I was reading an article the other day that stated 96% of consumers comparison shop, with 85% using the web to do so, and thought how the explosion of wireless networks and devices has aided consumers to more easily perform this task.  Our continued reliance on wireless networks was evident while on our family vacation in a small Texas town of slightly over 11,000 people.  My son armed with his new iPod touch assisted his grandmother in price checking the cowboy boots she had picked out at a local boot and hat shop found along the popular tourist destinations’ main street.  I thought for sure, we would be heading to the larger boot retailer out of town, and was pleasantly surprised by the results of his comparison shopping.

It is second nature for consumers to want to perform due diligence and know they are getting the best deal for their hard earned money.  Now more and more folks simply un-holster their smart phone and utilize one of many comparison shopping applications available.  In our case my son quickly logged into the store’s free Wi-Fi network and opened a browser to the address of a well known boot outfitter in nearby Austin.  I was amazed to find the small business owner confidently waiting to complete the sale and unfazed by our comparison shopping, since he darn well knew he had properly priced the boots.

Competition for the consumers dollars is fierce and small business owners must be on top of their game in order to survive and flourish as our economy continues to rebound.  If you have a brick and mortar presence and can provide Wi-Fi access for your customer, a mobile friendly website and competitive prices, you’re on the right track for success.

In the past couple of months, the press has been busy dissecting privacy concerns related to online browsing activities.  One can find numerous articles documenting how cookies are leveraged and deployed by website operators and ad networks in order to efficiently manage ads.  We have seen articles alerting us to be vigilant on what we share about ourselves on the popular social networks, and to always assume the default privacy setting will be to allow access rather than to deny access.  I am in complete agreement with the authors of these stories on social networks privacy settings, and will always review my settings upon learning about a new feature being deployed.

This past week a story broke concerning the Obama administration’s plan to add a privacy watchdog task force to help control the exploitation of consumer data being gathered on the internet.  Throughout history we have experienced advances in communication networks and, one can argue, the increased quality of life they provide.  Starting with the telegraph up to today’s networks, the entrepreneurial leaders that provided these innovations were rewarded with an initial competitive advantage.  The “free for all” climates these communication innovations generated provided the spark to subsequent economic expansion.  History has proven that eventually this “free for all” climate, results in monopolies, which are then regulated and ultimately broken up.

I look back to the late 1990s and realize we have seen a few search engines come and go, AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Lycos, and wonder how long before regulatory steps are taken to prevent Google from becoming a search monopoly, or Facebook from being ruled a social network monopoly or Amazon as an auction monopoly.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes his company’s plan to release a revamped operating system (OS) for smartphones, Windows Phone 7, will propel them into the race for smartphone OS market share and the advertising treasure the leader will enjoy.  Apple and Google have seen their OS and the devices running on them rapidly erode long time cell phone leader Nokia’s dominate position.  Nokia has finally taken their blinders off and has recently released a new version, Sybian 3, of their OS.  One would have to go all the way back to 2006 to find Nokia’s last smartphone success, the N95, since that time, Apple’s iPhone, released in 2007, has been gaining ground as has Google’s Android released in 2008.

In my previous blog on this topic, Mobile Search and Mobile Advertising, I provided charts outlining the leader board for the smartphone OS and mobile advertising spending with projections.  I noted the absence of Mircrosoft and that they would act quickly to get into the race.  Microsoft has taken a two prong approach to gaining on the leaders. The first is with their innovating new OS, the second is with their legal muscle as exhibited by their patent lawsuit against Motorola.  The stakes are extremely high for all the players in this space, as is the reward.  Will a rash of legal maneuvering and the negative press of a patent lawsuit against an open source backed OS be effective in product promotion for Microsoft?  I’m not sure the legal approach is going to help Microsoft’s image or convince the public to purchase a device, nor is it going to assimilate developers and we all know that the applications which run on top of the OS are the steroid for these entrants in the race.

In the graph below take a quick look at how the OS race has been playing out during the first three quarters of this year; it clearly shows a steady player, one that rewards developers via low cost of entry due to being open source and few restrictions, Android and Google.

I like the fact that “Do no evil” is the corporate motto and have trusted the search engine giant for years.  They continue to innovate and refine their services, an important attribute an application developer considers when picking a development platform, since they rely on a steady stream of income from their applications.  Google’s AdWords is the dominate search engine marketing vehicle, and I believe they will continue to refine it to allow all size businesses equal access to the mobile advertising market.  Keep your eye out for more articles on this dynamic, fast growth industry news. We will.