Of course, mobile is a huge opportunity for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). And we are seeing much more from the company on this front.

This week, for example, Google indicated that it will go mobile with its new video property, YouTube. After all many users upload their videos from their mobile phones.

Also, Google announced a new mobile version for its Gmail system. It's a free Java application, and makes the mobile experience much more like the desktop experience. In fact, by using an application, Gmail is much faster and easier to use (in terms of scrolling, number of clicks and so on).

I interviewed Dipanshu Sharma, who is co-CEO and CTO of V-ENABLE, a company that develops voice-recognition technologies for mobile devices. According to him: "Earlier this year, Yahoo launched its Yahoo To Go product, which is well integrated with select Nokia and Windows Mobile phones. Google's email application and future YouTube mobile application are in response to that. Most Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN content is available today via WAP (native-phone) browsers, but because the carriers control the main portal page at the browser, search companies do not get the placing they want. Targeting applications directly to consumers, for Java-based 'feature phones' (RAZR) and smartphones, is a way to have the portal installed right on a phone's main menu, thus potentially increasing total usage and user base. As for usability, applications are certainly more usable as they are not limited to xHTML (mobile XML) standards. As an aside, V-ENABLE is powering several such applications by adding voice search and navigation, which doubles total search volume because of ease-of-use. I would predict all search portals will launch applications as representation of their search and portal products as they try out direct-to-consumer strategies for the mobile environment."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.