The controversial “kill switch” for smartphones could bring massive savings, according to a study.

Lawmakers, consumers, and law enforcement officials have been considering the idea of an added mobile security feature for smartphones in the form of a kill switch, particularly since the launch of last year’s Secure Our Smartphones initiative.

Now, a study has shown that by introducing the feature, the outcome would be considerable savings.

The idea of the kill switch is relatively simple. The “complicated” part would be that it would require handset manufacturers and wireless carriers to take part in this mobile security effort that would provide a way to render stolen smartphones completely useless. The hope is that this would help to notably reduce the rate of cell phone theft.

The only party who would not benefit from this mobile security kill switches would be wireless carriers.

The reason is that the carriers would risk losing a very large amount of money every year. At the moment, they are making a solid supplementary income through the sale of insurance plans that provide coverage against the theft of cell phones. According to professor William Duckworth from Creighton University, who recently conducted a study on the subject, consumers would save an estimated $2.5 billion every year simply through the implementation of kill switches.

When looked at even more closely, this represents a savings of $500 million in replacing the handsets that have been stolen, and a savings of $2 billion on the insurance coverage to provide protection against possible theft. This helps to explain exactly why wireless carriers may not be quite as excited about this feature as consumers.

That said, it is important to point out that these findings have generated some controversy of their own. For example, Asurion, a cell phone insurance company, has estimated that approximately 60 percent of phones that have gone missing turn out to have simply been lost, not stolen. Moreover, they also have suggested that phones may still be targeted for theft and use for spare parts, which would still provide thieves with enough incentive to continue stealing. Still, the FCC says that 30 to 40 percent of all robberies that occur in major cities involve phone theft.

The micro blogging site has announced that it is close to the release of this option.

It has now been revealed that Twitter’s latest initiative in the area of mobile social media marketing will be the release of a new product that will make it possible for app developers to be able to install ads that will help to encourage application downloads.

This format is called an app install ad and its goal is to help to attract more marketers to Twitter.

Specifically, Twitter is seeking to use the mobile social media marketing opportunity to draw marketers from the game and e-commerce industries. Once the ads within mobile Twitter feeds are clicked, the user is redirected to the page of the advertiser within an app store where the application from the ad can be downloaded.

The social network is likely using this mobile social media marketing move to help keep its IPO promises.

At its initial public offering, Twitter had stated that it would be boosting its mobile ad offerings and that is exactly what this step appears to be. Since November, the stock for the company has skyrocketed by 78 percent and analysts are currently predicting that its annual revenue will increase to nearly double, reaching $1.2 billion by the close of this year. This, despite the fact that user growth has been slowing down.

The mobile channel is a central element to the business at Twitter, as it is over mobile devices that the user base is growing at its fastest rate. Furthermore 75 percent of the company’s ad revenue comes from that channel, alone.

Other social networking companies have been highly successful in the use of app install ads. They were introduced in October 2012 by Facebook and by last year they had brought in 245 million downloads. Candy Crush was advertised by King Digital Entertainment over Facebook and that app has now become one of the most popular games for those devices. King has just experienced its own IPO.

Now, Twitter will be using this mobile social media marketing opportunity for its own purposes and it has been testing its app install ads for a number of weeks to ensure that they are functioning as expected.