• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 10, 2012

While at a friend's garage sale last weekend, a man stopped to check out the merchandise. He pulled out his smartphone, took a picture of a porch swing and sent it to his wife for approval before making the purchase. The fastest-growing activities for mobile point to retail, commerce, search, and sharing content. In December, comScore estimates three out of five smartphone owners used their phone to take photos, and slightly more than one in four captured video. 

During the same month, 8.2% of all page views occurred outside of the classic Web, with mobile accounting for 5.2% of traffic, according to comScore. The research firm estimates that tablets drove 2.5%, and other connected devices accounted for less than a percent.

With just a search on a keyword in a mobile browser, consumers can compare prices, locate a local store with a better price, read reviews, or send photos -- all while standing within reach of a physical product, whether at a garage sale or on a store shelf. Google is counting on that for 2012. 

Macquarie Securities Analyst Ben Schachter reminds us in a research note that beginning Feb. 15, Google AdMob’s auction will become similar to AdWords, where the winner is determined by price, as well as quality. "This change is meaningful and equivalent to the difference between Google and Yahoo/Overture prior to Yahoo’s switch to Panama way back in 2007," he explains.

This should enable Google to better control the pricing and types of ads shown, and in theory, improve quality for consumers, return on investment for advertisers, and pricing for Google and publishers. "While the change could potentially cause some initial market distortions with lower CPCs for some advertisers and higher for others, we expect the net monetization results to be meaningfully positive for GOOG’s mobile display advertising revenue," Schachter writes.

Indeed, smartphones are poised to disrupt the ad landscape. But what company dominated the hardware market in 2011? Apple accounted for 29.6% of the smartphone market in December, up 4.6 percentage points from the previous year, but the iPhone 5 rumored to hit the market in 2012, could cause additional disruption. Microsoft shed 3.8 percentage points to end the year with 4.7% of market share, although the OS is approaching 2012 aggressively with the release of Nokia Lumia 900 and Windows 8.

The appointment of a new Research in Motion (RIM) CEO in January 2012 has the company trying to regain its position in the marketplace, although by the end of the year the company slipped to a mere 16% of market share.