The MMA Track is a program which consists of three certification tiers, intensive training and assessement to progress levels of knowledge and experience. The program is open to individuals and organizations of all skill levels. It will include industry terminology, budgeting, and financial planning for mobile campaigns, regulatory requirements and industry best practices.

“We are pleased to offer the MMA’s first-ever certification program, providing a convenient and highly valuable opportunity for marketers of every level to master the basics of mobile marketing and learn new strategies for taking their campaigns to the next level,” said Mike Wehrs, MMA president and CEO in a statement.

According to the program’s announcement, newcomers will acquire expertise in mobile marketing basics, while professionals with extensive industry experience will learn new strategies for making their mobile campaigns even more effective. Marketers who successfully complete all coursework and exams will receive:

• Access to the latest industry information in the MMA Resource Center.
• Documents confirming their MMA certification.
• A seal of approval — also recognized by other industry organization partners — that will identify the individual or organization as a Certified Mobile Marketer.
• A listing in the Career Center, a directory of all MMA-certified professionals.

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In the app, shoppers can search for a type of electronics product. But what’s really neat about the app is how it works for certain products, such as TVs. Users can take a picture of the room the TV is going to go in, select the space the TV will be going, and based on the height and widgth the app will recommend certain TVs that fit the space.

Built by iGoDigital LLC, the app also offers a store locator and social networking features. “Ask My Friends” lets shoppers post a product to their Facebook pages asking for opinions, or email a product to their “electronics savvy” friend.

iGoDigital claims it has built “one of the largest repositories of product attribute data on the planet.” The result, says the company, is accurate, actionable data that provides the most compelling product recommendations and search matches. Their clients, besides Wal-Mart, include big names like The Home Depot, Best Buy, Amazon.com, Sears, and more.

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Fortunately, Cisco has acted on this need and introduced a new (and free) iPhone app chronicling the latest security threats to computers and mobile devices by offering alerts from Cisco’s enormous internet traffic and security experts (better than 500 in all) monitoring the cyber dangers that loom large, occasionally unbeknown to us.

“SIO To Go” enables you to monitor a host of security news feeds, the most important of which is Cisco’s Risk Report. Tossed into the mix are podcasts, Twitter feeds, and an array of blogs. From the looks of it, Cisco’s app does, indeed, serve up a lot of “unique information” collected from Cisco’s monitoring of more than 60% of the world’s e-mail.

All in, the cross-referencing of data from multiple sources enables Cisco’s app to present a “threat correlation” based on known and identified Internet attacks via spam or other nefarious mechanisms. The ability to enter an IP address or domain name to check the site’s e-mail or web reputation score is a killer feature arguably practical for anyone accessing the internet.

Among the other simple, but much appreciated functions are the ability to review volume statistics, obtain data from Whois, and review terse summaries of a website’s reputation. A valuable tool for IT professionals, mobile marketers, and virtually everyone in between, “SIO to Go” is available for download beginning today.

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For three years, Yahoo Go has served as Yahoo’s all-in-one native app for our favorite Yahoo services on Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian phones.

Famous for its simple and efficient access to the broad range of mobile offerings like search, messaging, news, etc., it seems Yahoo is letting go of Go in order to direct more energy and resources to the development of its mobile web efforts.

“In the past 18 months, browser quality has been increasing at an accelerated rate,” Yahoo’s global head of mobile product marketing Adam Taggart says. “We’ve doubled down on our mobile web strategy.”

This week, Yahoo Go users will be notified by email of the company’s decision. In the email, Yahoo will direct Go users to the m.yahoo.com mobile site.

Yahoo says it will end Go support beginning January 12th.

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Market research firm Infonetics released its latest “2009 Service Delivery Platform Software and Services” report that indicates mobile marketing and app store development are the two leading drivers behind carrier’s renewed interest in internal “Service Delivery Platforms,” due in large part to the revenue potential both concepts provide.

The report found that Service carriers are executing mobile advertising solutions which comprise location-based advertising and SMS-based marketing, while other service providers are considering the viability of having their own app store- along with a service delivery network which can prop up the new revenue source.

Even though several service providers have adopted a closed approach for content delivery, many of them are open to providing more innovative services in order to provide more value to its clients and improve their revenue realizations. By working with third party developers and developing solutions, carriers can extract more money from consumers.

Carriers are finally realizing that they can’t take a closed approach anymore, especially now that the big players (Google and Apple) are taking over.  They’re realizing that utilizing third-party Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) could not only provide new streams of revenue, but also help them create Web applications and mashups to better compete with the likes of Google and Apple.  SDPs can also help streamline the delivery of things like VoIP, ringtones and video streaming.

In the end, carriers will have to realize that consumers are not as tied to their wireless networks as they once were.  With things like Google Voice and mobile applications that can do just about anything, consumers have more options than ever before.  With those options comes competition from not only other wireless providers but Web and hardware companies as well.  Finally, wireless carriers are being forced to put their game faces on.

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Each year, the MMA’s awards receive hundreds of submissions in 12 categories from companies across the globe. Winners are selected by the MMA Awards Selection Committee comprised of global industry leaders from wireless carriers, technology and content providers, agencies and industry publications.

TIM Father’s Day: Gift Express by TIM, McCann Erickson & Mobext, UPS jobs – Problem Solved Mobile Media Campaign Delivers Hires, UPS & TMP Worldwide Advertising, and Who Killed Summer 09 (Vodafone Group), OMD Mobile won in a three-way tie for Best Mobile Campaign Overall.

North American Winner Highlights:

*Mobile Display Campaign: Pizza Hut iPhone App, Pizza Hut, Inc.

