The growing popularity of sophisticated mobile phones with simplified Web searching makes the prospective deal with Google especially attractive for Verizon Wireless, the Times noted.

“There is demand for Google search despite what the carriers put in front of them,” Roger Entner, a telecommunications analyst at Nielsen IAG, told the Times. “Consumers want brand names they know.”

The deal also makes sense for Google, which has been working to gain a foothold in the fast-growing mobile search market, the Times reported.

According to Nielsen Mobile, about 3.8 million of Verizon Wireless’s 68.7 million customers use their phones to conduct Web searches via Google or Yahoo.  Only about 2.3 million Verizon customers use Verizon’s Web search tool.

Overall, 13.1 million Verizon customers conduct Web searches via their phones, according to Nielsen Mobile.

The New York Times reported Monday that Encinitas, Calif.-based Verve Wireless, which helps newspaper publishers create news websites for cellphones, thinks it can.

Verve has already created mobile compatible versions of 4,000 U.S. newspapers — and it recently received a $3 million investment from the Associated Press.  The newspaper industry is betting that Verve’s mobile approach will help to boost dwindling newspaper readership, the Times reported.

The story noted that Americans are increasingly surfing the Web via their mobile phones: of the 95 million mobile Internet subscribers in the U.S., 40 million actively use their phones to go online — twice the number of two years ago, according to Nielsen Mobile.

A third of smartphone users (35.1%) have an annual household income of more than $100,000. 

More than half (52%) keep their phones for personal use, while another 23% say their company foots the bill.

View the Full Nielsen Media Alert: 6-30-08-smartphone-blast.