Groupon, foursquare partner for instant local deals
Groupon is partnering with foursquare to offer instant deals for local merchants to users in the United States and Canada.

Mobile users can now see participating Groupon merchants on foursquare, purchase a Groupon Now! deal and apply it immediately to a purchase.

The real-time deal platform Groupon Now continues to launch in new cities around the country and is currently in 25 markets.  Users enter their location, choose the type of deal they would like to see, purchase it and present the Groupon to the merchant within the specified time.

Foursquare introduced daily deals from Living Social, Gilt City, AT&T Interactive, BuyWithMe and Zozi earlier this month.

Apple climbs, Nokia drops in Q2 smartphone shipments
Nokia dropped to third position in smartphone shipments with only 16 percent of the overall number compared with 38 percent last year, according to new data from ABI Research.

Apple took the top place with smartphone shipments increasing 142 percent year-over-year. Apple posted record second-quarter shipments for a total 20.3 million.

Overall, 103 million smartphones were shipped in the second quarter of 2011, representing a 62 percent increase year-over-year and a 2.2 percent increase compared with the previous quarter.

Samsung was close behind Apple, shipping 19 million smartphones, a 500 percent increase year-over-year. Also growing quickly is HTC, with 11.5 million shipments and 113 percent year-over-year growth.
RIM shipped 13.2 million smartphones ? an 11 percent drop compared with the previous quarter -- and Motorola shipped 2.4 million smartphones.

Mobile phone market grew at a slower pace in Q2: IDC
Growth in the worldwide mobile phone market was below IDC?s forecast for the quarter and was also down from the first quarter of 2011.

Vendors shipped a total of 365.4 million units in the second quarter, up 11.3 percent year-over-year but down from the 16.8 percent growth posted in the first quarter. IDC had forecast a growth rate of 13.3 percent for the quarter.

Feature phone shipments declined during the second quarter, the first time this has happened since late 2009, according to new data from International Data Corp. The feature phone market shrank 4 percent, with shipments declines most prominent in economically mature regions where users are transitioning to smartphones.

The pull back in feature phones is having an impact on vendors such as Nokia as low-cost suppliers become more prominent. IDC expects shipment growth in feature phones will not exceed 1.1 percent going forward.

Motorola?s mobile growth driven by Latin America, China
Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. reported mobile devices revenues increased 41 percent in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the year-ago quarter for a total of $2.4 billion. The company shipped 11 million mobile devices, including 4.4 million smartphones and 440,000 tablets.

The growth was driven largely by Latin America and China, where sales more than doubled year-over-year.

During the second quarter, Motorola launched several new mobile products, including the DROID 3, announced plans to launch 10 devices in 2011 with Sprint and was named Spotify?s exclusive U.S. launch marketing partner for mobile devices and tablets.

Overall, Motorola?s net revenues totaled $3.3 billion, up 28 percent from the second quarter of 2010. The company also reported a net loss in the second quarter totaling $56 million, or $0.19 per share, compared with net earnings of $80 million, or $0.27 per share, during the same period last year.

Rovio, Madhouse in mobile marketing partnership for China
Rovio, which developed the popular Angry Birds mobile game, is working with Madhouse, a leading mobile advertising network in China, to let advertisers reach Angry Bird users in China whenever and wherever they play.

Madhouse will enable and deliver ads to Rovio properties across China. The range of solutions includes in-application banners, rich media ads and fully customized marketing solutions for brand advertisers.

China is the second largest market for Angry Birds following the United States. Rovio forecasts that application downloads in China will reach 100 million by the end of 2011. Globally, Angry Birds downloads have reached over 300 million.

Google revamps tablet search experience, ads
Google has made some changes to its search offerings for tablets, including updating the Google Search experience for tablet users and giving tablet search ads a new look.

The changes to Google Search for tablet users are designed to maximize the screen real estate of a tablet and make it easy to navigate via touch. The changes include a simplified layout, larger text, buttons and image previews as well as continuous scroll.

In addition, search ads have been customized for the tablet experience. These include visual changes as well as changes to the number of ads that Google Search will show. A search query entered when a tablet is in landscape mode will show a maximum of two top ads above the search results.

A search query that happens when the tablet is in portrait mode will show a maximum of three ads above the search results. There will be a maximum of three ads at the bottom of search results regardless of tablet orientation.

Earlier this month, Google introduced the ability to target tablet devices in Campaign Settings. This gives advertisers the greater control over specific tablet device types and the ability to target specific types of tablet users.