It’s 96 degrees F in New York. The dotMobi team is out in force for the Mobile Marketing Forum starting later this morning. Your jet-lagged correspondent was up bright and ridiculously early with a complimentary copy of USA Today.
The cover story: “Are Google and Yahoo Dinosaurs? Many on the hunt for a way to cash in on wireless search.”
The article starts with the statutory eyebrow-raisers: 3 billion mobile phones today; 4 billion by 2010 (compared to the puny billion in PC penetration); US mobile ad revenue projected to ramp up from $700 million in ’07 to $2.2 billion in 2012 (Jupiter).
Then on to a discussion about how mobile search is different (see our paper on this very subject) and how the giants of desktop web may not be able to transfer their leadership to the small screen.
The most notable thing about all this is that the story appeared in USA Today – the equivalent of a Boy Scout Merit Badge that says “I’ve Gone Mainstream”.
There’s no mistaking it: we’re in on the ground floor of another world-changing, paradigm-shifting, hyphen-generating phenomenon.
But this boom is different from the Internet bubble chiefly due to one fact: it follows it. We’ve all been there, done that, got the share options. Our collective feet are planted firmly on the ground. There’s plenty to be giddy about but we’ve all done giddy. Giddy is embarrassing.
Ironically, the mobile web makes ‘irrational exuberance’ (the motto of the dotcom frenzy) feel like a completely rational response to what’s going on.
Anyway, time for buffet breakfast, Westin Hotel style. More reports from the front line of mobile marketing to come…
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