New Age of Mobile Internet Promises Boon for Mobile Marketing

After a slow start, the internet on mobile phones looks set to finally deliver on some long-standing promises - getting users onto the net from their mobile devices, providing them with a satisfying and user-friendly experience, and growing the mobile phone into the "fourth screen" of entertainment and marketing that it has long been predicted to become.

(PRWeb) December 14, 2006 -- Mobile content delivery has been a contentious issue for the past couple of years, and it could certainly be argued that the negative press that has surrounded mobile content has been partially responsible for its slow development. From children running up hundreds of pounds of debts signing up for content subscriptions hidden behind individual ringtone downloads, to certain animated amphibians annoying everyone senseless, mobile content has been a market unable to escape from the image of a niche for youngsters and idiots.

In the last year, however, there has been a slow but steady improvement in the fortunes of other content types, such as full-track mp3 downloads, video sharing and mobile games. The 3g network operator 3 has taken the lead in this development, with dramatic growth, such as becoming the second biggest full-track music download source after iTunes, and the biggest source of music single sales in the UK, as well as firing over 1million MSN Messenger messages across its network every day.

This leadership position for 3 looks set to continue with the release of their landmark "X-Series" mobile internet bundle. X-Series offers users unlimited mobile internet access, as well as a package of extra services including mobile streaming TV, and mobile access to information on a home computer, for a single flat-rate. 3 are so pleased with their achievement that they have described it as nothing less than "the beginning of the internet via mobile". In reality, T-Mobile have been offering their "Web 'n' Walk" flat-rate internet service for some time, but what separates 3's package is the value of the extra services, which could see the mobile phone truly becoming a portable media centre: an extension of the user's access to their TV, to their home computer content, and to the endless content of the worldwide web.

For Stream SMS's Keith O'Brien, 3's mobile internet expansion has significant consequences for the industry:

"What 3 are beginning to deliver with X-Series is what companies like ours in the mobile marketing and mobile content industry have been predicting, and pre-empting for some time. Modern mobile handsets provide the most direct and personal route to users currently imaginable, and yet mobile marketing is a channel that many companies are still unaware of. If X-Series kick-starts a major growth in mobile internet functionality across the UK, then the next step will likely be a move into free, ad-supported content, as has occurred on the web."

Mobile marketing is already a growing industry, and one which provides businesses with an extremely potent way to market. If Stream SMS are right, with the expansion of the mobile internet, the possibilities for mobile marketing are only just beginning.

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