the content and ads that they see. She writes that “ads views will effectively become voluntary.”

It’s not hard to imagine how advertisers will have to adapt in that type of ad economy. Choice-based ad models will have to cater to consumers at an individual level with adaptability and engage customers in nearly the same way that content itself does. Wojcicki suggests that future technologies will provide more “interactive and beautiful” ads, but that’s only the beginning of how mobile advertising will change in the coming years.

Accepting that consumers are no longer a captive audience for ads may be a terrifying prospect for both advertisers and content creators, but consumer choice is only continuing to increase. This could make solid advertising opportunities more expensive, but also means that brands will have to adapt their ad techniques to grow a fan base or to provide upfront value to consumers.

How do you think advertising should adapt to consumer choice? Tell us your ideas in the comments.

As the nature of mobile advertising changes, how advertisers measure the impact of their campaigns will have to change as well. Wojcicki puts it bluntly by stating advertisers will have to develop “standards beyond the click.” However, it’s hard to predict just how those measurements will be made in the future, particularly in light of the growing backlash from privacy advocates.

Wojcicki stated that Google is beginning to to roll out surveys to provide advertisers with a way to measure the performance of their display and video campaigns. Google’s skippable “TrueView” ads are also now integrated into mobile AdMob apps, allowing consumers to decide for themselves what ads they will view.

As the future of the mobile industry finally begins to take shape this year, consumers have never had more choices with regards to hardware, software, and services. However, the plethora of choices thrown at consumers can also create confusion, and will inevitably lead to a few trusted brands leading the way. While advertisers attempt to pare down consumers’ choices for them, future technologies, such as Google Glass, will continue to continue to change the way people interact with technology and their environment.

“CBS is once again set to live-stream the game, and was almost completely sold-out of mobile inventory space in December, with prices ranging from high six to low seven figures,” Sephi Shapira, CEO of mobile marketing firm MassiveImpact tells WebProNews. “But, marketers aren’t just thinking about people live-streaming the game, they’re thinking about how to engage with traditional TV viewers via mobile.”

“Prior to the start of the game, many brands are looking for viewers to interact with traditional television ads on their mobile devices,” Shapira adds. “That interaction is about more than increasing traffic to an app or mobile site; it’s about specific end-user targeting. Based on how the viewer reacts to the television ad on their mobile device, the content they receive for the rest of the game via mobile will be tailored to the individual’s initial mobile interaction.”

“This individualized content should mean large returns for advertisers, and will continue as a trend for interaction through the upcoming year,” Shapira notes.

“Mobile ad personalization is a focus for the industry moving into 2013,” Shapira says. “Some firms have already instituted the use of real-time performance analytics to increase end-user ad relevancy. These firms leverage past mobile purchases, past mobile browsing history, and geo-location to ensure that end-users only receive timely and relevant ads.”

A lot of Super Bowl viewers just got new tablets and smartphones for Christmas, and will no doubt be holding them through the game. Meanwhile, mobile apps are becoming as popular as TV itself.

According to recent data from Gartner, mobile ads are expected to rake in $11.4 billion in 2013.

Hulu’s AdZone is here if you want to check out the Super Bowl ads.

Pinterest may be poised to grow significantly more thanks to a couple of recent moves. For one, they finally removed the need to receive an invitation to sign up. In other words, you no longer need to know someone that is already a user and wait to be invited by them, or request an invitation from Pinterest yourself and hope they give you one.

Secondly, this week, Pinterest finally launched mobile apps for Android, iPhone and iPad.

Pinterest said in a blog post, “iPad owners may have the best Pinterest experience yet. Our new iPad app is perfect for sitting on the couch, on a train, or in bed where users can effortlessly discover, save and organize the things that interest them. The app offers users new ways to engage with pins, whether swiping the screen to resume browsing after viewing a board, or using the embedded browser to see what others are pinning from their favorite sites.”

“iPhone owners have made it clear that they want to see more pins,” the company said. “The faster, redesigned iPhone app introduces a 2-column layout that lets users see more, so that they can find the pins they’re looking for and get back to their lives more quickly.”

