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It is time to highlight some of the industry folk that are moving mobile forward and I need to start with my This Week in Location Based Marketing podcast co-host, Asif Khan. He’s a tireless ambassador for our industry. Follow him up: @asifrkhan, @thelbma and www.thelbma.com

The top mobile stories from the past 24 hours, served with cream and two sugars.

 

Google Adds A New Security Layer To The Android Market… A “Bouncer,” If You Will (via TechCrunch)
Bouncer adds another level of security to the platform, automatically scanning new and existing apps for known bits of malicious code.

Android and iOS see continued growth in Q4 as BlackBerry, Windows and Symbian slide (via BGR)
Android remains the most used smartphone operating system in the United States with a 47.3% share of the market, up 2.5 percentage points from the last report. Android is followed by iOS, which grew 2.2 points to a 29.6% share.

Welcome to our new show – m-pulse – the show that explores the most important stories in mobile over the past week, brings you in depth interviews with the minds shaping the mobile industry and highlights some of the companies or products that have moved the industry forward.

This week’s guest is Chetan Sharma, founder of Chetan Sharma Consulting, author and veteran thought leader in the mobile world. We discuss his 2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey and what his thoughts are for the industry in 2012. In our “big concepts” section, Peggy deciphers the disconnect happening with mobile and luxury brands while Rob looks at how one company is using mobile to drive revenue for their customers – lots of revenue.

Location is only one of the many contributors that makes up context in the mobile world. When you free up the computing power that we now have in most mobile devices from the confines of the home or office the possibilities are endless. What do you measure and track to help a consumer or future customer make a decision. How much information do you gather before coming to an inferred result that hits home. How does the physical location mix with the economic realities and the weather forecast to impact pricing and a consumer’s inclination to purchase?

This is where PlaceIQ comes in to the mix to help companies attract consumers based on multiple variables – all through a mobile device. Co-founder and CEO Duncan McCall shines a light on how this industry is being formed, how companies can start benefiting from all this information that is gathered and how this will impact the price we all pay for product and services.

Enjoy!

The top mobile stories from the past 24 hours, served with cream and two sugars.

 

IDC: Apple passes LG to become world’s third largest phone vendor (via BGR)
Nokia and Samsung remained the top and No.2 vendors, respectively, though Nokia’s phone shipments slid 7.9% while shipments of Samsung handsets grew 17.6% compared to the same quarter in 2010.

Google Mobile Search Ad Requests More Than Doubled In 2011 (via TechCrunch)
Google’s mobile ad revenues are expected to more than double from an estimated $2.5 billion last year to $5.8 billion in 2012.

Welcome to our NEW newest show: “Where’s The Money?”. It is here we try to decipher the way some of the more popular mobile applications and services will generate cold hard cash. The industry is full of promise but only a handful of companies will crack the buck. “Where’s The Money” is where we put them to the test.

This week we talk Kevin Rose’s OINK.

Let me tell you a story whose outcome will have a common refrain in the months and years to come as a result of mobile’s disruptive powers.

For the first time in 3 years, Bruce Springsteen is setting out on the road for a long-awaited tour. Like most artists, tickets were being sold through TicketMaster and, like most popular artists, the experience was a complete disaster. Ticketmaster admitted that scalpers quite literally stole the show and made what was supposed to be a great experience a frustrating lesson in ineffective use of technology – and one that continues to plague Ticketmaster.

The top mobile stories from the past 24 hours, served with cream and two sugars.

 

T-Mobile now selling Square credit card payment systems in retail stores (via BGR)
It seems like every week there is a new Square partnership story. Time will tell if this deal attracts the small business owners Square is looking for.

Most mobile daily deal users are from high-income households, study finds (via BGR)
According to new data from comScore, 36.5% of U.S. phone owners who are signed up for a daily deal service have an annual income of more than $100,000.

Why buy the latest smartphone when you can lease it? (via GigaOM)
TMNG Global, a consulting and strategy firm that works with all the major carriers, is introducing the first mobile device leasing program in the U.S., which will allow operators to offer no-money-down one-year leases for handsets to their best customers.

I bought an iPad on the day they first went on sale in the US and my habits, and those of my kids, have irrevocably changed. The simple difference between a PC and a tablet? One draws you in, the other forces you to conform. How have tablets had an impact on you?

Last week Apple posted a financial quarter unlike any other tech company in the history of the industry. Beyond the impressive sales numbers (36 million iPhones, 15 million iPads), I’m most interested in the cash Apple has been able to generate (let’s save what that many iOS users means for another post). With a net profit of 13 billion, Apple is now sitting on 97.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents. So what does a company hoarding cash as quickly as Apple do with 100 billion dollars?

The top mobile stories from the past 24 hours, served with cream and two sugars.

 

iOS App Downloads & Marketing Costs Hit Record High In December
(via TechCrunch)
According to mobile app marketing company Fiksu’s App Store Competitive Index, a measurement of the average aggregate download volume of the top 200 free U.S. applications, December saw 6.04 million daily app downloads.

Shopkick scored $110M for partners in 2011 (via GigaOM)
The company said it has now more than 3 million active users for the system, which is in use at 11 national retailers and more than 4,000 stores.

Obama campaign deploys Square for mobile fundraising (via GigaOM)
It appears like Square will still get its take of transactions, which is 2.75 percent for card swipe payments.

How does a company reach 175 million users, turn mobile devices everywhere into frictionless commerce and content machines, convert those same machines into an invaluable television enhancer and then power up to a third of the ads during the Super Bowl

We’ve all used this app, Shazam, but what we failed to see from the start is just how this one app that helps us discover music is now poised to take on the advertising industry and it has the reach and users to do just that. David Jones, EVP at Shazam Entertainment is in the middle of all of this and took some time to talk the past, current and future of this little app that could.

Here’s what surprised me about this episode: The advertising industry is watching this happen, as clear as day, and they are about to face an incredible wake up call because of companies like Shazam. Mobile is cool that way.

Enjoy!