This is really of no surprise that 33% of respondents stated email was their most needed mobile utility. There are many reasons to have a data enabled mobile phone such as: keeping up to date with your schedule, supporting your social life, and being able to check traffic when driving to a meeting; but when it comes to getting business done, email is still where the rubber meets the road.

This also explains one possible reason that since the iPhone was released, it’s been the number 2 smartphone, behind Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Road warriors use technology to enable us work from anywhere, and BlackBerry is simply made for email.

The number two most requested feature was social networks with 25% of the survey results. This tells us that many mobile phone users (and most web workers, we estimate) like to get their MySpace or Facebook fix in between all those business calls and emails. It must be pointed out, however, that more and more business relationships are being fostered by using online social networks. I expect that as this use rises, social networking will take over as the number one requested mobile feature.

As a last statistic, local information requests were third on the list at 20%. These requests consist of questions such as “what’s around me?” With services such as Google Maps My Location, which tracks your location in a GPS-like service, local information requests are of great value to on-the-go workers. Imagine a situation where you are going to meet a client to discuss a proposal at a coffee shop, but the intended coffee shop is closed. With a service such as My Location, you can quickly see other coffee shops in your vicinity and easily change your meeting location without having to take too much time away from your meeting.

These mobile services add countless features to your daily working life, especially for nomadic web workers. What is your favorite mobile service? We look forward to seeing the comments!

Image credit: Gaeton Lee

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