The survey, which looked at the time of day most smartphone owners use their devices, as well as what mobile advertising concepts they’re most interested in, found that usage during commutes to work and while watching TV were the highest on the list by far.

To find out their receptiveness, the survey asked smartphone owners how interested they were in receiving various types of mobile advertising.  The results were quite interesting, indicating consumers were most interested in receiving grocery coupons (36%), scanable barcodes (29%), offers to save and pursue at leisure (26%), movie theater offers (26%) and ads via SMS when going by a retailer with a promotion / coupon (21%).

The fact that over 1 in 5 smartphone owners would be interested in these top-5 concepts is very promising for the mobile marketing industry, considering that it’s still in the early stages of mainstream adoption.  Given the nature of smartphones, adoption via this user-group will signal what works and what doesn’t- with concepts that do see mainstream adoption via smartphones making their way to feature phones eventually.

It’s not surprising that barcodes, coupons and other retail-oriented mobile technologies are the first to catch on with consumers.  It’s a concept that provides the most value to users, while not interfering with daily usage like some other concepts.

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Naturally, YouTube is optimistic that advertisers will find enormous value in placing adds for their products and services on YouTube’s mobile site – a mobile presence that realized a 160% traffic increase in 2009.

Adds will run across the home, search, and browse pages in both the US and Japanese mobile YouTube sites.

According to the YouTube Biz Blog:

The increased usage of high-end devices like the iPhone and Android is also making mobile advertising easier and more effective for advertisers.

“Test campaigns” are already underway by L’Oreal and Land Rover. Initial results indicate promising rates of click-throughs, positive user experiences, and greater brand awareness.

We’ve already seen some early campaigns run on YouTube’s mobile site by advertisers like Sony (for the DVD release of “District 9″) and Kia, both of whom were able to easily reach their target audience, no matter where they were looking for video.

The addition of advertising space to YouTube’s mobile website is not only of great interest to mobile marketers, it also comes as a blow to rabid YouTube critics claiming that YouTube would falter in finding new ways to create profitable revenue models.

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Now that these early-stage start-ups have proven the interest in Location-based Services, Twitter and Facebook want in (joining Google, Apple and Nokia in trying to figure out how knowing a users’ location can lead to major mobile ad revenue.) In 2010, in the least, we’ll see both Twitter and Facebook’s take on LBS, a smart move for both companies which are experiencing massive mobile access growth.

Facebook, which according to a new comScore report saw access to its mobile browser grow by 112% in the past year, is expected to add location sharing in its users’ News Feeds, which may more than just intrude on the smaller companies’ courts. An article yesterday in the New York Times cited sources saying that Facebook would announce the news at its F8 developer conference in April.

Meanwhile, Twitter, which saw access to its mobile browser explode 347% in the past year, is already testing out a geolocation feature, which some users have seen in various beta forms as they go about their tweets. Foursquare, still a solid player in the game, will offer a free analytics tool and dashboard to give business owners information and stats about their visitors. These days, there isn’t a company in the consumer mobile space that isn’t interested in Location-based Services, and the market is ripe for innovation.

Knowing where users are is one of the most useful pieces of data available for mobile marketing. Mobile advertising and marketing companies like 1020 Placecast, which send customers offers on their phones when they are near a brick-and-mortar store of a brand they’ve opted to receive messages from, go about the mobile marketing in a different way then would a Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare.

For the social media upstarts of the world, especially Facebook and Twitter, the audience is much wider. For Facebook, the largest social network with over 400 million users who are mostly connected to their real-life friends and family, users will be most likely to share where they are at any given moment. On the other hand, the type of person willing to share their location with the masses on Twitter and Foursquare is still a rare breed. That breed may still be valuable to target and for marketers, but Facebook has the opportunity to offer Location-based Services to a much larger audience, and as always they will try their best to appease privacy and business needs.

Also in the game, big mobile players Google, Apple and Nokia are also working on understanding where advertising dollars and mobile location meet. Apple is looking to use its GPS data for mobile advertising and Nokia is a key player in the international LBS market with their Ovi maps coming integrated with their phones for free.

