Those who are taking advantage of the power of mobile should start to focus on the local element.

Some reports are revealing that local mobile advertising will soon be a big trend, with local mobile search at the top of the list. If you’re using mobile methods to attract job candidates – whether through text messaging campaigns or setting up a mobile-friendly Web site – you should know that focusing on local can benefit your company and job seekers.

Using local mobile advertising or local mobile search can allow a job seeker to pinpoint companies that are hiring and see open positions within their local market.

In “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity,” The Kelsey Group states that local mobile ad revenue will reach $3.1 billion in 2013, an increase from $160 million last year. At the same time, mobile search will reach $2.3 billion. During 2008, local searches made up 27.8 percent of all searches, but that number is expected to reach 35.1 percent by 2013. The report further states that about 15 percent of all Apple iPhone applications are local.

“As mobile data consumption rises, we expect local marketing to be a big winner,” Michael Boland, program director for mobile local media at The Kelsey Group, said. “There is a strong correlation between local search and the mobile use case, which will cause a good portion of the ongoing mobile application boom to focus on local.”

In the “U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast (2008-2013)” report, The Kelsey Group predicts that local advertising revenues will decrease from $155.3 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013, a negative 1.4 percent compound annual growth rate.

Throughout that time period, only the local interactive segment will show growth, but all other local media will see marginal to rapid declines during the next 18 to 36 months. Only a small amount of traditional media will rebound, thanks to a revived economy beginning in 2011, but most traditional media will continue to decline.

The interactive share of local ad spending will go from 9 percent in 2008 to 22.2 percent in 2013. The local interactive segment will increase from $14 billion in 2008 to $32.1 billion in 2013, while the traditional segment will decrease from $141.3 billion in 2008 to $112.4 billion in 2013.

“Within the local advertising sector, there will be a real share shift, and the players most ready to leverage and adopt interactive models will achieve greater success going forward,” Kelsey Group CEO Neal Polachek said. “The share shift we expect could actually be more pronounced if the major traditional media are not able to integrate new interactive products into their bundle.”

Advertising budgets for mobile channels are expected to go against the downward trend and exhibit strong growth during the next five years.

A new report from Juniper Research found that constraints on budgets, which were imposed because of the economic recession, have resulted in an increasing migration of adspend from above the line to below the line channels. The need for engagement with the consumer and a quantifiable ROI mean that mobile is increasingly being perceived as an important medium to pursue this strategy.

However, the report found that even though the results are encouraging, the level of growth that mobile advertising is experiencing is still stagnant when put into context. It’s predicted that by 2014, mobile advertising will account for only up to 1.5 percent of global adspend.

On top of that, while some major brands have made investments in mobile, many advertisers have not yet been fully convinced.

“These investments still form only a small proportion of a brand’s total advertising budget,” Dr. Windsor Holden, author of the report, said. “Regardless of mobile’s advantages – its personal nature, the facility for highly targeted advertising – advertisers will not commit more budget until they perceive that the audience for their advertisements has reached a critical mass.”

The report further found that mobile Internet will become the most popular mobile delivery channel for advertisers during 2009 and will attract the largest proportion of mobile adspend; mobile cost per clickthrough and cost per mille rates have decreased during the past year because of the economic recession and mobile advertising response rates have remained higher than those in other media.

Ovum, a technology consulting and research firm, is predicting that smartphone shipments will increase by almost 19 percent this year, even though the mobile phone market as a whole is facing a decline.

During Q1 of this year, smartphone sales exceeded 36.4 million units, a 12.7 percent increase from last year. According to data from Gartner, there was an 8.6 percent decrease in overall mobile phone sales.

According to MediaPost, the firm said that the economic recession is helping smartphone sales by forcing mobile operators and other companies to focus on creating devices for low and high-end segments. That means mobile users are able to replace their 2G phones with 3G models.

Ovum said that the success of Apple’s iPhone and the App Store has helped competitors focus on creating devices that allow developers to bring a variety of new applications and services to mobile devices. Examples of this include recent creations by Research In Motion, Google and Microsoft.

During the next five years, smartphones will see an average annual growth of 19.5 percent and shipments will reach 406.7 million by 2014. By that time, smartphones will account for 29 percent of the total mobile phone market. Ovum thinks that over time, phones that run on Symbian, including most Nokia models, will lose market share to competing platforms like Google’s Android.

By 2014, the firm says, Symbian will decrease from 58 percent to 43 percent of the market, while Android will overtake Windows Mobile and account for 18 percent of market share, shipping 72 million handsets in five years. The key, Ovum says, will be the distinction between “managed” and “unmanaged” smartphones.

“(Managed device platforms) deliver a tightly integrated end-to-end service proposition including content and applications directly to consumers pioneered by Apple and Google, the company said, adding that the adoption of this model by Nokia, Microsoft and Sony will drive sales of smartphones tied to their systems.

“Unmanaged smartphones will still have a place in the market,” the company added. “However, they will appeal mainly to users who do not wish to be tied to a particular vendor’s offering or are content with a more basic service package.”

