So what are our good friends at Google up to this week? It ‘s always something, but this week there has been a convergence of four key online marketing and development trends.

The local, mobile, check in, and collective bargaining movements are starting to merge over at Google. Even though they aren’t always the ones with the first idea, if Google embraces it, you pretty much know it’s going to be big or is at least a hint at where the future is going. So let’s take a look at exactly what’s happening out west in good old Mountain View, California.

Google launched Google Places in April 2010 to help searchers find local business quickly on a map, without having to navigate through pages and pages of search results. Google Place pages allow a business to showcase their products, services, location and highlight important information like hours and contact information. Now users don’t have to go slogging through a phone book or a businesses website to figure out how to contact them. Google made the place pages easy to see in searches and over time they started showing up directly underneath websites.

It’s important to note that Google has been spending a lot of time working on their local listings and encouraging businesses to update their place pages. There are many reasons for this, but it’s easy to see that Google is distancing itself further and further from Bing and Yahoo. The Google business plan is to offering so many intuitive easy to use features that a user can find everything they want in Google. It won’t be long before you will be able to search for a pizza restaurant in your area and have a sample slice through Google…. Just Kidding. But seriously, things are getting crazy.
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So, you’ve been told 2011 is all about local. As well as mobile. And social. And video. And reviews. And probably a number of other important elements of the online world. So what the heck do you focus on? Well…when it comes to getting your site found on search engines: all of them.

But! Fear not. Don’t freak out. This doesn’t require elaborate marketing campaigns combining all of these mediums. (In fact, avoid that.) And you don’t need to have the next “Old Spice Guy” idea for social media to have an impact. This just means getting your presence into a healthy mix of all of these mediums, which really comes down to providing great service and engaging with your customers. In other words, do good business. And use these online elements in a natural way.

Here’s an example of how you might integrate them into your everyday business process:
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1. Let’s say you have a special 3-day only deal for your retail website. Assuming you have your Google Places page claimed and optimized, you post the deal there on Monday (the start of the sale–one of your slowest days).
2. You also tweet about it and share it on Facebook, thanking your existing customers for being loyal fans
3. An hour later, you notice several retweets of your deal and thank those followers for sharing the love
4. Another friend of one of the retweeters sees the message, but wants to learn more about you first, so they search for you on their mobile phone. Luckily, you have a well-optimized mobile site, so this person quickly finds you and has easy access to exactly the information they needed (maybe info like what your company does, some testimonials, products, etc.).

If ever anyone appreciated the internet, it’s Dan Sinker, publisher of the late Punk Planet magazine. Now a professor of Online Journalism at Columbia College Chicago, Sinker also runs CellStories.net, a “daily dose of awesome” viewable only on mobile web. In the midst of finalizing plans for his fall Mobile Journalism class—the only course of its kind in the country, at the moment—he shared his thoughts on the current mobile landscape.

envisionit media: You’ve said that one shouldn’t make an app unless it needs to be an app. When is an app applicable?

Dan Sinker: If all you’re doing is presenting information to a user—that does not need to be an app. You get more into the need for an app when you have to access things that are specific to the device. [Last year], if you were making a leading-edge mobile thing, you might have well made an app, versus a website, because the only thing that was getting onto the mobile web by a huge margin was the iPhone. But now that’s much less true.

At this point, Android is on this crazy tear, it’s 25 percent of US mobile web traffic now. The iPhone—all the i-Devices that count together—accounts for just over 50 percent. You’re talking about a good half of that now is Android, whereas, a year ago, it was less than 10 percent.

So, suddenly, if you’re making an app, you’re making a conscious decision to support Thing A, and not Thing B—or Thing C or D or E or F. The mobile ecosystem is gigantic. It’s ‘I’m supporting this thing,’ and you’d better have a pretty good argument for why, or you’d better have something somewhere else. There are plenty of good reasons to make an app, the main one being discoverability is much easier. That’s the reason the App store was successful to begin with, is that people think to look in an App store for something on their mobile phone. We don’t do that on our computer at all. You’re just going to type in the information [into Google] and get it.
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The envisionit media brand is now alive and well on the mobile web. If you haven’t seen it yet, get out your fancy phone and take a look (the new mobile site is currently limited to iPhone and Droid visitors only.) The site features a mobile-optimized version of this here blog, a teaser-style version of our portfolio, and the basic nuts and bolts about who we are and what we do. So, go check it out–and let us know what you think!

You’ve probably all heard the latest buzz on Foursquare, the location-based marketing game that has recently been blowing up the headlines.  With over 1.4 million registered users, Foursquare is a mobile application and website that allows you to check in on your phone where you are currently located and announce it to friends and share on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare also allows businesses to award those who check in frequently with discounts and incentives.

This week, Loopt, the first of the location-based marketing applications, with over 3.4 million registered users, announced a new mobile app, LooptStar, that will compete more heavily with Foursquare and Gowalla, but with more of a loyalty program incentive. Gone are the days of those little punch hole cards that I always seem to lose in my purse! Welcome are the days where your loyalty cards are right on your phone!

So what is the difference between LooptStar and Foursquare? The main difference that I like best is that it uses Facebook Connect instead of creating a brand new social networking site. This way, users don’t have to have multiple networking sites and portals for checking in and receiving discounts. For me personally, one social network (Facebook) is enough!!

Second, it’s main focus is on rewarding customers for their loyalty to their business. Big brands like the Gap and Burger King are partnering with LooptStar to start offering incentives for frequent check-ins at stores.  These stores can then use the data collected through the app to personalize their incentives and customize them to the user – therefore encouraging more return visits to the store, and ultimately more money spent! Using Facebook Connect also allows the sharing of these incentives as well as your whereabouts to your friends.
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Ready or not, the mobile web will surpass desktop in less than three years. As users flock to new devices and capabilities, businesses are racing to meet a whole new set of needs and expectations. And mobile is proving to be a boon to businesses that are quick on the uptake.

Leveraging the platform
It may well be the Year of Mobile, but it’s also the Year of Budget. Fortunately, mobile is shaping up to be an extremely cost-effective channel for expanding the reach of your brand and driving some serious sales.

For starters, consider the inherent characteristics of the mobile platform:

• Sophistication. Mobile phones are getting better operating systems and longer battery life. Other devices—the iPad, for example—will follow suit in their race to center stage. Whatever the latest device, people are ready and eager to adopt.

• Applications. Sleek, user-friendly apps are giving users familiar interface cues. No more clunky WAP-based sites.

• Instant access. High-speed networks are bringing online interaction to life everywhere. Not to mention that, these days, you can find a Wi-Fi hotspot pretty much anywhere you go.

• Location. Location-awareness is becoming the gold standard for mobile devices, and users are embracing its capabilities at breakneck speed.

As rapid-fire innovations and sweeping user adoption continue, the mobile space will bring you closer than ever to your customers. You’ll soon be able to reach your customers wherever they are, and—perhaps most importantly—you’ll be reaching them through their preferred channels.

Entering the arena

You’re ready to go mobile, and there’s certainly no shortage of solutions and opportunities at your disposal. So where do you start? Your website. It’s the first touch point most people have with your business. Here are three smart things to think about as you enter the mobile space:
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