• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 2, 2011

While at a sushi restaurant in downtown Huntington Beach on Sunday night, my friend receives a text message from one of his co-workers. It reads: "breaking, check CNN News." So I pull out my BlackBerry, bring up google.com and search for CNN News. The news, of course, relates to U.S. President Barack Obama's news conference on the death of Osama Bin Laden. CNN's online news site reported the breaking story long before network TV stations could break into regularly scheduled programs to tell the world.

Mobile search gives easy access to those looking for information while on the go. I'm not the only one who depends on mobile search. The number of mobile search users continues to climb. Today, there are about 53 million people in the United States who use mobile search -- up 37% from a year ago, according to Eli Goodman, search evangelist at comScore. He presented a webinar last week on the techniques and tactics of mobile search for marketers, along with Mike Solomon, VP of marketing strategy at The Search Agency.

Who searches on mobile browsers? Those with handsets supporting 4G phones search most on mobile browsers, followed by smartphones and 3G. Hispanics have the highest number of the population who search on mobile browsers, followed by African-Americans, Asians, and Whites.

As of February 2011, about 43.9% of U.S. mobile phone owners browse the mobile Internet, use applications or download content. The number of people who use only voice declined 16% year-on-year, and mobile media use has grown 20% year-on-year, with February 2011 seeing 16.8 million in additional mobile media use.

Facebook with 52% reach, followed by Google Search at 37%, lead the U.S. market on both mobile devices and PCs. The top genres for mobile browsing include search engines at 47.8%; personal email at 46.5%; social networks at 42%; weather at 37.1%; news at 36.1%; instant messaging at 30%; and sports information at 29.5%.

It's also interesting to note that 27% of iPad owners are brand-loyal Apple iPhone owners, but 14% of iPad owners use an Android phone. This brings to light the need for cross-platforms.

Solomon stepped up with some stats from 13 accounts pulled from multiple verticals running paid-search campaigns. Cost per clicks are 30% lower on mobile search versus desktop search. The click-through rates are 5 times lower on mobile search versus desktop.

It didn't take long for me to find information online about Bin Laden's death. On google.com, a counter continually rises as it counts the number of tweets and stories across the Web in real-time related to the news.