“Android owners have been very vocal with their requests for an app – every product announcement we’ve recently made has resulted in the question ‘What about an Android app?’ We were listening, and our custom-designed Android app makes it simple and fast to pin, so that the time you spend on Pinterest is as productive as possible,” Pinterest said. “We also made sure the app works well on Android phones and tablets, regardless of your device’s cost, speed or screen size.”

The Android release includes the Kindle Fire, by the way.

Pinterest has covered the major smartphone and tablet devices on the market, and for users of other devices, Pinterest’s mobile site still works just fine. Now that they’ve shown that they really do care about mobile users, it seems likely that they’ll launch on other mobile platforms, such as Windows.

Pinterest’s growth and cross-platform compatibility could be just what the doctor ordered for e-commerce businesses looking to get more web traffic from social media, especially now that they have to pay Google to be listed in Google Shopping. There are various products coming out designed to get Pinterest users interested in, well, products.

Take ShopInterest, for example, a DIY online shop for merchants to create pinboards of the stuff they sell.

Other e-commerce products are simply using Pinterest as inspiration. Just this week, for example, ShopVibe “emerged from stealth-mode” to announce its new social shopping platform that enables people to keep track of their shopping, describing it as “Pinterest meets Shopping.com”.

In general, brands themselves are flocking to Pinterest. According to a recent study from SimplyMeasured, 51% of the top 100 global brands now have Pinterest accounts.

Pinterest’s increased presence on mobile could sway brands to get more involved, as much as it could sway users. Either way, the brands will follow the users.

Pinterest has also been expanding its category offerings. The more it does this, the more valuable the site could be to online merchants.

Of course, not everyone likes the idea of Google tracking their data to deliver information it thinks they want based on that data. Is this something you’re concerned about? Comment here.

It’s going to be a long time before you no longer need a search engine at all, but Google’s goal with Google Now is to get you the information you need before you even have to search for it. It does this through personalization, requiring you to allow it access to certain personal information (things like location, search history, etc.). While Google Now only has a handful of “cards” – the types of information it will push to you in this fashion – the company has made it clear that it intends to greatly expand the number of situations where Google Now will become your personal assistant. This looks to be a major part of where search, or information consumption, is headed. As Google and competitors progress in their mission, the rest of us will no doubt learn a lot of things along the way. If you’re a marketer or a business owner, perhaps there’s already a great deal to learn from Google Now.

Mobile marketing company Globys, who works with carriers on leveraging customer data for personalized marketing has already seen plenty of lessons to take away from the product. We had a conversation with Lara Albert, Vice President, Global Marketing at Globys about it.

“Google Now is innovative in that it will be pro-active in delivering context-relevant information,” Albert tells WebProNews. “One of the most important things that Google Now brings to light is the ability to understand and anticipate user needs as well as the ability to act intelligently based on that understanding.”

“Brands have a lot of information about their customers, but in many cases they don’t have the tools to harness the data in a way that enables immediate insight and action,” she adds. “It’s time for brands to leverage what they know about their customers to engage them in more meaningful and valuable ways. And mobile is a powerful channel for doing so in that the device allows for such a personal and highly relevant means of engagement relevant to other marketing channels.”

Must brands build their own mobile apps to tap into the Google Now-like experience of delivering what customers want as they want it, or can they take advantage of existing apps that consumers are already using?

Albert thinks whether to build an app or use third-party apps is not the first question brands should be asking.

“The first question to ask is ‘what is my goal?’” she says. “By defining your objectives, you can then ask how mobile fits into the overall marketing picture.”

“Every marketer is interested in influencing customer behaviors in ways that align with a financial objective, whether that’s to increase revenue, for example, or build customer loyalty,” Albert adds. “Think of a department store focused on getting loyal customers to buy more when they are at their stores. An app can deliver an alert notifying of a sale on a customer’s most frequently purchased brands and the location of the item when they’re in the actual store. The alert may also recommend an item that similar customers have purchased in the past.”

“Or consider an airline focused on a life cycle management strategy to build brand loyalty, they can engage customers throughout the purchase cycle and beyond,” she continues. “What about an e-commerce company trying to motivate fans to create and share viral promotions? For each of these examples, brands should be using a data-driven approach to make their marketing more relevant – and let’s face it – more effective in driving a desired action.”

