Mobile advertising prepares for takeoff
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(InfoWorld) - Spending on mobile search and display advertising will skyrocket in the coming years in the U.S., finally making cell phones a viable vehicle for this type of online marketing, according to research firm The Kelsey Group. Spending is expected to total $33.2 million this year and grow at a compound annual rate of 112 percent through 2012, when it will hit $1.4 billion, Kelsey Group analyst Matt Booth said. This means that major players in online advertising,Â such asÂ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, as well as the major mobile carriers, will battle it out in a market that is uncharted territory. "Between now and 2012, the opportunity [in this market] is wide open," Booth said. As the market morphs from tiny into sizable, Internet companies and carriers are learning as they go, figuring out how to compete and partner with each other, win over advertisers, and better serve mobile subscribers, he said. The boost in spending follows technology advances, such as the increasing availability of mobile broadband services, the expansion of GPS capabilities, and improvements in device usability at the hardware and software levels, he said. For Google, the broadening of the mobile channel for search advertising comes at a good time because it currently has ad inventory backed up awaiting increased traffic, Booth said. It's no secret that mobile is the next big frontier for Internet services and advertising, although the market's explosion has been prematurely predicted in the past. Kelsey Group expects mobile Internet users to grow at a 20 percent compound annual clip in the U.S. through 2012, when there will be almost 92 million people going online via their cell phones. Previous unfulfilled expectations haven't discouraged Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and other big Internet companies from adapting in recent years their PC-based online services like e-mail, instant messaging, photo managers, and search engines for mobile devices. Yahoo, for example, has a suite of mobile services and applications called Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, while Google offers mobile versions of several services, including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, and search. Meanwhile, Microsoft's mobile offerings include Windows Live Hotmail, search, Spaces, and Messenger. Beyond adapting services to mobile devices,Â Google has also expressed interest in bidding in an upcoming U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction of 700MHz wireless spectrum set for January. There have also been rampant rumors thatÂ Google is developing a cell phone, but the company hasn't officially acknowledged those plans.
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The start-up, launching at DemoFall 07, will analyze phone conversations in order to provide contextual ads.
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The company said that its new product would establish a cellphone advertising network in which Google would match ads with the content of mobile Web pages.
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The company looks to strengthen its already substantial advertising network by adding text message ads to its portfolio.
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Looking back on a year of advertising innovation
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Yahoo Inc. will sell branded advertising aimed at mobile phone customers outside the United States as part of the Internet powerhouse's efforts to build other revenue sources beyond the Web.
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CBS plans to announce on Wednesday that it is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customized for a personâs location.
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Ad Infuse serves up first video ads for iPhone.
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A new advertising platform attracts a major radio network. What will the experiment tell us?
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InfoWorld - Mobile operators meeting next week at the 3GSM World Conference in Barcelona are expected to discuss how they can work together to boost new mobile advertising services.
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The popularity of mobiles packed with features is set to explode as they get better and cheaper, say analysts.
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New interactive ad format would give advertisers new ways to reach users online.
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LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - The music industry, searching for   ever-expanding ways to promote acts and generate new revenue   streams, is getting increasingly creative in its use of mobile   technology.
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While many industry and internet specialists agree that a genuine convergence between technology and content for mobile has been achieved, many questions still remain on what exactly are the opportunities for local merchants and search marketers. Is now the time for search marketers to enter mobile and bring their clients with them?
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Glimpses of advertising are now being tallied down to the second.
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Your cell phone may be one of the last  spots around that's relatively free of advertising -- but not  for long. Media and advertising companies have found a way of  latching on to people's handsets by beaming ads to them via  Bluetooth, the same technology used in some hands-free  headsets.
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Serial entrepreneur plans discount mobilephoneco