Google is trying desperately to get its social Buzz going, but it’s struggling to find the sweet spot in social media. TechCrunch states “It’s a mess,” and for the time being, I agree. However, Google’s Location-based Advertising patent won earlier this month may help them in the long run if they can ever get their buzz going. Filed six years ago, the patent is fairly broad. It covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad.

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This week it was posted on the official web site of the state of Alabama, that a new (and free) iPhone application is being released courtesy of Alabama.gov. Available now from iTunes and Apple’s App Store, the state of Alabama is looking to boost everything from tourism to resident awareness about state happenings through the new app.

Alabama Interactive, which is the “official eGovernment solutions provider” for the state of Alabama, reveals that the aforementioned application will serve up a variety of tools and resources that will certainly prove of interest to both Alabama residents and potential visitors to the great state. Such features include: Full site and state employee directory searches, access to state maps (parks, educational references, public services) through Google maps, news feeds, alerts and – of course – Twitter.

According to the official announcement from www.alabama.gov, the state’s website generates in excess of 800,000 visitors each month. The mobile extension of the site via the new app “will provide another gateway for citizens to interact with government.”

What it may also provide is the inspiration for every other state to develop a similar mobile application to promote the virtues and values of their own state.

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One of the biggest challenges for barcode-based mobile coupons systems is getting retailers to purchase (or rent) a point-of-sale kiosk which can scan specific coupon company’s mobile barcodes. It isn’t clear yet what technology Target will be using for their mobile coupons, but as soon as I find out I will let you know.

Last year, JCPenny began a mobile coupon trial with Cellfire on point-of-sale coupon scanning kiosks in 16 of its Houston-area locations, but a Cellfire contact confirmed that they are not behind Target’s mobile coupons. However, Dan Kihanya, VP of Consumer Marketing at Cellfire, has been getting a bit of press related to the Target news, and was quoted in the USA Today article providing stats that mobile coupons are redeemed at a 5% to 20% rate, compared with about 1% for print coupons. U.K.-based Juniper Research recently forecast that more than 1-in-10 mobile subscribers in developed regions around the world will use mobile coupons by 2014, generating nearly $6 billion in redemption value.

Shoppers interested in Target’s mobile coupons will need to opt in by registering at the company’s online or mobile websites, or by texting the word “COUPONS” to 827438. When a customer opts in, they will receive text messages on their phone with a link to a mobile Web page with different barcoded offers. Offers will expire once they’ve been used and on dates listed. If you use Target’s mobile coupons this week, let me know what you think about the experience using them in a comment.

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The mobile retail sector — which includes mobile coupon redemption values, smart poster fees and advertising spending in Juniper’s definition — will, however, see mobile advertising exceed coupon redemption values by 2013. Overall, the growth will be fueled by the adoption of high speed mobile broadband networks and SMS messaging giving retailers new opportunities to communicate with customers.

Report co-author Howard Wilcox writes, “Retailers have recognized that, even ahead of their wallets, people will usually make sure they do not leave home without their mobile device. The mobile channel offers merchants the opportunity to differentiate from their competition and acquire customers that become loyal.”

This report is a more optimistic view of the mobile marketing industry versus yesterday’s-released report by Outsell which noted that mobile marketing spend will be down 16% in 2010 according to advertisers pre-planned budgets.

Other findings from the Juniper report include:

• For brands and retailers, mobile offers the ability to change campaigns quickly (for example by time of day), and crucially the ability to track the success and customer acquisition rates.

• Usage of the mobile in a live shopping situation can be particularly effective – for example for product price comparisons

• While the mobile will be an effective channel for younger users who organize their lives around their mobile phones, older demographic groups are likely to be less receptive to using their mobiles in a retail situation

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Created with the help of MMA members 4play Digital Workshop, Comverse, Livewire Mobile, Ringco and Xipto, the whitepaper is designed to provide marketers with insight into the little-known and regulated concept of marketing via Ring-Back Tones, to ensure a positive, rewarding experience for consumers.

