Earnings from Web 2.0 could be peanuts compared to what’s ahead for mobile ads.

In China, boys design dream cars; in the United States, girls color-coordinate their cosmetics; and in the United Kingdom, both boys and girls watch soap operas. And everybody does it on cell phones – and all for free because it is funded by advertising and marketing budgets.

Mobile advertising and marketing- using the cell phone to sell – is quietly turning into a global phenomenon. While web advertising has been getting all the attention, mobile advertising has grown up in the background, attracting the attention of tens of millions of people.

Hundred of millions of people are predicted to follow, but its potential is far greater still. At the end of March, 2.84 billion mobile phones were in use worldwide, according to London-based research firm The Mobile World. The firm predicts that figure to jump to 3.25 billion by year’s end.

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On-deck means mobile services installed on the phone as part of the carrier’s service; off-deck means services that consumers download to their phones.
“On-portal advertising is now becoming a real marketplace,” says Philippe Huysmans, vice-president for international development at ScreenTonic, the company Microsoft acquired. Mr. Huysmans reckons that operators will always have the upper hand because they have access to post-paid subscriber data helping them precision target advertising.

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