The news was rolled out by their founder here and you can learn more about what WellcomeMat does here and even see a few of our in house offerings on our Union Street Media channel.

We would be interested to hear from anyone that has used this application and their thoughts on its effectiveness, however  the app is currently usable only on the iPhone 3G.

Although college students perceived as market leaders when it comes to technology adaptation (just behind middle schoolers), they’re not the only ones using their mobile devices to look up real estate.  As iPhone sales skyrocket even in this down economy, users are expecting that your site will load on their mobile device.  The trend is catching on amongst real estate data sites too.  Some newspapers like the Gainsville Sun and sites like Trulia & Zillow are making their sites easier to search using a mobile phone.

You should check with your web developer to make sure your site is mobile friendly.  Some real estate web site developers (like Union Street Media), can create a new mobile template for your site that strips away non-core images & content, which increases the speed that the site loads on the mobile phone.  Check out the two variations of Brian Boardman’s web site to see what it looks like on a web browser and on a mobile phone.

We generally see three types of REALTORS requesting mobile-friendly sites:

• REALTORS who are technology savvy and browse the web on their mobile phones
• REALTORS who’s clients are technology savvy and use mobile phones for real estate searches
• REALTORS in a second home markets

Check out www.adamdow.com if you’d like to see one person that fits all three categories (and was one of the first clients to get a mobile-friendly site from USM).

There are a lot of other cool examples of mobile-friendly real estate web sites out there.  Please share any that you have come across in the comments section below.  Thanks!

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

If your web marketing strategy incorporates search engine advertising and you want to reach consumers wherever they are: good news. Google is now setting up mobile-specific segmenting options that reach the G1 and iPhone operating systems only.

So, for example, if you have mobile real estate web templates enabled on your site, you can set up an ad campaign targetted at a mobile audience. And only pay for those who click through.

If you’re in ecommerce or retail, Google notes that “last Christmas, the iPhone drove more traffic to Google.com worldwide than any other mobile platform.”

One of the advantages of mobile search marketing is that you’re reaching a customer exactly when they are looking for something. Not when they’re at work or at home or tethered to a laptop. Right when they want to find something. Combine this with geo-targetting and things can get pretty interesting.

More details at allthingsd.com.

See also: Joel Burslem’s Future of Real Estate Marketing blog where he gives this practical tip to real estate marketers: “…create unique campaigns with mobile-ready landing pages as well as mobile-specific calls to action (e.g. “Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX for help with your home search”).”

Related articles:

• Target Google AdWords to Android and iPhone

David Wood writes on his blog about a Google presentation about use of mobile services. The presentation, by Sumit Agarwal who is the product manager for Mobile at Google, includes a lot of insight into Google’s approach to developing applications and is very much worth a read (especially if you’re into developing software).

But from a straight-ahead data standpoint here are some interesting revelations about the way people are using mobile devices and Google’s mobile products:

• There is latent demand of mobile users for carrying out search enquiries – a demand that i smolstly being inhibited by fear of high data charges
• Every weekend, the demand from mobile devices for map tiles reaches the same level as the demand from fixed devices.
• People seem to want to search for the same sorts of things – in the same proportion of times – regardless of whether they are using fixed devices or mobile ones.

This is the sort of thing to think about when looking to the future of human and computer interaction. Thinking about these data points leads to more questions and thoughts, of course.

People want to use data services on their mobile devices more

The primary barrier to people using data services appears to be price. This price will certainly go down in the future. Here are some questions to think about:

• How will this affect my marketing efforts?
• Will my current marketing efforts be sufficient in a world where mobile devices are used as often as large screen stationary devices?
• What will have to change and why?

On weekends, map-based services are used equally by mobile and desktop devices

When William Gibson said that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed I always thought he meant geographically (better cell phones in Asia, for example). But the future could be distributed by any of the dimensions, and here is an example of distributing the future based on time.

If mapping and locality are significant to your business, then you get a free glimpse at the future for two days a week. Make the most of it!

People aren’t different just because they’re sitting in a desk at work.

