As well as running the burgeoning One empire, I have also spent the last 7 months working for a mobile entertainment provider, looking at online customer acquisition strategies. The mobile space is one which has for a long time been filled with much more promise than realisation.
It is of course not true that no one has been making money from mobile, operators have of course been doing well, and until recently subscription services such as Jamster and Celldorado have prospered through the propogation of branded content, such as top 40 ringtones, wallpapers and the ever popular love calculators.
There have though, been quite a few false dawns of mobile monetization previously, and in many ways they mirror the enthusiam that we saw during the dawn of the internet, when pondering the potentials of the probable, ran way ahead of the implementation of the practical.
We’ve all read the articles and reports where your handy mobile friend pops up with all sorts of suggestions and discount vouchers combined with directions to sales and details of the nearest happy hours. Now all of this is possible, and I’m actually sure will eventually be available to those who want it, but in practical terms still difficult to achieve.
For those commenting on the monetization possibilities of the mobile platform, it has been easy to forget what a comparetively diverse market this is. Yes the internet has a number of browsers available, but that is nothing compared to the range of handsets, operating systems and other differentiators available on mobile.
What is changing this, is the much talked about rise of the smartphone market. Not only can these phones do more than previously, but they are also starting to bring an increasing feel of consolidation to the marketplace.
The real standout so far has of course been the much discussed iPhone and of course the apps store. Apple is of course though not the entirety of the story, and a survey commissioned by apps store rival, GetJar (and covered in the Wall Street Journal here,) suggests that the total mobile monetization marketplace including apps downloads, and mobile advertising could grow from a value of $4.1 billion last year to $17.5 billion by 2012.

This comes at a time when Google is also predicting that CPCs on mobile search could soon by more valuable (and therefore expensive) to similar traffic generated through desktop computers, though my own prediction is that this will apply only for certain sectors and services.

You have to look for where the money could sit, and of course about how the mobile experience is different to that of the desktop. The mobile internet is not just going to be about the same stuff on a smaller screen. I really don’t think that products and services will be purchased in the same way as they presently are through the desk top.

Apps will continue to grow as a revenue stream, and advertising that can be served through the apps will then attract a relevant audience. For them to be successful there will have to be a direct relevance between the advertising and what the app is used for, and crucially we might have to think away from terms of just direct response, but also overall uplift in areas like footfall when they are tied in with retailers.

In short, I honestly think that the time of the mobile is at last nigh, how this will develop though is still far from certain, what will drive it will in the end be the users, and their behaviour is as always hard to predict.

Rob, founder, One