Many industry reports showed by the panelists concurred that as technology goes more mobile, so do more of the search population.

“The technology lends itself to much usage,” assures Herzog. “Entertainment and navigation traffic, real time predictive, and an emerging younger audience—all that leads to more and more daily usage.”

Local search especially lends itself well to mobile phones, explains McCabe. “When you ask people what are they searching for, it’s always something local. “Out of the top five, maps and directions, directory listings, nearby restaurants, stores, local movies, they’re all related to the local category. So we definitely see this as an important thing that people expect when they’re on a mobile phone.”

The same is true across all mobile devices—laptops, phones, and other devices that use WiFi services from a hotspot. “The advent of WiFi is going to change the roles a lot,” said Greg Gruse, senior VP of Content Services for Local Matters. “As municipalities (and places of business) start rolling out free WiFi services, things are going to change again. The power of that search box on that portal will be very important because that page, not your home page, will be the starting point for people when they connect to their municipal WiFi portal.”

“WiFi and these local portals are going to drive a need for much more detailed content information. This will be targeted content that will be based on a smaller area than what you’ve seen before.”

Gruse added that mobile devices will also be a great opportunity for social networking to add to the local content quality. “Features such as ’send-to-a-friend will be important to your new mobile web services, and this will also lead to more consumer generated content such as ratings, reviews, preferences, sharing of info between friends, and guides and trip planning type features for consumers on the go,” he said.

About the Author: Grant Crowell is the CEO and Creative Director of Grantastic Designs, Inc.

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