• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, December 2, 2008

The Screens of Power are on a Collision Course

1. The much-touted location-based services (LBS) that marketers dream of leveraging for laser-geo-targeted promotions have not found their own way yet. A small percentage of U.S. phones have GPS built in, and while many more will come to market this year, carriers can't figure out how to price and promote them.

2. According to comScore M:Metrics, in June 2008, 20.8 million U.S. customers and 4.5 million Europeans accessed search services on handsets, up 68 percent and 38 percent respectively from a year ago. And, yes, Google owns it, with 63 percent market share in the United States. Time to get mobile SEO in gear.

3. There will always be room for QWERTY and multitap pads, but touchscreens will flood the phone market. More than iPhone envy, the interface streamlines most mobile Web operations and opens up whole new worlds of application and game creativity.

4. A torrent of inexpensive, turnkey SMS messaging vendors will let anyone develop and launch alerts, coupons and messaging campaigns. But is this good for a nascent platform that still requires expertise and marketer self-discipline to maintain good relations with customers? Mobile agencies might take exception to too much automation too fast.

5. With too many mobile ad networks out there, not enough revenue to support them all, and an economic downturn that threatens everyone's second round of funding, look for accelerated consolidation. Growing the size of the network will be critical to providing media buyers with an easier buy of more reach. Many companies will have to merge or die - some will do both.

6. In categories like weather and sports, consumers are starting to access their key data more often on phones than on the Web. Mobile-only access in some segments will begin to challenge the Internet for mind share. Also-rans on the Web and mobile-only start-ups have an opportunity to stage a march on slow-moving legacy media.

7. Nearly 40 million of us access e-mail on phones, according to Nielsen. As smartphone users triage their messages on a regular basis, publishers are starting to report unexpected numbers of hits to their standard Web sites, evidence that mobilistas do click through on e-mail links. Get the message? E-mail marketers may be the next segment to ponder a strategy for mobile click-throughs.

8. Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems will offer application storefronts. The opportunities for marketers to create their own branded applications and serve ads into apps will explode. But if the iPhone App Store is any indication, consumers may have to drill through a lot of clutter and garbage to find the gems. Discovery remains mobile's Achilles' heel.

9. The mobile retail experience in ticketing (Amtrak and American Airlines), books (Amazon) and entertainment (Fandango) has improved substantially, and many vendors are surprised by the volume they see already. More consumers will be ready to transfer existing Web loyalties and e-commerce accounts to the mobile platform.

10. Still holding: Look to next year's Survival Guide for clearer signals coming from a number of well-hyped mobile models that won't be ready to complete a call until at least 2010. Social networking has massive page counts but still lacks advertisers and a good format for them. Mobile video and TV have cool technology but slow-growing scale. And all of that wonderful targeting data that carriers keep in their back pockets will probably stay there for quite a while.