The IAB for the first time included an estimate of mobile ad spending in its annual report of online ad revenue, signaling a new level of recognition for the medium. That step followed the IAB's creating a Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence in December, to help encourage the growth of the emerging category through training and education programs and consumer research.

Paul Marcarelli, aka "Test Man" from the Verizon Wireless ad campaign that made "Can you hear me now?" a cultural catchphrase, told The Atlantic in a recent interview he's being phased out of the carrier's TV ads. The actor explained Verizon is heading in a "different direction" for advertising, ending his 10-year run as the bespectacled face of the company.

There's little doubt the iPad has almost singlehandedly created a consumer market for tablet computers, unleashing a legion of competing devices in the process. But a new report from Compete suggests that despite the growing popularity of tablets, there are still factors holding people back from jumping on the bandwagon. In particular, consumers have sticker shock when it comes to tablet prices, which typically start at about $500.

"Advertising is the price you pay for having an unremarkable product or service," Jeff Bezos told shareholders at Amazon's annual meeting only two years ago. With the launch of an ad-supported version of the Kindle yesterday, the Amazon CEO appears to have gotten over his disdain for advertising. And by most accounts, the new Kindle with Special Offers, priced at $114 -- $25 less than the current least-expensive Kindle model -- is just the beginning of a bigger push into the display ad market by the online retail giant.

After years of falling behind and out of the U.S. smartphone race, Nokia is finally making a big advertising push behind a new device-the modestly named Astound. The Affordable might be a better name for the phone since it retails for $80 (after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract via T-Mobile) compared to popular smartphones like the iPhone that typically start at $200. It's a smartphone for young, budget-conscious consumers from a value-oriented carrier.

There's no shortage of forecasts focused on the growth of smartphones, tablets, mobile operating systems and mobile applications. Perhaps that's not surprising since the wireless world is inherently device-centric and because of the broader shift underway from PCs to mobile-based computing. With the latest hot gadgets grabbing headlines, though, it's easy to lose sight of what the adoption of devices means for marketers. How does it translate into ad spending?

A new forecast from Gartner today projects Android will control nearly half the smartphone market by the end of next year -- a staggering achievement, considering the Google mobile operating system had less than 4% market share in 2009. The research firm said decreasing smartphone prices in the next two years will help drive Android's growth as individual device makers battle each other for market share.

Leave it to Apple to create an iPhone/iPad app treating ads created with its technology as art. The company's new app showcasing various iAd campaigns is an easy target for those who like to mock Apple's sense of self-regard. And ad technology competitors might quip that it's the only way Apple could get people to notice its ads. After all, the iAd platform hasn't revolutionized mobile advertising in quite the way Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicted at launch last year, and the $1 million upfront fee for iAd buys has since been cut in half.

When Verizon finally got the iPhone in January, it set the stage for a head-to-head comparison with the much-maligned AT&T iPhone for the first time. iPhone owners using AT&T's network, especially in New York and San Francisco, had long complained about spotty coverage on the Apple device. But new findings from ChangeWave Research show customer satisfaction ratings for Verizon and AT&T iPhone 4 owners are about the same. Based on a survey of 4,068 consumers, 82% of Verizon iPhone users were "very satisfied" with their handset, compared to 80% of AT&T iPhone customers.

Android's capturing a full third of smartphone market share was the focus of attention when comScore released its mmonthly mobile metrics report last Friday. But Android's surge overshadowed a broader spike in mobile data activity -- including Web browsing, downloading apps and social networking.