I'm looking forward to today's OMMA Mobile agenda, because I'm starting to see mobile in a new, much broader light since the last time we met to discuss this rapidly growing, and rapidly changing
media platform. Among other things, I've started to recognize how mobile isn't necessarily a medium in and of itself, but often is the glue and connectivity for a lot of the rest of the media
ecosystem. That's something I learned last week during MediaPost's Digital Out-of-Home Forum in this same venue, where much of the discussion centered on the notion that mobile connectivity had become
the "clickthrough of out-of-home media."
There are many, many implications and opportunities associated with that notion, and maybe some of it will come up today at OMMA Mobile. If you've got
any thoughts, please post them here.
But my real point is that people are beginning to think of mobile media -- especially the mobile Web -- in much the same way that people were thinking
about the early World Wide Web a decade ago: That yes, it was a medium, distinct in it's own right, but it also was a medium that would allow other media to interconnect, and activate consumers,
content, and advertising in ways our industry had never imagined before. These days, few would dispute that rationale, but many traditional media organizations continue to look at it in a negative
way, because they see the emergence of digital platforms -- the wired Internet, or the mobile Web -- as disintermediating agents that are challenging their economic models. That's true, of course, and
it was NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker who may have summed it up best when he quipped the sound bite of the past year that digitization is causing traditional media companies to trade "analogue
dollars for digital pennies."
That economic equlibrium is going to sort itself out eventully, but I can tell you that it works the other way too. All you need do is look outside. Outside the
box. Out-of-home, that is. Outdoor historically is a medium that has reaped pennies relative to the big electronic media, and even magazines and newspapers. But now I'm seeing it begin to trade
analogue pennies for digital dollars, and it's all thanks to the digitization of the medium, including place-based video, interactivity, and especially, mobile connectivity. It's been fun watching a
traditional medium reinvent itself that way, and I can't wait to see where it goes next, and how mobile becomes intertwined into the fabric of out-of-home, and location-based media.
For now,
I will share one last thought with you -- a personal one -- on how mobile connectivity is changing, and empowering my coverage of these trends. This blog entry was written and posted via my BlackBerry
as I was traveling late to attend OMMA Mobile this morning. So if you see me walking in during the keynote, I'll be easy to spot. I'm the guy rubbing his sore thumbs.