The concept of RBTs have been around for a while now, but only used by carriers in a very under-utilized environment.  Recently though, the possibilities have been introduced to third-party advertisers who recognize the unique opportunity and reach the concept has.

“Although ring-back tones have been repurposed by operators for almost a decade, it’s only recently that marketers are able to take advantage of this opportunity,” explained Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, APAC, Mobile Marketing Association.  ”With more than 3 billion mobile phones in use worldwide, and approximately 12 billion inbound calls each day, RBTs offer a compelling new media platform for marketers today.  In line with MMA’s efforts to educate marketers and protect consumer experience, MMA members have put together this whitepaper to provide insights into harvesting the potential of this new emerging area of focus as a marketing channel.”

For example, a Tier 1 operator in India with a subscriber-based of roughly 70 million, has each subscriber receiving an average of 10 incoming calls per day representing a penetration rate of 4 to 5 percent. This has the potential to make advertising via Ring-Back Tones the single most powerful marketing medium on the mobile handset, continued Dadwal.

Though the opportunity is present, there’s numerous chances for marketers to upset subscribers forced to listen to ads when placing calls if not done correctly, which is why the MMA stepped in to lay some ground rules to ensure marketers and consumers alike can find a middle ground with the concept.

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Chief among such noteworthy developments is the addition of 3G/EDGE support, which will bring live streaming video to the “CBS Sports: NCAA March Madness on Demand” iPhone/iPod Touch application.

The app in question debuted last year to much fanfare and was created with the help of mobile video solutions provider MobiTV. In 2009, however, the application’s enjoyment was limited to those capable of securing a WiFi connection.

The 3G support add-on is certainly a welcome addition, although the upgrade comes with a substantial price increase. Last year’s $4.99 has been replaced by 2010’s new price tag of $9.99.

CBS says their NCAA March Madness on Demand will provide the most comprehensive coverage possible, including all tournament games from the opening round to the Final Four. That means basketball fans can stream 63 live games in all right from their mobile device.

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During the acceptance speech for winning best Documentary, the subject of which, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign that read “text DOLPHIN to 44144.”  Even though the camera cut away quickly, the message was still understood.

O’Barry, who captured and trained the first five dolphins who played Flipper in the popular 1960s TV series, dedicated the rest of his life to protecting and freeing dolphins from captivity after witnessing the ramifications of his actions — as well as the suicide of one of the Flipper dolphins in his arms.  His life’s work was chronicled in the documentary “The Cove,” which won the Oscar last night for best documentary of the year.

Following through on the campaign and texting “Dolphin” to 44144 returned a link to an Online petition and a means to send a letter to Pres. Obama.  MsgMe, the provider of the 44144 short code used in the call-to-action, said even though cameras cut away quickly when O’Barry held up the sign, the response was still significant.

“We saw steady traffic for the next five hours and have seen a huge spike in support over Twitter which we believe is generating the bulk of the traffic,” said Matt Silk of Waterfall Mobile, provider of the MsgMe SMS platform in an email today.  ”New subscribers are still coming in at a pretty healthy clip to sign the petition so we are ecstatic with the viral explosion of the campaign.”

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The app is the newest offering in the mobile marketing space for restaurants and eateries hoping to market to locals and visitors in the area. Yesterday, we covered 99 Apps, which is making $99 customized iPhone apps for restaurants and requiring a monthly fee if the restaurant wants to edit content and add deals. MealDeals is also big on the number 99, but this app will charge advertisers $99 per month for each campaign.

Restaurants in California, Chicago and New York have been piloting the platform for the past three months to promote new menu items and specials. Elio D’ Urzo, Owner of Sapore Italiano Ristorante in California was quoted in the release as saying, “MealDeals helps us get more exposure and extends our marketing efforts to reach many more customers.”

The system currently carries over 7000 web and mobile coupons. Over 30 restaurants in Denver are set to begin their mobile advertising campaigns on the platform soon. Users can download the application free on their mobile devices and find coupons for nearby restaurants.

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