We got an interesting read this week on Amazon’s Kindle ereader sales. This is particularly significant to marketers since Amazon has brought to millions an ereader bundled with “special offers” and screensaver advertisements.

Amazon followed its usual tact and did not reveal the precise number of Kindles it sold in the quarter. Instead, it only noted that Kindle sales in Q2 showed an increase over Q1 sales. The figures are vague –as we have come to expect from Amazon. Meanwhile, AP reports that Q2 was also a good quarter for sales of eBooks for the Kindle device.

Specifically, Amazon said it has sold more eBooks (that it offers for the Kindle) than hardcover and paperback books.

Even more noteworthy: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reported that the $139 Kindle 3G with Special Offers — a version of the Kindle Amazon released in Q2 that is subsidized with ads — is now its top-selling Kindle device. By way of background, Kindle with Special Offers carries a slightly lower price tag ($25 less or $114) because it is effectively ad-funded. Special offers and sponsored screensavers display on the Kindle screensaver and on the bottom of the home screen. However, they don’t interrupt reading.

What are these so-called offers? Over the last months the promotions and deals displayed have included:

-- $10 for $20 Amazon.com Gift Card

-- Save up to $500 off Amazon’s prices on select HDTVs

-- $1 for a Kindle book, choose from thousands of books

-- Spend $10 on Kindle books and get a free $10 Amazon.com Gift Card

As for screensavers, Amazon says its goal is to show sponsored screensavers that Kindle owners want to see. To this end, they have created a free Kindle app (available now) and website (coming soon) called Amazon AdMash. Anyone with a Kindle (Latest Generation device) can download AdMash, a clever app that harnesses the best of crowdsourcing to let people have a say in their future screensavers. How does this work? Basically, AdMash will show you two different screensavers, and then ask you to vote for the one you like best. The community will decide. Smart.

Amazon’s Q2 numbers leave key questions unanswered about the ad-funded device. Is the price of this package bringing in new customers? If so, what are the demographics? Are they new too? (I know my mother-in-law – who is 82 – is a huge fan of Kindle, in part because it is a breeze to read.) And then there is the term ‘Special Offers.’ So far, we know the “offers” aren’t a consumer turnoff. This could be because Amazon shrewdly and purposely made the decision not to use the word “advertising” to describe them. So, who can refuse such an offer?

As I’ve written in columns on MobileGroove and elsewhere, people will accept advertising in exchange for offers they appreciate. In fact this view is confirmed by a several industry reports, including a recent one from the Yankee Group. It shows that more than 70 percent of mobile subscribers surveyed in the U.S. want offers on their devices. As marketers, we can’t ignore the Kindle. We need to add this device into our marketing plan discussions. Amazon is most certainly providing advertisers more detailed user information to make sure they can make their media buy as targeted — and effective — as it can be.

Meantime, let’s not forget that Amazon has another card to play later this year when it is expected to launch a tablet device. That’s when things will get even more interesting.

The group of those who are bullish on mobile and its place in the marketing mix grows every week. And these executives aren’t betting on a gut feeling. They have been convinced by real results. Initiatives have moved product, raised brand awareness and engagement, and given marketers more confidence in mobile marketing and advertising. As a result, more money is moving into the mobile channel.

Meet Paul Gelb of Razorfish, who redefines what it means to be bullish. (Disclosure: Razorfish is a Hipcricket client).

In an interview with Adweek, Paul, the agency’s mobile practice lead, was quoted as making the mother of all mobile predictions.  “I think mobile ad spend will overtake television,” he stated.

To put that into perspective, you need to know that a cool $131 billion was spent on television advertising in the U.S. alone last year. By comparison, JP Morgan predicts that mobile ad spend will reach about $1 billion in the U.S. in 2011.

The reasons for Paul’s optimism? He bases it on what he sees and knows about the industry. As he told Adweek (and has outlined in presentations), mobile is the first truly mass media.

Mobile beats TV on reach. Paul points out that there are over three times more mobile users than there are TV viewers. And mobile is the brand communication channel. Put another way, mobile is the most adopted technology and media channel in history with high engagement rates and 24-hour access to users.

