• by September 28, 2000

Texas-based Internet advertising company Clear Blue Media, Inc. and OmniAlert, Inc. last week signed an agreement to provide select Clear Blue Media web publishers with a free toolkit that allows them to easily make their content available on web-enabled phones, personal digital assistants, Internet appliances, and other wireless devices.

"This agreement gives our publishers a method of easily converting and delivering content to the wireless world, generating additional revenue for their websites through wireless ad sales," said Phil Pennington, president and CEO of Clear Blue Media.

Clear Blue Media will continue to serve ads for the publisher in the form of 100-character text ads and full-screen, 120x40 bitmap images. For some WAP phones, the ads will have the ability to directly dial the advertiser.

"The market potential for these services is enormous," adds George Merkle, CEO of OmniAlert. "OmniAlert's wireless toolkit is the first to offer webmasters capabilities far beyond mere wireless application protocol (WAP) screens. This toolkit offers integrated WAP content, text messaging alerts, and Internet access."

Consumers benefit from free, up to the minute content, supported by advertising. Once a user has activated text messaging or mobile web service, they can go to www.omnialert.com via their web browser and select the specific information they want to receive - anything from news, to current stock quotes, to the unique content offered by your favorite websites. Web surfers will see announcements on select Clear Blue Media websites that the content is available on their wireless device.

Will the service be embraced by advertisers? Just last month, CMGI subsidiary AdForce decided to collaborate with OpenGrid, Inc., to further the initiative of allowing advertisers to reach customers on mobile devices.

At the time, Dee Cravens, executive VP of AdForce said that by teaming up with OpenGrid, AdForce will aim to "maximize the advertising potential of the wireless market just as it becomes the de facto method of accessing the Internet."

De facto or not, Motorola, for one, expects that more people will be accessing the Internet from a wireless device than a desktop computer by 2004.

Time will tell, and web publishers will be ready in any case.