mobileStorm was among the first to proclaim that Google, the startup-turned-worldchanger whose motto is “Do No Evil,” was headed for a fall. (If you don’t remember, check out this episode of Outside The Inbox, part of a series of humorous videos about news and issues regarding digital communications.)

Word on the street–or rather, in the Valley–is that the search king isn’t living up to its motto. Google has been laying off staff and will possibly shed 10,000 jobs in all. Since most of these are contract employees rather than full-timers, the company hasn’t had to comply with federal law and report the firings publicly. These contract workers benefit Google in another way, by allowing the company to report lower employee numbers to the SEC, making it look good to investors by making it seem as if productivity per employee is more than it actually is.

What does this have to do with digital marketing? Well, Google’s woes are that of the whole online ad industry. Lower online ad sales means, to marketers, that your competitors are less likely to be using them–so why should you?

Meanwhile other digital message platforms, such as SMS and email, are growing in popularity among both marketers and consumers. Particularly when these kinds of messages offer coupons or other vouchers that encourage recipients to spend.

Mobile marketers have something to be thankful for, even if they’re not celebrating the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday this week: The great growth of mobile coupons, as predicted by Juniper Research.

The firm reports that by the year 2013, some 200 million subscribers worldwide will use coupons that are delivered and redeemed via mobile phones. North America and Western Europe will account for almost 20 percent of those voucher redeemers. Doing the math… that’s 40 million mobile consumers in those two regions who will be using mobile coupons!

And don’t worry about ads on the mobile Web, which is just now starting to become common with the proliferation of smart phones aimed at consumers, or other burgening technologies. SMS is not only now–it’s also the most common way for delivering mobile coupons to the consumer, according to Juniper.

“The mobile phone is the ultimate individual marketing device and mobile coupon pilots show greatly increased redemption rates–often double digit percentages,” says Howard Wilcox. author of the Juniper report.

As regular readers of this blog know, mobileStorm has long known how big mobile coupons will be. Get in the game before those 200 million mobile coupon users pass you by: Download a free recording of our webinar titled “Making Money With Mobile Coupons.”

Last week our CEO, Jared Reitzin, wrote a guest column for Mobile Marketing Watch about the current state of short code provisioning.  For those of you familiar with the process, you know it is relatively “antiquated,” as Jared says, and pretty inefficient. There are a number of ways provisioning can be improved, and Jared offers candid advice to Neustar, which is the agency in charge of short code provisioning, and to the carriers themselves. 

A few of the problems the current system faces include lengthy start-up time, limited availability of short codes, and a message flow approval process that is not efficient.  The most troubling thing, Jared notes, is that carriers and Neustar haven’t taken any initiative to update the process. Our CEO discusses the importance of streamlining short code provisioning to accommodate the fast growing mobile industry,

Check out his suggestions and add your own comments. Hopefully we can start a dialogue that helps to bring short code provisioning in-line with the current times.

Wouldn’t you  know it: The same day of mobileStorm’s free webinar on mobile coupons last week, I saw a Harris Interactive study that emphasized the importance of coupons this holiday season.

The study found that 89 percent  of online adults think coupons are a great way to save money, and that 35 percent of those who will be spending less money on gifts this holiday season will use coupons.

No wonder our web seminar was popular. So popular, in fact, that our CEO, Jared Reitzin, is going to give a repeat performance! The encore presentation, happening 10 a.m. Thursday (Pacific time), is for those who couldn’t make it the first time–as well as for attendees who might have a few questions about what they learned last week.

To register for the webinar, click here.