*Mobile Messaging Campaign: Creating a Safety Movement by Encouraging Conversation: Just Look for UL, MS&L

*Emerging Technology Campaign: Pizza Hut iPhone App, Pizza Hut, Inc.

*Multi-Mobile Channel Campaign: Rogers/Live Nation – Wireless Box Office, MyThum Interactive

*Mobile Social Media Campaign: Real Housewives of New York City: Ultimate Virtual Viewing Party, Bravo Digital Media

*Cross-Media Integration Campaign: UPS jobs – Problem Solved, UPS & TMP Worldwide

For a full list of winners, check out the MMA release about the awards.

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What’s more interesting to us mobile marketers is what lands in the #2  and #3 spots on their list: “Location-Based Services” and “Mobile Search.” Also, the #8 spot goes to our favorite “Mobile Advertising.” My post earlier this morning on location-based advertiser 1020 Placecast’s latest round of funding supports the thesis that when it comes to mobile, people expect to be able to discover things around them. That makes sense — after all, what good is a mobile device if you can’t have access to information that you need in the moment?

Gartner reports that location-based services will be “one of the most disruptive in the next few years.” Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million 2012. “Its high user value is the result of its ability to meet a range of needs, ranging from productivity and goal fullfillment to social networking and entertainment.”

Mobile search, which Gartner notes has an ultimate purpose “to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone,” is only lacking now in user experience. Once “the industry improves the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again,” Gartner predicts it will be the third most popular app in 2012.

Coming in at #8, mobile advertising is no laughing matter. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $530.2 million, which Gartner expects will grow to $7.5 billion in 2012. “Mobile advertising will be an important way to monetize content on the mobile Internet, offering free applications and services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media, including TV, radio, print and outdoors,” says Gartner.

Here’s the full top 10 mobile app types of the future, according to Gartner:

1. Money Transfer
2. Location-Based Services
3. Mobile Search
4. Mobile Browsing
5. Mobile Health Monitoring
6. Mobile Payment
7. Near Field Communication Services
8. Mobile Advertising
9. Mobile Instant Messaging
10. Mobile Music

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Earlier this year, 1020 partnered with Alacatel-Lucent to launch a carrier-based opt-in mobile ad service in North America. By getting the go-ahead from a user to track their mobile searches and location, targeted ad delivery is not only possible, it’s getting the right message to the right person often at the the right time. What more could an advertiser or marketer ask for? Then again, customers may not know exactly what they’re agreeing to when accepting the terms, and stalkerish ads may still turn a consumer off to a brand. So 1020 Placecast’s clients and anyone working in the stalker-advertising space, as I like to call it, need to be careful.

1020 Placecast will be tested out with three retailers over the holidays, where consumers will be able to sign up for geo-targeted deals. 1020 Placecast doesn’t have pin-point accuracy yet, but if the consumer enters a “geo-fence” targeted area, they will get pinged.

For more information on “push” mobile advertising, check out this great writeup over at GigaOm from September’s Mobilize 09′ conference. The post quotes Balaji Natarajan, senior manager of mobile technologies for Capgemini as saying “it’s the transition from a reactive to proactive medium. Push is a relevant model, because the phone is an interruptive device.”

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In an attempt to draw offline interest to their online store, Editoras incorporated a “guerrilla” marketing strategy that included the use of 4,000 QR code stickers that were placed at various locations around Sao Paulo.  Mobile users who participated quickly discovered that each QR code redirected them to select Twitter messages-  and here’s where it gets interesting.

Each Twitter message related to either “love” or “hate,” and refreshed every seven days throughout the campaign.  The result of this strategy was that Editoras was able to produce a 200+ page so-called “living book” that was made up entirely of QR codes and messages from Twitter feeds.  To bring it all together, each message also included a call-to-action that ultimately drove users to the Editoras website.  Beyond driving an insane amount of traffic to their Online store, Editoras generated so much buzz with its unique guerrilla marketing campaign that copies of their “living book” sold out in less than a week.

The ROI experienced on behalf of Editoras was off the charts, and they fully deserve to reap the benefits of creating such a unique and innovative campaign.  This just proves further that thinking outside the box, even using a marketing medium that’s still in its infancy, can pay off big time.  Check out a video that chronicles how the campaign came together and what exactly the “living book” amounted to.

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This month’s report includes a special section dedicated to analyzing the reach, platforms and CTR data associated with mobile apps.  Though you can probably guess who dominates the mobile app landscape, the data still includes some interesting tidbits.

According to the report, Apple dominated the number of total apps year-to-date with 115,00, as well as total app downloads with 100M.  In addition, Apple users downloaded roughly 11 apps per month- three times more than Android users and six times more than Blackberry users.

More interesting though, was that while Apple led with the most entertainment and book apps year-to-date, Android dominated the games category with 32 percent of apps.  In terms of total app downloads, the Android platform accounted for some 20M, while Blackberry users only downloaded 300K.  While Apple’s downloads are still five times that of Androids, it still shows how quickly Android is catching on.

If Apple’s app store and the Android marketplace had launched at the same time, it would be safe to say that Android might have more downloads than Apple at this point- simply because of the fact that numerous devices access Android’s marketplace as opposed to just two with Apple’s.  A better comparison will come next year at this time after numerous Android-based devices hit the market- that should prove to be very interesting data.

What struck me as the most interesting data compiled in this month’s report was average in-app CTR data compiled by Mobclix.  What they found was that in-app CTR varied widely between the various app categories.  Apple outperformed all others in the social, utility, entertainment and navigation categories, while Android outperformed all others in the games category with a 1.8 percent overall CTR.

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