We all know the iPhone has the reputation of being the cool kid on the block, but did you know it’s good for advertising?

Brightkite, Inc. and Gfk NOP recently completed a study that found iPhone users are more likely to recall mobile ads than those not using an iPhone. Those using iPhones were more likely to recall all measured types of mobile ads, including mobile display, standard text message, audio, picture or video messages and mobile TV and video ads.

This could be a good sign for other marketers who are making touch-screen smartphones, such as the BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre and Google Android. However, some experts are wondering if iPhone users represent a viable demographic.

That question is sure to get some varied answers. Nielsen estimated that only 5.9 percent of U.S. households owned or rented an iPhone during Q3 2008. However, the NPD Group ranked the iPhone as the second-highest-selling smartphone in 2009. A Skype survey conducted by Zogby International ranked the iPhone as the second-most-popular smartphone following the BlackBerry.

Another plus – iPhone users like the device. J.D. Power and Associates ranked Apple as the number one smartphone brand during the second half of 2008, based on a customer satisfaction index. On top of that, a survey by Rubicon Consulting found most iPhone users are under 30-years old, technologically sophisticated and more likely to buy new gadgets.

If there’s one thing that came out of the recent Reuters Global Technology summit, it’s the fact that the sale of smartphones will grow this year.

Lee Williams, chief of the Symbian Foundation, said sales of smartphones will grow 12 to 15 percent this year. He said larger display sizes and more memory for media are encouraging consumers to buy smartphones.

“For the first time people are realizing you don’t have to carry your digital camera with you and your phone, for the first time people are realizing that you can do your email and access Internet services on your mobile phone,” Williams said.

Some analysts are forecasting that phones with advanced capabilities, like e-mail or Internet browsing, will grow more than 30 percent. ARM, the world’s leading chip designer, said it expects the smartphone market to grow 10 percent and SFR, France’s second-largest mobile operator, said it has seen a strong demand for smartphones.

“There we are seeing strong demand and strong growth,” SFR Chief Executive Frank Esser said at the summit.

Although smartphones are seen as a bright spot, the cell phone market as a whole is shrinking. From January to March, the cell phone market saw production decrease by 13 to 16 percent and the market is expected to decrease by 10 percent this year because of the recession.

A sign of the tough times, Nortel Networks, Canada’s wireless equipment maker, and Qimonda, Germany’s equipment maker, have filed for bankruptcy protection. Despite this, Williams said, the mood in the wireless industry has begun to improve, with companies seeing “the light at the end of  the tunnel.”

“They realize they are still in a tunnel and they don’t know how long it will take to the light, but if you go back two or three months nobody could even see the light,” he said. “It’s still tight and awful … I do think some still have to be hit by a train in this tunnel though.”

As for the future of Symbian, Williams said he expects membership to grow to more than 100 by the end of this year, excluding independent software vendors. The foundation had 78 members in February.

The foundation inherits intellectual property from Nokia and other former shareholders of Symbian, a United Kingdrom-based smartphone maker. Nokia bought out other shareholders of Symbian last year and committed to give its software to an independent foundation that would develop it on an open-source basis.

Since then Symbian has lost market share to companies like Apple and Google, but Williams said he expects that trend to turn around. He said Symbian has seen increasing interest toward its software from chinese and Taiwanese companies. Symbian has already been in talks with Huawei anad ZTE, Chinese companies known for their aggressive pricing.

“We have very active discussions with both of those companies,” Williams said, adding that it’s likely one or two of China’s mobile carriers, three to five original design manufacturers and at least one chip maker would join the foundation.

Having a mobile presence is paramount if you want to connect to job seekers.

Searching for jobs online used to be the norm, but as more people become unhappy in their current positions and use employer time and resources to find a new job, those employers are taking notice. As a result, employees are getting fired. This could all be avoided if candidates had access to mobile job searching.

The mobile phone is becoming the top choice of communication for most people. Mobile phones are easy to use, portable and versatile. Unlike land lines or computers, they can be used virtually everywhere.

There are currently more than 4 billion handsets connecting users throughout the world. A recent study by the CDC found that for the first time, cell phones outnumber fixed land lines as a household’s unique phone, as one in five homes have a cell phone but no land line.

Statistics like these are causing more and more employers to turn to mobile. Employers that only rely on traditional advertising or online advertising, such as job boards, might have some luck finding potential candidates, but they are missing a key demographic.

Employers who use mobile are able to connect with job seekers anywhere at anytime. People looking for work can use their cell phone to receive text alerts of open jobs or browse employers’ mobile Web sites. Mobile job searching allows potential candidates to browse open positions when it’s most convenient for them, whether they’re waiting in line or at work.

If you’re tempted to use your work computer to search for jobs – don’t. Mobile searching would be a better alternative, as employers are catching onto the trend that company computers are being used to search for jobs and employees are seeing the repercussions.

According to an article by MSN Careers, one employer at a public relations agency fired an employee for excessive job hunting while at work. The employer began monitoring the employee’s computer habits when her productivity noticeably declined and found her job search was taking more time than her current job, which violated her employment agreement.