If people are searching for the same kinds of things from their mobile device as they are from their desktop, then perhaps some beliefs about “browsing habits” are either incorrect or changing. That and perhaps we’re carrying our work around with us all the time with our shiny iPhones and Android handsets.

For those who are afraid of change this last point is at least some solace: What you know about your site visitors now is applicable to a future mobile web world. People aren’t changing what they’re interested in, they’re just moving around while they’re interested.

Image by plemeljr via Flickr

By now you’ve already heard about Google Earth coming to the iPhone. And yes, it’s awesome and fun and cool. But you’re a marketer at the end of the day so you’re looking to find a way promote your real estate or other business online using this newly enhanced tool. Before coming up with some internet marketing tactics that might be appropriate for the Google Earth-enabled iPhone, let’s look at a few concepts related to this combination of mapping and mobile technologies. Video after the jump.

Local without the hyperbole

For some time, internet pundits have been talking about “local” and when no one seemed to respond then they started talking about “hyperlocal” (when driving gets dull try hyperdriving!). The concept of Local is about delivering results when knowing about location increases the relevance of the results.

The real estate industry is an obvious example where information is more valuable when it’s location-aware   than location-numb. If you know about the schools/neighborhood/employment/scene etc then you know something valuable to anyone looking to buy or sell real estate.

But real estate isn’t the only industry where local information or knowledge is valuable. Any physical-only business should be firmly woven into the internet representation of a locality. Think about restaurants, car dealerships, news outlets, museums and colleges etc etc. I could go on and on. But all of these things contribute to the quality of “local” and can benefit by being present in the digital representation of a locality.

Google is the de-facto digital representation of locality for most areas. When people want to know about a location they ask Google about it first. And Google has a variety of platforms for delivering that local information.

Good marketing is relevant

While “local” is an expression of information quality, “relevance” is perhaps more dependent on delivery. Are you getting the quality information you want when you can act on that information? If so, you’re getting relevant information.

The problem with relying on Google’s database for local information has been that local information is most relevant when we aren’t tethered to our computer.

If I want to gather more context from my immediate surroundings while I stroll down Church Street in downtown Burlington, I’m out of luck. With Google Earth for my iPod (Vermont still doesn’t have an iPhone… I know, it’s a real bother) I can pull in the WiFi, auto-set the location, and the resulting image will include Wikipedia entries and images by default. If I’m hungry I can search for a restaurant nearby and the search results will be overlayed on the map. If I’m looking for a condo… hmmm…

What about plain old Google Search or Maps? They’re already pretty much the same thing right? If I don’t care about physical space at all I’ll probably just use Google Search. Google Maps has the directions and streets for that specific sort of task. If I want a restaurant it will also show me the address. Google Earth doesn’t have the maps or direction-making capability. But it has photos and wikipedia for increasing local context. If I want to get somewhere I’m going to use Google Maps. If I want to know more about an area, I’m going to use Google Earth.

Using Google Earth, I can have local information delivered to me when I can act on it. It’s also a really fun delivery method so that helps too.

4 ways to use Google Earth in your Internet Marketing

Up to now I’ve focused on how individuals might be using Google Earth with their iPhone, concentrating on the concepts of Local and Relevance. How can you use this tool to market your business online?

Caveat: What follows are some nice untested tactics. Using these tactics shouldn’t hurt (in fact, you should be doing some of them already). But I wouldn’t replace a functional internet marketing strategy with the handful of tactics which follow.

1. Ensure that your Wikipedia entry exists and is up-to-date. Google Earth for the iPhone will show Wikipedia entries that are relevant to the section of Earth that is being displayed. A tip here: if you go in and create your Wikipedia entry with what sounds like a press release you won’t get very far. The editors are quick and thorough. Be certain to cite any and all claims you make and respect the Five Pillars.
2. Get your images of your business into Panoramio. By default, Google Earth will show little squares for images that are relevant to the section of Earth that it is displaying. Make sure your place of business is one of them.
3. Get images of your products into Panoramio. This might be easier for something like real estate, where the product might be a house or condo. But you can use this internet marketing tactic for other products as well. But keep to the spirit of Local when you do so: photographs of your product in relation to the landscape/locality. Show how your product is a part of what local means. Also, one picture isn’t enough. Lots of pictures. WIth tags and descriptions. And a Panoramio username/profile that also markets for you. This one will be hard for me as I’m a big Flickr fan.
4. Get to work on your plain old Google SEO. Google Earth for the iPhone or iPod allows users to perform a search that is limited by geography. Make sure that you are well ranked for the search terms that are relevant to your business.