What’s more, Paul believes that the rapid adoption of mobile is setting the stage for a dramatic shift in the advertising spend. “If you’d predicted then that smart phones could outsell PCs and that people would spend an hour a day on their phones, no one would have believed you,” he said.

And even if some remain disbelievers, the number of brands convinced of the power of mobile is on the rise. Driven by increased client budgets Razorfish’s mobile practice has grown to 45. “We can’t staff as quickly as we want,” Paul said.

In the 12 years that I spent working in advertising and PR firms, I did not see agencies increase headcount if they didn’t have the client work to back it up. The agency model is to win business, then staff against it. I’m not privy to Razorfish’s mobile revenue, but I do know they are very active and certainly wouldn’t staff up wildly in the hopes of winning business.  As for Paul’s prediction, he certainly has good reason to believe mobile will be huge. I also know that mobile’s going to be big, but forecasting too far out is problematic for me.

(first appeared on MobileGroove http://www.mobilegroove.com/could-mobile-ad-spend-overtake-budget-allocated-for-tv/)

Neither rumors nor tea leaves will guide us to what’s coming in mobile in the second half of the year so, as I have in the past, I’ll take a run at what could make the most impact in a six-month period.

Despite the advancements by Google via its Android efforts, no device comes close to the iPhone in terms of fascination and speculation. We’re either on the verge of a complete product makeover or will soon see relatively minor modifications in the iPhone 5. This swings back and forth via hourly reports.

Just as intriguing is whether Sprint and T-Mobile will be selling iPhones by year’s end. While rumors about distribution have run wild for the last four years, the highly reliable Boy Genius Report says a four-carrier choice for iPhone holiday shopping is likely. http://www.bgr.com/2011/07/12/iphone-5-to-land-on-sprint-and-t-mobile-analyst-says/

Of course, that scenario has many marketing implications. If it happens, get ready to revisit history by hearing from your CEO that “we need an iPhone app”. This time, with the reach and expected share, he or she would be right.

Other things I anticipate:

The convergence of mobile and social will be even more pronounced. Twitter and Facebook members are twice as active on mobile as they are online – and that’s before Facebook’s “app for every phone” introduction that brings the social network to more than 2,500 feature phones at a low cost accepted by global carriers.

At retail, look for even more mobile subscribers chronicling their “Moments of Trust” by posting comments, photos and even videos to social networks. Mobile devices have become megaphones for a large portion of users with more than 40 percent telling those in their social networks about negative or positive experiences with brands, according to research I commissioned in the spring and unveiled at Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conference in New York http://jeffhasen.com/video-of-my-140-characters-conference-talk-on

Groupon will prove to be more valuable to mobile users than PC members, providing the mobile customer ops in for Groupon Now offers.  What might stop someone from opting in? A reluctance to give Groupon access to location information as well as buying habits. As for me, Groupon online has proven to be largely a bother with such irrelevant offers as eyelash enhancement and flying trapeze lessons. I’ll take relevant offers on mobile.

Expect outrage over bills that charge for data overages. We’ve heard this one before – text messaging became mainstream once consumers were offered unlimited plans that prevented shocking bills. With the carriers doing away with all you can eat data, we’re back to surprise time in our bills.

The hype around the mobile wallet will intensify (is that possible?). Everyone is chasing the opportunity but I’ll bet you the dollar in my wallet that consumers won’t be leaving their wallets at home when they hit the malls in November and December.

With smartphone adoption making a steady march toward 50 percent share, expect more to make the claim that apps are on the way out because so many more subscribers will be able to access the mobile web. My view is we’re years away from deciding the apps vs. web question.

(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/07/18/second-half-mobile-predictions-including-the-implications-of-the-iphone-available-through-four-carriers/)

I pay a bundle for my TV/phone/Internet bundle, and until today, I had no idea that favorite punching bag Comcast is behind my access to ESPN live telecasts online and mobile via ESPN3.

It was lost on me that I’m one of the “privileged” because Comcast is an ESPN3 participating high-speed Internet service provider. Not everyone has access, a fact that ESPN fails to explicitly share when it heavily promotes (yeah, I know it heavily promotes everything) ESPN3.

