Consumers are already conducting research on mobile before they walk into the store. Amazon, in fact, is the biggest beneficiary of this behavior – consumers comparing prices in store with prices on Amazon and then ending up buying from the online retailer if the price is lower.

Every single retailer will need a mobile site or application within three years or they will risk losing business to their competitors. The trick is to develop a mobile presence that has several factors: intuitive navigation, accurate search capability, pleasing design, enticing merchandising and easy, frictionless checkout.

The growth of mobile commerce will spur an explosion in mobile advertising. After all, now the ads can link directly to the pertinent item on the mobile commerce site.

The debate between mobile site and mobile application is false. Retailers will need both. Consumers who have downloaded the retailer’s application on their handset are allocating valuable real estate on their most personal device – a sure badge of loyalty. And yet, the mobile Web’s ease of use will complement the application and other SMS-related pushes.

While numbers are hard to come by, mobile will have an oversize influence on ecommerce and store sales – kind of like the role that the wired Web played a decade ago.

Mobile commerce will revolutionize retail, even more than ecommerce. Combining ease of purchase with location-awareness and ready access to information is the true promise of mobile commerce.

Fifty percent of nonprofit organizations expect to adopt mobile donor engagement and fundraising in the next two years, according to a recent study by the Kaptivate Group.

Currently, 36 percent of the organizations use mobile media or plan to deploy a mobile channel this year. Nonprofit adoption of mobile is expected to grow significantly in 2010.

Mobile giving

The study found that 62 percent of nonprofit organizations do not know how to market or promote via the mobile channel effectively. With the limitations of the current technology, 58 percent raised less than $1,000 in funding via mobile, because doners were not aware of the mobile giving capability.

Eighty-three percent of respondents that were surveyed believed mobile would improve donor convenience, as well as reinforce donor engagement by 74 percent and donor acquisition by 69 percent.

“Despite limited successes, nonprofits are doing some creative thinking about what would make mobile a game-changer for their organizations,” Mr. Vassallo said. “Respondents clearly see it as a medium that can do more than capture small transactions.

“They believe it has the power to engage and mobilize supporters in ways they’ve only begun to appreciate,” he said.

“Nonprofit marketers need to understand that mobile is not a panacea but can be a powerful addition to their marketing mix through integration with social media and cross promotion with more traditional channels.”

Nonprofits go mobile

“As many of nonprofits already appreciate, mobile’s potential extends far beyond anonymous $10 gifts,” Mr. Vassallo said. “Their mobile campaigns can deliver a richer, branded user experience through mobile Web applications, catalyze legislative action through SMS alerts, and drive mission outcomes through clever on-the-ground crowd sourcing.

“Given creativity and experimentation, mobile may transform how nonprofits – whether school, cause or house of worship – engage their supporters,” he said.

“The year 2010 will be the year nonprofits get smarter about mobile but they will leap frog past the first generation of technology and begin to explore mobile opportunities across myriad platforms.”

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Using a smartphone, Arkansas voters can now verify if they are registered to vote in their county and where their polling place is located. According to the Secretary of State's office, the new Voter View Mobile application is the first of its kind in the country. The application is accessible through the Secretary of State's mobile Web site at www.sos.ar.gov/m.

The application is available on all smartphones, including iPhone, Blackberry, Google Android, Windows Mobile and Palm. Users enter their name and date of birth to view their registration status and address. If they are registered to vote, their district and polling place information will appear on the screen. If they are not registered, a phone number will appear for users to call their county clerk.

Is balloting using smartphones on the horizon?