NP: Sparta, Threes

No, not the Cubs. Since I've been in online marketing, I've heard over and over that mobile marketing is going to be the next big thing, and read countless end-of-year predictions that claim "next year will be the year" that mobile takes off as an advertising channel.

Suffice it to say that these predictions have been consistently wrong, but I'm wondering if this particular stopped clock will finally be right in 2010. A month ago, Google got into the game with the news that they were going to acquire a mobile advertising startup called AdMob, and while Google's interest in a particular market isn't exactly a guarantee of success, it does lend more than a little credibility to the potential.

Still, it may take more than just Google to breathe life into this effort, but the other high-profile shoe may have dropped last week when one of the co-founders of Twitter announced Square, a smartphone application that lets you pay for things with your phone. Or lets you accept payments on your phone. Or something.

On the one hand, this might work. As the phone becomes a part of the shopping process, using it for advertising will be less intrusive and more of an aid to what you're actually trying to do, the way paid search advertising is. On the other hand, it's got that classic echo chamber overestimation of market potential built right into it, as the penetration of smartphones may not be nearly as high as certain self-selecting demographics may think based on the fact that everyone they know seems to have an iPhone. On some mutant third hand, you've got the Palm Pixi now making "app phones" more accessible to more people.

So, 2010 may finally be the year for mobile, but more likely, I think we'll see steady growth but not an explosion, at least until smartphones hit a critical mass where these sorts of apps can really change the game, and I don't see that happening just yet.