Fun Facts in Support of Mobile Internet

The author William Gibson said something like "The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed." I believe that is true for the mobile internet; the innovators are already living the mobile internet life, in some cases because they are early adopters and in others because the mobile culture is strong in their country.

Here are a few fun facts that support the move to mobile internet, and in some cases surprised even me:

• One half the world's populations has mobile phones. I knew the penetration was high (80% +/-) in developed nations, but would have guessed the developing world would pull this average further down. Note that for many of these people, the mobile phone is their only access to the internet.


• One eighth of Americans uses a mobile phone in place of a landline phone. Twenty five percent who have moved recently have opted to use their wireless instead of a landline phone. This increases the time period where the mobile phone is close at hand, and thus available for other mobile services.


• Despite all the discussion about the U.S. technophobes, 32 percent of U.S. mobile phone users accessed the internet in a recent month, and 41 percent sent pictures on a mobile phone. In Japan, almost as many used a mobile device to access the internet in a recent month, as used a work or home computer. These stats make for a great number of impressions available for advertisers.


• Speaking of advertising, a recent IBM study forecasts that global mobile advertising will grow at 41% p.a. from 2006-2010, versus a growth of 5.9% p.a. for all advertising. It is about time to get out ahead of this bandwagon.


• We will see roughly $22B in mobile payments by 2011, across 204 M mobile users.  Which companies will get grab a share of that market?  Today's financial leaders or today's innovators?

Who says the mobile internet is a myth?  At this point the gap is a failure of imagination.

Unleash Mobile Advertising

At the AlwaysOn media conference, Cyriac Roeding, a CBS VP made excellent points about what is needed to grow mobile advertising.  I have believed that growth in mobile advertising is going to be critical for the success of the mobile internet because it will help subsidize content and services to attract the early-majority users.

He laments that mobile advertising accounts for only 0.2% of all advertising spend, when the majority of adults in the developed world have these devices and advertisers have learned that users are 10X as likely to click through on mobile as online.   He cries out for greater simplicity for users and for advertisers.  "Don't try to duplicate the online experience, mobile is different."  It took the iPhone to convince handset makers that the phones need to be simpler to use.  Advertisers are perplexed by the different standards for mobile content and advertising, and cannot create effectively for this medium.

The industry is getting in its own way and must consider the needs of the users and the advertisers for us to realize the full potential of this technology.

Growing Impact of Content Providers

A recent article in Ad Age reinforces the importance of mobile content and the increasing role of mobile advertising. Both of these trends will help move us closer to the Mobile Internet tipping point by giving consumers a reason to buy and by supporting the economics.

Key points in the article I would like to reinforce include:

• A large part of the attraction of mobile advertising is that it is closer to purchase - closer in time and location.


• The number of mobile video viewers grew 60% in the United States between January and November 2007 -- albeit from a small base.


• The iPhone with its slick user interface was a great contributor to this growth.

Watch for more to come. We are in the early stages of mobile content and mobile advertising, and can only guess at what will be the eventual formats and business models. Just the same, we are sure to see tremendous growth as the advertisers follow their audience.