In a small but remarkable encounter with a brand's mobile sophistication, I got a glimpse of just how important it is for marketers to understand (no, really understand) the complex relationship we have with our phones.

There may be a billion tablets on the planet in five years. For many of their users, the larger touchscreen is becoming the digital cash register of choice.

The mobile carriers have an odd relationship to the smartphone revolution. They are funding much of the transition to a device-based digital data world, but their willingness to be media companies remains halfhearted.

Maybe 'fear of missing out' is not a trivial tic of the connected age and is more of a survival response to an age of big data that apps like BuzzFeed, ESPN's SC Feed and People's CelebWatch are best positioned to address.

Ad prices rose substantially in MoPub's RTB marketplace this holiday, the company reports. Money and demand continue to migrate to the tablet.

How curious that one of the most powerful accompaniments to our massive HD hyper-connected TVs is a clunky, truncated, text-based platform that feels like the telegraph by comparison. A lesson here about mobile's role?

Given the obvious power of the tablet device and use case in e-commerce, it is amazing that both retailers and the Tablet OSes have not done more to optimize t-shopping.

Social TV, while not entirely new, does open up the possibility of putting different viewing experiences on-demand by letting us choose the audience with which we want to view the program.

Talk and data converged on the handset years ago, but wearable devices and the tablet may prompt those two channels to subdivide into a new tag team of mobile connectivity.