By doing some searching, I found out that ESPN3 delivers thousands of live games and events like college football and basketball, NBA, MLB, The Masters and US Open Golf, and all 4 Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

Plus you get a fully interactive experience with real time in-game stats and scoreboards and live chat.

I’m sure this isn’t a gift from Comcast or ESPN, but part of the steep bundle price that I pay.

You would think they would do a better job of telling me how lucky I am.

Groupon’s most interesting offer to date doesn’t involve a discount but instead a deal with consumers to provide relevant offers via its new Groupon Now service in exchange for user permission to factor in location and buying habit data.

In the last week, Groupon gave mobile users in select cities the option to receive relevant, on-the-go offers (via iPhone and Android apps or the mobile Web).

In an email to users, Groupon put it this way: “If you use a Groupon mobile app and you allow sharing through your device, Groupon may collect geo-location information from the device and use it for marketing deals to you.”

Fortunately, Groupon spelled it out for us. In addition, Groupon stated in the email that it might also collect other information (including relationship information, transaction information, financial account information and mobile location information) and share it with Expedia.

I’ve been vocal about the irrelevance of many Groupon offers, pointing to the similarities between the deals I get and outright spam. Groupon Now represents a step in the right direction and Groupon should be congratulated for being so transparent.

Some users will choose to participate, and others will opt out rather than divulge personal information in return for a deal. As for me, I’ll take the relevant offers every time. I do that already by simply opting in to the loyalty clubs run by my favorite brands.

More on this in my weekly mobilegroove.com column http://www.mobilegroove.com/groupon-mobile-app-matches-our-requirement-for-relevant-deals/.

My first-half-of-2011 mobile predictions for iMedia Connection began with the belief that the carriers and retailers would pay us to take on a smartphone with a contract.

While that apparently didn’t happen, the movement of smartphones was a big part of the mobile story from January to June.

The half-full view of smartphone adoption is that, according to the Pet Internet project, more Americans own smartphones than hold a bachelor’s degree (that either speaks to the success of smartphones or the failure of the educational system to produce more graduates).

A half-empty view is that while many analysts predicted smartphone penetration in the U.S. to be 50 percent by the end of the year, highly-regarded wireless expert Chetan Sharma says that day will come in 2012.

If you recall, during the 2010 holiday season, BlackBerry and Windows 7 Phones, among others, were routinely presented to consumers for free. Even the iPhone 3GS sold for $24.95 at Radio Shack in a trade-in promotion.

To top that, in Canada, operator Telus gave customers a free X-Box 360 with a Windows 7 Phone in exchange for a three-year commitment.

Even with the number not tipping over 50 percent this year, brand marketing managers continue to need to plan for more sophisticated consumers with higher-end phones.

In today's post, I look at how I fared on my other predictions. http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/07/12/take-a-smartphone-please/

All over the web today are stories about the Pew Internet Project’s new research on smartphone usage in the United States.

Among the headlines?

Some 87% of smartphone owners access the internet or email on their handheld, including two-thirds (68%) who do so on a typical day.

Several demographic groups have high levels of smartphone adoption, including the financially well-off and well-educated, non-whites, and those under the age of 45.

When asked what device they normally use to access the internet, 25% of smartphone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer.

The last fact had me wondering whether the 25% have access elsewhere.

According to Pew, while many of these individuals have other sources of online access at home, roughly one third of these “cell mostly” internet users lack a high-speed home broadband connection.

Do I believe the findings? Pew has long been among the most trusted when it comes to Internet use and connectivity. So I would say yes.

More on the report http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Smartphones.aspx

While known as one of the most progressive marketers, Seth Godin is no fan – or even user – of Twitter.

“One hundred and forth characters are not a replacement for 200-page reads,” Godin said at the recent Seattle workshop I attended.

Godin does not tweet, saying among other things that it would take time away from other what he considers more important tasks. He said he reads over 100 blogs a day and, get this, a book a day (although he admits he doesn’t read the books cover to cover – only enough to know what the thought-leaders are saying and doing).