“Brands can leverage Google Now or other apps for awareness or attracting new customers, but for engaging existing customers – a branded app that collects, analyzes and delivers thoughtful, relevant, context-driven information will be more effective,” she says.

We asked Albert how she thinks brands be able to take advantage of Google Now itself.

“I would compare ads integrated with Google Now or another a third-party app as more akin to traditional online marketing – more like banner ads meant to increase brand awareness or to acquire customers,” Albert suggests. “Where mobile can really shine is in engagement with existing customers.”

“A branded app is a great opportunity to make the most of mobile’s strengths,” she says. “Think of the difference between getting a blast SMS from a local car dealership about a test-drive event vs. getting a notice about a promotion on a specific car model via your Volvo app which has been sending regular notifications and discounts for oil changes, tire rotations, etc. (and which has informed Volvo that your car is four years old and you have a pattern of purchasing a car every five years). Which offer are you going to be more receptive to versus considering it as spam?”

“Mobile apps allow brands to do more because they can collect data and integrate that information with other data such as a customer’s purchase history, loyalty program profile, etc.,” Albert concludes. “The real power of mobile engagement lies in the intelligent analysis of data from different sources and the ability to act on that data in real-time with contextually relevant communication.”

Perhaps the biggest obstacle for brands to overcome with this kind of marketing is getting customers to actually allow the kinds of settings required to gain certain data (location, for example). There are plenty of mobile device users who aren’t all that comfortable enabling this kind of information retrieval, but a lot of big tech and social brands making use of such settings is likely deteriorating the resistance to some extent. Google would be at the forefront of such brands, and with Google Now, the company may just be able to rip a giant chunk out of the barrier, especially once it is expanded on to a greater number of devices.

Google Now is only in its earliest of stages. Just wait until Google gets Glass involved.

As a business, do you see opportunities to learn from what Google is doing? As a consumer, do you want to see more businesses engaging with you in this way? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Now, if you want to be a mobile-only advertiser, you can do so with Sponsored Stories. Before, advertisers couldn’t specify exactly where they wanted their Sponsored Stories to appear. Starting today, they can pinpoint exactly where they want their ads to show up.

Facebook now gives five options to advertisers making purchases through the ads API and Power Editor:

• All placements: this option includes right-hand side +News Feed desktop+ News Feed mobile
• All desktop placements: this option includes right-hand side + News Feed desktop
• News Feed (desktop and mobile): this option includes News Feed desktop + News Feed mobile
• News Feed desktop: this option includes News Feed desktop only
• News Feed mobile: this option includes News Feed mobile only

As you can imagine, this kind of control has been oft requested from those who purchase Sponsored Stories, so advertisers have to be happy. And the happiness that comes with the ability to target to just the news feed or just the mobile news feed could entice them to be a little more free with the ad dollars.

Here’s what Facebook had to say in a statement:

Facebook is always looking for ways to improve products and has responded to requests from marketers to control the placement of their sponsored stories. As companies are promoting services more frequently on mobile, this option gives them the opportunity to focus on specific placements that will impact them most directly.

Sponsored stories that appear in the news feed (whether it’s desktop or mobile) feel more natural than stories that appear on the right-hand side, and may be a better option for some businesses. Sponsored stories simply take already-completed activities such as “liking” a page or topping a high score in a game and promotes them, so they often feel more organic that other types of ads. Users’ inability to opt out of sponsored stories has been a point of contention, however, and Facebook just settled a lawsuit out of court a couple of weeks ago regarding that point.

But, these Sponsored Stories are the only ads that users currently see when accessing Facebook mobile, and they aren’t going anywhere. Having the ability to put all their eggs in that basket could excite some advertisers who wish to use a scope instead of a shotgun when it comes to their targets.

There has been lot of concern with mobile in particular. People are searching with Google using mobile devices more than ever, but the CPCs have not been as good as for desktop.

“I see this as less of a shifting market and more as an expanded opportunity to reach consumers,” Brian Kaminski, COO of digital agency iProspect, tells WebProNews, regarding what CPC means for advertisers in an increasingly mobile market.

