By Erin Snowden

Twitter usage doubles while mobile search revenue continues to rise. Be sure to catch these articles and more in this week’s NetX industry news update!

IAB: Paid Search 62 Percent Of Global Mobile Advertising Revenue In 2011
Searchengineland.com
The IAB has released ad revenue estimates for 2011, which says that globally, the total mobile ad revenue hit $5.3 billion. Surprisingly, paid search dominated all of the other ad categories. In North America alone, paid search was a little over $800 million. According to IAB data, mobile paid search in the United States is 2% higher than paid search via PC. All of these figures give a great illustration of Google’s mobile ad revenue numbers considering Google makes up about 95% of mobile paid search advertising.

Twitter usage doubled since late 2010, Pew study finds
Cnet.com
According to a new Pew report, the fraction of online adults who use Twitter on a daily basis has quadrupled over the past 18 months to 8 percent from 2 percent. An online adult is defined as someone who uses internet or email occasionally. The report found that one in every five Smartphone owners utilizes Twitter. Out of the total number of Smartphone users, 13 percent are using the Twitter daily. The report also broke down Twitter user demographics showing 26 percent of adult internet users 18 to 29 years of age are using Twitter, which is nearly double the rate for adults 30 to 49 years of age.

56% Plan to Use Social Media Analytics in 2012
Clickz.com
Employing social media analytics is a top priority for marketers this year, according to the Adobe 2012 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey. The report emphasizes that marketers should shift money from customer acquisition to marketing optimization in order to save money or generate new revenue. Of the marketers who responded to the survey, 8 in 10 said they currently allocate 15 percent or less of their marketing budget to on-site optimization. When asked to identify the top five optimization strategies they intend to employ this year, marketers cited website analytics and social media analytics.

Facebook Mobile Ads Now Open to Masses
AllthingsD.com
Facebook will now allow advertisers to place messages on its mobile apps in an effort to earn money on mobile. In the past, marketers could claim part of a user’s feed with content that doubled as ads, but Facebook would not allow someone to just buy mobile. Advertisers were required to sign up for a one-size-fits-all plan, which included purchasing desktop placement as well. Currently, both mobile and desktop are priced the same. However, since the company uses a bidding mechanism to set pricing, mobile may effectively end up at a different value than desktop ads allowing for mobile-only ad buyers to bid against each other.

Mobile is changing our perception of a neighborhood
MediaPost.com
Video-driven mobile data traffic is expected to grow 15 times between 2011 and 2017 and change users’ thinking about what constitutes the local neighborhood, according to Ericsson’s Traffic and Market Report. Along with changing that perception, mobile is also changing the way users find goods and services. This includes services from local stores in familiar and unfamiliar neighborhoods. According to ABI Research, Google and Wal-Mart are teaming up on local-search applications, and major brands are interested in hyper-local indoor monitoring for customer analytics, store optimization, and proximity advertising.

Have a great weekend!