• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 26, 2012

The social media crowd has (mostly) cleared out of Key Largo and the mobilistas has taken over to start the Mobile Insider Summit. MediaPost’s very own Mobile Insider and conference programmer Steve Smith leads off the day, highlighting mobile ad growth in 2011 and noting eMarketer’s revised forecast projecting that U.S. spending will reach $2.6 billion in 2012.

2011 saw the share of mobile traffic and m-commerce doubling during holidays, and brands are getting well beyond the testing stage when it comes to mobile advertising. But consumers are still in the lead. The conference will look at where they’re going and what they are doing. Tablet ownership over the holidays, for instance, doubled to almost 20% in the U.S. So anticipating, if possible, where consumer trends are shifting is key to mobile marketing.