The Internet's Smartphone Revolution

Revolutions have taken place throughout human history, generally with a philosop
hical base that challenges the status quo with varying motivational ideologies.
But today, revolutions can be summed up as business being the defining feature o
f change.
Without the need to invoke inarticulate rallying cries, revolutions have, in the
past, aimed at patriotic or religious sentiment, but the "smartphone revolution
" has crept up upon us almost without us noticing it, and now it is here, ideolo
gy has been cast aside for personalised social interaction.
Most experts in the industry will agree that smartphones will not only continue
to cause seismic shifts in the downgrading value of the desktop but may one day
become "the instrument" of social access and mobility for all.
Once upon a time, prior to talk of revolutions, a mobile phone was seen as a "yu
ppie" device, fit only for the young Turks in the financial markets. But over a
short period of time that changed and everyone in big "Western" cities had one.
At that stage it was a "simple" telephonic device with no cameras, multi-media,
apps or internet access. WAP was coming, we were told. Now, mobile communication
is far more sophisticate and attuned to social networking via mobile browsers a
nd apps.
As far as revolutions go, let's use a big term to describe this phenomenon: expo
nential. The increase in social networking is currently estimated to be in exces
s of 650 million people worldwide, and this number is set to skyrocket (exponent
ially) as smartphones flood the market.
According to Nielsen, "two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are intereste
d in 'smart' services that would feed them information based on personal prefere
nces, location, time of day and social setting." And it's no coincidence that Go
ogle, essentially a search engine company, has become a handset manufacturer, ov
ernight it seems.
Going back ten years, cutting-edge companies were developing starting to develop
location-based services, in the spirit of WAP, to facilitate business people "o
n the move". But that was tame and unsuccessful and the handset had yet to be mo
dified sufficiently to make personalised, localised information available with
ease.
Not so long ago, it was Google that recognised the explosion of the smartphone a
nd that, in the future, everyone will have access to the web via this device rat
her than the desktop. Dramatically, and in true Star Wars style, Google stated t
hat their new smartphone, the Nexus One, represents "the next frontier" of the i
nternet.
And this global phenomenon is not limited to "developed" markets either. As Face
book recently announced, it already has 100 million active mobile users worldwid
e and both Facebook and Twitter have seen triple-digit growth in mobile web usag
e last year.
According to Mobile Phone Users Worldwide, "US marketers have already begun expe
rimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. 'Geo-fencing' provid
es personalised marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proxim
ity to a marketer's storeâ ¦"
To reinforce this vision, Edward Kershaw, Vice President, EMEA, Nielsen, now est
imates that "the mobile telecoms world is undergoing immense change as users dis
cover and adopt new applications and services. While users are positive about th
eir mobile future, it's becoming clear that operators must remain flexible and r
esponsive to consumer demands in order to maintain their customers' loyalty."
This so-called revolution will affect the way we all do business and our SEO con
centration is being broadened to incorporate the smartphone in terms of search.