“Most of mobile queries are either incremental or with different intentions than desktop,” he adds. “The growing mobile market means that consumers will be looking for information,products and comparisons in a number of different places only underscoring the need to be present, competitive and consumer focused.”

Google CEO Larry Page discussed this in the company’s earnings call, saying he’s “very, very bullish” in the mobile CPC department, suggesting that things are looking rather positive for the long term.

Mobile is “exploding in query growth,” Page said, adding that the formats are just adapting a lot from a “relatively crude base.”

“Right now, they don’t monetize well,” Page said, comparing it to how desktop search was in 2002 and 2003. People always spend most of their efforts on the major source of traffic, which is desktop, he said. But over time that will reverse, and CPCs may actually get better, he said.

“In addition to CPC spending within Mobile, the growth of investments made in Mobile Display has increased,” Kaminski tells us. “Additionally, when speaking of mobile, Tablet usage is generally lumped into ‘mobile’. The experience on a tablet is similar to a desktop in terms of display, along with how consumers are leveraging tablets – in the evening and for shopping. This has provided another opportunity for advertisers to leverage display in order to grow their businesses.”

Page indicated that Google is investing heavily in areas that could eventually make mobile CPCs better. He cited Google Offers and Google Wallet as things that could have a significant impact, as the company works to integrate its various products in more ways.

Nikesh Arora, Google’s Chief Business Officer, made the following point during the call: Advertisers are only interested in ROI. They’re not as interested in whether it’s coming from mobile vs. desktop or other means. Google, he says, is working to dynamically allocate across different channels to help advertisers maximize ROI.

Google says to create separate campaigns for each platform you’re targeting, write specific ad texts for different device operating systems, bid differently (sometimes you may need to target higher positions to get traffic because of fewer ad slots per page), direct users to a mobile-optimized landing page, tailor your keyword list to the mobile searcher, and bridge online and offline.

“Mobile click-to-call campaigns can be powerful lead generators,” the DoubleClick Search team says to that last point. “When setting up a click-to-call campaign, consult with your DoubleClick Search Technical Account Manager to learn how DS3 can import data from your advertisers’ call tracking solution to allow optimization on both online and offline conversions.”

Some of the points are more obvious than others. Having a mobile-optimized landing page is perhaps the most important of them all, and is a big reason why Google has been pushing that GoMo campaign, encouraging sites to be optimized for the mobile experience. Do you expect many conversions if someone clicks your ad and it looks like crap?

Google makes a good point about targeting keywords to mobile searchers.

“It’s still a good idea to copy the keywords from your desktop campaigns as a starting point,” the team says. “However, mobile searches still tend to contain fewer terms than desktop, so it’s likely long-tail keywords that receive traffic on the desktop will be less effective in smartphone campaigns and may even bring down your quality score. Also, many mobile searches (over 20%) contain geomodifiers; be sure you’re including those city and region names in your keywords for stronger matches.”

Emphasis added.

View more infographic round-ups here.

Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet:

++ Click Image to Enlarge ++

Source: The Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet Infographic

Generation Mobile:

Created by: HackCollege

The College Textbook Shakedown:

Via: OnlineEducation.net

Sexual Harassment in the workplace:

Via: Bolt Insurance

“Mobile advertising has created an entirely new opportunity for businesses to drive phone calls to sales teams and call centers, generating a new method for our advertisers to receive qualified incoming leads,” says Google Mobile Ads Product Manager Surojit Chatterjee. “In fact, since we introduced the click-to-call feature to advertisers over a year ago, we’ve had more than half a million customers globally run campaigns with phone extensions.”

“Two of the most common ways to get mobile customers to call you are either by listing your phone number on a click-to-call ad, or adding your phone number onto your website,” adds Chatterjee. “It’s easy to measure calls from a click-to-call ad from yourCampaign reports, but it can be more challenging to track the calls made by consumers clicking on the phone number on your website.”

Hence the new metric.

Advertiser can track clicks on their phone numbers or call buttons to the AdWords campaign, ad group, ad or keyword levels.

Google has a step-by-step guide to set up a mobile site with a phone number right here.