Editor's note: Jim Bryson is CEO of 20|20 Research, Nashville, Tenn.

Mobile has long been a buzzword among market researchers – and for good reasons. For starters, mobile phones are ubiquitous: At the end of 2011, there were nearly six billion mobile subscribers worldwide, according to the International Telecommunication Union. That is a huge pool that actually dwarfs the number of computer users in the developed and developing world.

Next, consider the fact that most people are within arm’s reach of these devices the majority of the day, meaning engagement could be possible morning, noon or night, wherever those subscribers might be. Like shopping for baby food at the grocery store. Or at the county fair. Maybe they’re cheering on the home team at the baseball field. Or exploring a new city on a family vacation. Or simply sitting at home in front of the TV, about to tune in to a new show.

All of these scenarios offer the potential for gathering what every researcher dreams of: in-the-moment insights. Capturing feedback as an event is occurring (or within minutes of it) means getting the most complete and unfiltered view of a consumer’s behavior, thought process and emotional state. In-the-moment feedback can be far more accurate than what you’d get from an in-person focus group or even online bulletin board, where you’re relying on participants to recall information from days (or even just hours) ago. Also, using a phone’s camera, mobile research allows you to view real-time pictures and videos, letting you actually observe what’s going on with participants’ lives without having to leave your office. That’s a huge time and money saver.

Finally, one often-overlooked but important aspect of all research is the participant experience. At our firm, we’ve found that participants actually enjoy interacting with the research when it’s delivered through their mobile device. The mobile device gives them an easy, top-of-mind way to document their activities, as compared to paper journals or other more traditional methods of data collection. And, we’ve found, mobile communication feels much more like interacting with a “real live person” to them. Many mobile research participants have commented to us that they felt like they were having a conversation with their moderator and looked forward to getting more messages.

Insights they crave

So if mobile phones can give researchers the deep qualitative insights they crave and participants a research experience they enjoy, why was actual usage of mobile qualitative research only about 13 percent in 2011, as reported by the 2012 GreenBook Research Industry Trends report?

For gathering quantitative insights, mobile phones have already proved their worth. But mobile qualitative, while always a hot topic at conferences, has been more hype than substance in terms of its use by research firms.

The reality is, mobile hasn’t been able to provide the full depth of insight that many researchers are accustomed to gathering because the technology just hasn’t been robust enough. Mobile has relied mostly on text messaging (SMS) as a data collection method. And due to the nature of mobile communication (not to mention those tiny keyboards), participant responses tended to be succinct touchpoints with less detail than you’d typically find in a bulletin board, online focus group or face-to-face group. As such, mobile research often was combined with another method in a hybrid study (more than 80 percent of the mobile studies we saw at our firm in 2011 were hybrid projects).

But that’s all changing. Just like a good laptop computer no longer costs thousands of dollars, mobile qualitative technology no longer has to be combined with another data collection method to be useful. Today’s mobile qualitative research tools are about more than simple messaging – they have evolved into effective (and robust) mobile engagement tools. Here are a few examples of how today’s mobile tools can augment a qualitative research project.

Mobile access to bulletin boards

The online bulletin board focus group solves many problems researchers face, like time and budget constraints and reaching busy or geographically dispersed participants. But with all of its benefits, the bulletin board focus group still has at least one drawback: participants need access to a computer, which is not always available. Enter mobile access to online bulletin boards. Using an app, respondents can participate in a bulletin board discussion using their mobile phones. Participants can make entries, including text, picture and video submissions, from anywhere. And researchers can design projects that respondents can complete untethered from their PCs.

That’s important because we may soon be living in a world where mobile capabilities will overtake online – at least in certain parts of the world. Broadband Internet access is widely available in the United States but in other regions, particularly in developing countries, that’s not the case. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are integrated into the mainstream across the world, with emerging markets like China and India accounting for much of the growth.

Case study: The management behind a major sports event wanted to understand how fans interact with the event’s live commentators. Participants were recruited to four bulletin board discussions that they could access via their mobile phones. The boards were conducted over a three-hour sporting event, with participants being asked to log on every 30 minutes, with each log-on period taking about five-to-10 minutes. Without mobile access, participants would either have had to sacrifice their event experience by being stationed in front of a computer or would have had to participate after the event ended, which would have meant missing out on valuable in-the-moment feedback.

Self-guided shop-alongs

Shop-alongs used to mean accompanying a participant on a shopping trip (which could make for an awkward experience) or asking a participant to recall what he or she remembered about the shopping trip and relaying that information to a moderator at a later time (which could mean losing valuable insights). But with today’s mobile qualitative research tools, shop-alongs can be completely self-guided. Participants snap photos and answer questions about their selections as they’re making them. And because it’s self-guided, participants shop as they normally would in their natural environment, which gives the researcher greater insight into a consumer’s behavior and thought process.

What’s more, a study conducted by Pew Research around the 2011 holiday shopping season suggests that consumers are already accustomed to using their cell phones while shopping. More than 50 percent of Americans used their cell phones for one of three activities – calling a friend, checking reviews or comparing prices – while shopping, according to Pew Research.

Case study: A seasonal-products company wanted to understand not just what consumers are buying but also where in the store they’re shopping for them. (These products are often found several places, including the seasonal aisle, the health and beauty section and last-minute displays at the checkout.) Using their mobile phones, participants took a picture and/or video of themselves, documenting their purchase. As part of their assignment, participants were asked to show where they were in the store and why they went there to pick up the product. The company hoped to gain greater insight into seasonal-product buying habits.

Mobile ethnographies

Today’s mobile qualitative research apps include dynamic journaling capabilities that make activity-based assignments – whether for an ethnography or as part of a bulletin board – easier for the participants. Using their mobile phones, participants can easily submit unlimited comments, videos or pictures, giving researchers in-the-moment access to participants’ lives wherever they are. And when a participant’s hands aren’t free for typing, he or she can activate the voice-recognition feature on the mobile device (available on many newer smartphones) to record the information.

Case study: To understand how mothers interact with baby food, a moderator asked participants to chronicle each of their babies’ mealtimes. Participants were asked to send a picture of the label with some comments about why they chose that food at that particular mealtime. Participants reported back to the moderator that using their phones – and the voice-recognition feature – came in handy when mealtime got particularly messy.

Mobile going mainstream

Unfortunately, not all of the six billion mobile subscribers mentioned at the beginning of this article can tap into one of these new mobile qualitative capabilities – because not all of them have a smartphone or even a Web-enabled phone. While smartphones are growing in popularity (sales of smartphones grew more than 60 percent last year), sales of feature phones still outnumber them two to one, according to mobiThinking’s Global Mobile Statistics 2012.

And in some cases, participants must have a specific type of phone (think iPhone or Android) to access all of the mobile app features.

So, while mobile is off to a great start, we still have a long way to go. My prediction: In the next few years, mobile will be completely mainstream for developed and developing countries. And having mobile capabilities will be the price of entry for a research company. And why shouldn’t it be? If the goal of qualitative research is to gain access to the human and emotional profile and how it affects our choices and behaviors, then mobile can give us an all-access pass.