These four tactics should tie into your existing profile-marketing, image-marketing, SEO and reputation management strategies. Any other ideas?

Image via Wikipedia

Neilsen is reporting that “Americans each sent or received 357 text messages a month then, compared with 204 phone calls.” Moreover, this is the third quarter in a row that text messages beat out phone calls.

After the break, the chart that gives a breakdown of usage by age. Some of which might surprise you.

Texting isn’t just for kids

The 13-17 demographic shows the biggest difference between voice and txt, which isn’t much of a surprise. What is useful for those who market to grownups is that the tendency to send a text message is equal to that of a voice call all the way up into the 35-44 age demographic.

Your customers are, right now, probably using text messaging. They’re using it schedule meetings, get directions, look things up on Google and stay in touch.

How did I hear about this study? Via Twitter, naturally.

It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition.

So here we have the mashup of two pretty exciting opportunites: social network marketing and mobile technology. Since people like to be “social” spontaneously, combining a pervasive technology like mobile phones/internet devices is like combining peanut butter and chocolate, or whatever you like to combine.

Action? John du Pre Gauntt, another of the report’s authors has this to say:

Marketers are trying to determine which digital marketing techniques and ad units are relevant for the mobile social networking environment.

What tools and techniques are you using or researching?

Here’s the chart on what sort of data services people are using:

One of the insightful bits of sleuthing our friends at the Pew Research Center did was to examine “internet usage away from home or work.” They asked both two questions: the first was a “how often do you” style question and then the remaining was a more specific “in the past 12 months, have you” style question. Combining these results they discovered “that nearly two-thirds (64%) of internet users have gone online away from home or work, which could include wired access at libraries or in hotel rooms.”

They also asked about specific technologies used away from home: PDAs, wireless laptops, cell phones to tease out how many used wireless technology (as opposed to logging into a public terminal at a library, for example). Here’s what they come up with (emphasis mine): “41% of all Americans who have logged on wirelessly away from home” have done so with a PDA, wireless laptop or cell phone.

What sort of actions could you take to improve your business based on this information?

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about Twitter for Real Estate. Just in case you’ve not been paying attention I’ll give some links and quick summations. Also, don’t worry if you don’t know what Twitter is, most of these articles include a brief description.

Daniel Rothamel gives you all the basics in Welcome to Social Media for Real Estate 101: Twitter.

As you’re getting started and wondering who to follow, Jeff Turner’s Active Rain post about TwitterLocal is a great tutorial.

What’s TwitterLocal you ask? Look no further than PR 2.0 post “Twitter Local Connects You to Local Voices.”

How to write kickass Twitter posts gives you a great list of guidelines to give the most with your tweeting and prevents you from being dull.

Using Twitter to Stay in Touch at Connect gives a nice little rundown plus one use for the technology: keeping in touch during conferences.

Transparent Real Estate has more Twitter for Conferences information.

Joel Burslem breaks out a great use for Twitter: Business Intelligence. His post entitled Using Twitter to Listen to your Customers reviews the excellent BI/Reputation Management tool TweetScan. Includes examples.

Jessica Swesey is using Twitter to listen to general chatter about the real estate market.

If/when you get a group of people following your Twitter feed, perhaps Information Week’s suggestion for using it as a broadcast medium will be useful.

A laundry list of uses and examples can be found at Examples of Twitter Providing Business Benefits.

Even more business benefits and basic usage suggestions are at Twitter: Where’s it @ for Business.

Example of reputation management from 37Signals at the Twitter blog.

If, like me, you don’t much care for Twitter’s interface, check out the list of Twitter clients (I’m partial to Twitterific for my iPod).

A list of various tools to help you get more out of Twitter can be found at Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy blog.

Did I miss anything?