• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 23, 2009

A lot of love on this panel for the mobile Web v. iPhone apps. The basic argument is that people accessing the mobile Web via feature phones offers much wider reach than iPhone apps. Cellufun's Edwards said the company developed a game called Orion's Belt for the iPhone, which was hard for people to find and which had no sales after they started charging for it. He called the 2 months' development time for the game "a waste of time." Other panelists including Casey Jones, VP, Business Development at Mocospace and Sean Rosenberg, VP, Mobile Business, RCA/JIVE Label Group, chimed in, pointing out the lower risk strategy of sticking with a WAP site that anyone with a mobile phone anywhere can access.

That view strikes a contrast to an OMMA Mobile panel this spring at which AOL's senior product manager of search, Farhan Memon, stirred things up by proclaiming "WAP is dead." His point was that the mobile Web user experience is so poor and the possibilities limited to simple text and graphics that the focus should be on marketing smartphones like the iPhone and Android phones that can offer the HTML Web and apps and a better overall experience that drives usage. Apple, for instance, says that the iPhone alone drives 65% of mobile Web usage. So marketers will reach a smaller audience, but one that's much more active, and likely, more affluent.