In some sense publishers are in the same boat as marketers when it comes to mobile media. Their position may be worse, in fact. They have to invest money and allocate resources well in advance of returns. But like marketers, they have to make the basic decision on what this medium will be worth, and when changes will occur.

"He's cute." Those are two of the worst words a father can hear from a teen daughter when the family is out and about. Once a boy and girl of that age make eye contact and go into flirt mode, you can bet that your evening in the mall or at a restaurant, a ball game - whatever - is about to get hijacked. But it only gets compounded when your own partner joins in. "Yeah, he is cute." In one of those creepy episodes that turn an evening at Red Lobster into a regrettable adventure, the two of them …

The local mobile ads that I see coursing through the apps and mobile Web sites leave a lot to be desired. Google's ad bug is unappealing and the ads feel pretty random. Local directory and discovery provider Where seemed to feel the same way about the ads it was getting from the ad nets -- so it took steps to change things.

The one thing you can almost always count on at the Oscars is that the documentary film winners are the likeliest to make a political statement that will make everyone uncomfortable and cue the orchestra for an early speech cut-off. But I have to say even I wasn't expecting someone to hold up a sign with a short code in the middle of an acceptance speech.

I suspect that Facebook and Twitter use (up 347% last year on phones) is just a leading indicator of a tipping point: In important categories of use, the mobile experience is quickly becoming better than the Web experience. There are already four or five things my handheld does better than my desktop....

All I did was click on a mobile banner ad and suddenly I found myself watching a grainy, badly lit video of a doctor from my own town discussing the simplicity of some corrective surgery procedure.

Can media brands really sell platforms? That seems to be the perennial question (mostly unanswered) to accompany the arrival of every new medium. Is anyone really comparing the recognizable media brands that front carrier decks or the respective app stores on mobile phones? Does anyone in their right mind decide between a BlackBerry and an iPhone because some news and information services are on one but not the other?

I'm not sure that Google does itself any favors by releasing some of its "lab" tests into the wild before they have been shaken out. Yesterday the Google Shopper app came onto the Android platform, and I actually had a harder time with it than I did with the Google Goggles experiment that drove me a little batty months ago.

NBC is getting hammered from all sides for its handling of the Olympics. While I am not averse to piling on any big media brand when I can, I think the mobile coverage and the brand advertising I have seen on the mobile iterations are at worst mixed. Maybe the wild unevenness of the content and the marketing supporting it is a good barometer of the half-evolved state of brand advertising on mobile. This should be an event where both publisher and marketer put their best foot forward. Instead, the Olympics effort from both content and ad sides is something …

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is in. I hate when this happens. I am not a men's mag reader, but when media events and mobile tie-ins like the SI bikini bash occur, this particular issue ends up on the coffee table. Let the games begin. "Do you think she's pretty?" asks my partner.