Here in the U.S., most of the discussion of behavioral targeting into mobile sites is both theoretical and premature. Only 10% of us even access the Web on a handheld device each month. Revenue Science is getting a head start on the eventual market here by launching Japan's first mobile BT ad service. Partnered with KDDI, the second largest carrier, and media firm Digital Advertising Consortium (DAC), Revenue Science could reach up to a third of mobile customers in Japan.

The fundamentals of behavioral targeting are simple: getting the right message to the right person at the right place at the right time. Applying those simple fundamentals to real-world media behavior, however, is unfortunately not so simple. In fact it's getting more complex all the time. As consumers become ever more nimble at moving across myriad media channels to get the information and entertainment they want, marketers remain frustratingly flat-footed in traversing the new digital arena. Adapting targeting to the complexities of digital behavior, Bob Walczak, CEO of mobile ad network MoPhap explains, requires a truly multi-modal data platform.

Another week, another acquisition. Longtime direct mail marketer Acxiom purchased re-targeting and behavioral network EchoTarget this week. Acxiom forms a new unit from the marriage, Relevance-X, with former EchoTarget CEO Greg Smith in the lead. Promising to combine segment-based and behaviorally based marketing in order to target display ads, Smith and Rich Howe, chief marketing and strategy officer, Acxiom, explained how and why the companies came together.

In their quest for data, marketers often lock in on browsing and surfing behavior (gathered non-consensually) as the royal road to unlocking consumer value. Understandably -- but short-sightedly, as Chase Norlin, CEO of image and video search firm Pixsy, explains below. Browsing data may give an interesting snapshot of what consumers are sampling online, Norlin says, but real understanding of what consumers want requires a consensual opt-in model of consumer cooperation and participation in behavioral targeting.

"If anyone should be bored with the ad network business, it should be me," confesses Joe Apprendi, CEO of Collective Media. "But I have never been more excited by this business," he tell us. As networks aggregate greater reach and consolidate to achieve scale, he argues that they will need to differentiate themselves in the market. Media buyers need to ask deeper questions about how behaviors are being gathered and where the ads are showing up.

By now it's widely understood that the core focus of targeting is not the content of the page, but the consumers of that content -- and, even more important, how they consume it. Unfortunately most advertisers and publishers still approach Web 2.0 with models of consumer behavior based on Web 1.0 limitations, as Andy Monfried, founder of leading social media technology developer Lotame explains.

When you start linking user behaviors across channels, you stop speculating about how your marketing works and actually start seeing it. Even for veteran email services company iPost, in the business for a decade, its own new Autotarget product rendered some surprises. Chief strategy officer Steve Webster explains how the next stage of email metrics involve combining email response with other data streams like purchase behavior to create predictive models that clients can use to shape their promotional strategies. Webster says the new data shows that the effect of an email message is more subtle and long lasting than we …

The Web, as David Weinberger has written, is about reminding us we are "connected creatures in a connected world." For targeted advertising to function constructively in that space, it must itself become a vital connector between people and their shared passions and relationships, as Sharon Peyer, director of business development at media sharing site Pixamo, explains.