• by Josh Chasin , Op-Ed Contributor, March 17, 2009

I've been thinking a lot about cell phones lately.  I was the very last person I know to get a device with the functionality of "email in my pocket;" I got an iPhone last summer, waiting first for the new generation that synched with Outlook, and then for the lines at the Apple store to abate.  If you have an iPhone, then you'll know what I mean when I say it ranks second to your spouse as the thing you most complain about but love the dickens out of.

I've also been thinking about cell phones because of the growing phenomena, which I've written about before, of the cell-only and cell-primary household.  According to the latest results (January through June 2008) of the CDC's twice-annual NHIS survey, 16.1% of U.S. adults live in a cell-phone-only household -- no landlines -- while another 14.4% have landlines, but receive all, or nearly all, calls on a wireless (cell) phone.  That means for three in 10 American adults, the landline phone is passé; and for 18- to 29-year-olds, that figure is well over 40%.

Marshall McLuhan wrote extensively (and cryptically) about the effect of changing technologies on human behavior. The cell phone that is now a communications hub has profoundly changed the way we communicate, how we interact. (Real conversation overheard between two 20-something women in the office, the day after one of them had gone on a first date: "Do you think he'll text?" "I don't know, but he friended me on MySpace.") 

We expect to be able to call, or text, or email a person directly and in real time; when I was a consultant, I could always tell when a client company got BlackBerries, because suddenly I started getting emails from them asking, "Where are you right now?" The technology altered the nature of communication, in that case turning email from memo-writing into a real-time thing.  Thanks to the mobile Internet, we also expect to have access to the sum total of the collected knowledge and wisdom of mankind in our pockets at all times.  Which, as it turns out, can really come in handy.

Five or six years ago, when suddenly every phone had to also be a camera, I was skeptical; did my laptop also need to be an espresso machine?  But the kids understood immediately, and now I do as well.  Last night I saw the Allman Brothers at the Beacon Theater, and in addition to tweeting about the special guests (If you remember Bonnie Bramlett, congratulations! You are even older than me) I took some pictures and uploaded them to Facebook, all from my iPhone, in real time.

So I've also been thinking: Is the Internet, as accessed via computer, and the mobile Web, as accessed by wireless handheld devices, the same medium?  And I'm not quite sure.  I mean, video is video, but Youtube and ABC are different media, at least in an advertising context.  Of course, consumers will remain loyal to specific content and specific devices (e.g., "Lost" and the 60-inch plasma TV in the living room), but we'll become increasingly aloof to the pipe or wire or air port that gets the content onto the device. Indeed, I suspect media measurement will need to become both device-agnostic and channel-agnostic; that is really the only true path to total audience measurement for specific vehicles (and campaigns.)

Yesterday, comScore reported that the number of persons in the U.S. accessing news and information via the mobile Web had increased twofold in a year.  63.2 million people accessed news and information online via mobile devices in January 2009; in fact, 35% of them did so daily.  That is profound, especially in a time when newspaper circulation and readership is declining and longtime stalwart papers are shutting down. It is not difficult to envision a time where more American adults access news daily via the mobile web than via the printed page.  Many Web entities are seeing significant portions of their traffic originate from mobile devices; that will only increase. 

I've heard some pundits say that the mobile advertising marketplace has yet to ignite.    But when I go to Google and search for the phrase "US mobile ad spend," I am inundated with links to bullish forecasts. This is a space where consumers are going - those who are young, upscale and tech-savvy.  They want to buy stuff and they want to buy it now.  And they are less loyal to radio, to TV, and to the newspaper than their predecessor generations. 

So of course the mobile advertising market will lock in and should grow rapidly, assuming people accept ads on their mobile devices; it is axiomatic that marketers and consumers want to find each other, and this technology provides innumerable ways for us to do just that.  It isn't just that cute guy who can text you and friend you; it is also the world's biggest brands.  The nature of advertising will change -- the medium, after all, is the message -- but the mobile Web in particular, and the cell phone in general, will put a whole bunch of targeted, relevant, useful ads in your pocket. And that, dear colleagues, is what I call an economic stimulus.