“If you want to get fired, by all means job hunt, but your work computer is 100 percent the property of the company for which you work,” the employer cautions. “So even if you are doing the searching at home, best to do so on your personal [home computer]. If your company has monitoring software on your computer, it will record your activity whether you are at work or at home.”

If you’re caught job searching on the clock, it could have negative effects for your future. On top of not being able to receive unemployment because you violated an employment contract, you’ll be hard pressed to get a positive recommendation from your current employer.

“If your employer sees you are job searching, even if just because of casual curiosity, it sends the message that you wish to leave your current employer, and it could cause them to include you in planned layoffs for which you may have never been considered before,” the employer added.

A better alternative would be to use your mobile phone to search for a job. That way you’re guaranteed privacy, as an employer has no right to access your mobile phone. This would avoid any need for you to use a work computer to search for another job and would eliminate your chances of being fired for doing so.

Phones will have more success than netbooks, at least if Jim Balsillie has anything to say about it.

Balsillie, CEO of Research in Motion – which produces the BlackBerry, said he plans to focus on the company’s core business in phones. Balsillie’s statement comes as some computer makers are starting to produce phones and phone companies, such as Nokia, are looking into netbooks.

“Form factor is a personal preference but it’s got to be something that lasts the better part of the day and you can hold up to your ear and clip onto your belt,” he told Reuters. “Those are a very tight systems constraints for a netbook.”

In essence, Balsillie is focused on developing new versions of the BlackBerry phone. He said if a phone’s dimensions seem too cramped, they can be suplemented with peripherals and Bluetooth.

Bob Stutz, an executive from SAP, a business supplier that delivers business applications to BlackBerry devices, shares Balsillie’s thoughts.

“We’ve been down this route with these kinds of devices,” he said, referring to “iPaqs, fliptop notebooks and other specialist devices. Why we are doing this with RIM today is because these (other) devices don’t work.

“Customers really have been down the gamut,” Stutz added. “They’ve been down this path. At the end of the day what we’ve really found is that if they can do it on a BlackBerry that’s what they’ll want.”

On Tuesday, Google hosted a Searchology event, during which time the company revealed a number of core search upgrades, including some dealing with mobile.

Engineering Director Scott Huffman showed how Google searchers will soon be able to automatically synch their desktop and mobile searches.

“Mobile search is growing faster than search on PCs, and it’s the primary way that people access search in some countries,” he said. “But we want [it] to become a daily engagement activity no matter where you are.”

For instance, if someone is searching for upcoming flight information on a desktop, they could have the flight’s status translate to their phone, getting rid of any need to enter the data again. Huffman said this would stop people from having to “frantically look through their baggage for the sheet of paper with the flight number on it.”

In order for this type of function to work, people would need to be logged into a Google account. Google also recently upgraded its mobile image search, which has been optimized for touch-screen phones, and launched a location-aware astronomy app for the Android mobile operating system.

Google has released the findings of a study that show new mobile search patterns for Apple’s iPhone and smartphones using Google’s Android.

The new search patterns could signal a change in advertising and behavioral targeting for mobile search, according to an article by MediaPost. The results found that iPhone users search in much the same way as computer users.

The study was completed by Maryam Kamvar and Melanie Kellar of Google and Ya Xu from the Department of Statistics at Stanford University. The three created a metric for quantifying the variability of a user’s search intentions throughout time. The variability metric, or entro-percent, is a “normalized entropy metric” that compares the number of search tasks issued by a user with the number of categories those search tasks fall under.

The group used data in the research from anonymous logs that don’t contain personally identifiable information. The sample from approximately 10,000 users of each platform was selected by a random subset of browser cookies that fell into a specific numeric range.

“Our logs analysis is done on an aggregate-level, which means we’re never looking at sequences of searches made by one user,” Kamvar said.

Of all the study’s findings, the most surprising was that many trends indicate that searches on high-end phones are becoming more like computer-based searches. This includes query length, diversity and repeat search behavior.

“These trends on the high-end phones indicate to us that mobile search is starting to really ‘work,’” Kamvar continued. “In other words, mobile search is a viable means for users to find information.”

The study further found that the average number of words per iPhone query was about the same as those in computer queries. An iPhone query consists of an average of 2.93 words and 18.25 characters. Queries from conventional phones consist of an average of 2.44 words and 15.89 characters, an increase from the previous reported average of 2.35 words.

This information should help Google better serve mobile customers. The research not only indicates that there is no one search interface suitable for all mobile phones, but also suggests that high-end phones that integrate with standard computer-based functions that personalize features would be beneficial to the user.

“(The) study shows that properly targeted mobile ads would enormously benefit the advertiser and the mobile user,” Kamvar added. “This is because we find mobile users on the non-high-end devices who query a topic seem to be ‘loyalists’ to a particular topic.”

AIRS has posted an article on Going Mobile that highlights the effectiveness of mobile job searching and the potential of mJob:

For those keeping score, the discussion Zollman referenced at the Onrec conference has since taken place, and the result is a new destination, mobile. And, right now, the way to get there is via mJob.