In the last 10 years, mobile technology and marketing have converged to form serious business opportunities that many believe will pay off like current online advertising models. But in what has now become a very crowded field, the mobile market is still plagued with complications, from rapid product changes and pricing constraints, to the endlessly moving target of consumers that have yet to settle into any really consistent behavior patterns.

According to Forrester analyst Peter Kim, 2008 will not be the year that mobile marketing makes it big. Although social sites like Facebook and Twitter have integrated mobile marketing and some proactive advertisers are spending R&D advertising in the mobile space as a form of market research, the reality is the industry is still very much in a trial and error period. At the core of the mobile marketing movement is the lure of reaching the young, influential demographic that was raised in the Web 2.0 environment: Nearly 63 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 have cellphones, as well as an astonishing 35 percent of those ages eight to 12, according to the Nielsen Company. They are a vibrant and valuable market to reach and the advent of smart and rich media phones will dramatically increase the viability and opportunity for marketers.

Also consider how mobile devices are becoming more personal than even the personal computer. The process of selecting the mobile device type, design, color and even connectivity options has helped make it the greatest digital human appendage that most people can’t seem to live without. Even though the U.S. trails several other countries like Japan and South Korea in mobile bandwidth and application dependency, the thinking is that once mobile is mainstream here in the States, the advertising models will take hold and take off. The question is when?

One of the big barriers to mobile marketing is cost. At a dime a text message, in many cases, advertisers will need to present relevant offers rather than simple creative branding campaigns. Remember when the Internet was pay-per-minute? Advertising was the enemy as space and time cost consumers money. Once fixed rate surfing was unleashed, the advertisers came rushing in and consumer attitudes quickly changed to accept the fact that marketing is just a natural element of the digital scenery. Carriers are starting to compete with fixed rate programs for unlimited mobile use, but the costs are still not nearly close enough to that killer commodity range. For these reasons, mobile marketing is still wavering in experimental mode as most of the marketing community at large waits for a successful model to be discovered.

Though successful mobile marketing may still be a future vision, it’s only a matter of time and technology before mobile advertising campaigns try to take hold of consumer attention. In the interim, there will continue to be significant investment in breaking down the walls of mobile marketing, as new innovations and opportunities surface, all designed to strengthen our connection with people, products, and the limits of possibility.

For those of you who’ve been in the Internet space for many years, you may still recall that ill-fated broadcast.com production in early 1999 of Victoria Secret’s Webcast that ended up crashing due to such high feed demand. That event put streaming video on the commercial map, and with it came very high expectations that video online had extensive business viability.

But now, nearly a decade later, when the technology and distribution capabilities for online video have matured to support high volume and high definition, enterprise video is still loitering in a state of purgatory. If video is truly such an effective medium online, why are corporations so reluctant to engage the opportunity?

The barriers to entry a decade ago for utilizing online video were clearly justified. The media was untested, user volume and interest was not predictable, and the production of online video was still at traditional broadcast cost structures. Today, viral video is being supported on numerous social video sites, and online users are more likely to push “play” rather than read site content. Additionally, production costs for shooting, editing, and converting high-quality online video are a fraction of traditional video costs. So, why the great disconnect for businesses and online video? What is really the cause for such a slow migration and adoption of enterprise video?

After being on the service side of online video production and distribution for many years, I have come to the conclusion that enterprise video is hampered by many phantom factors that are curtailing its adoption. First, there is a general misguided business mentality that online video would not apply to their operation or marketing programs. This opinion is the standard business answer to almost every new technology. Second, the stigma for production costs and creative development is still very high. Apparently, most people are still unaware that DV cameras are just a few hundred dollars, and editing software and uploading are now commodity services online.

The fact is, though, that we now live in a massive culture of on-camera talent pools where hordes of people want to be in and on the broadcast highway. With the foregoing myths having been thoroughly debunked, one would assume online video would be as applicable as, say, email and digital photography, and its time to market would come with even greater speed.

Nearly five years ago, I was looking ahead and made many assumptions that online video would penetrate far beyond the social aspects and become a vital resource for millions of businesses. Today, I look at the scene and have to concede that enterprise video has made little advancement – and, quite frankly, I don’t know if there will ever be some great trigger event that will cause some future mass adoption. How can such a simple communication tool with such a diverse range of uses have such a hard time taking hold in the business world?

This is a phenomenon I would really like to understand. The value of video is proven. The viability of many business uses for video is evident with so many great examples from seminar videos, video meetings, surveillance video, and even online video marketing initiatives – but all for a select few of early adopters. The truth is, audiences prefer video content, yet the majority of enterprise leaders are simply not motivated enough to engage in this dynamic medium.

I have to assume that someday soon, business video use online will mirror the use and acceptance of online photographs, blogs, email, and other mainstream utilities; however, I will no longer be holding my breath for that day. For now, enterprise video remains an elusive resource that only a select few are converting into opportunity – while all others blindly assume that online video holds little value for their organizations.

— Peter W. Bowman, Executive Vice President, Avericom

The growth in online marketing spending is creating high expectations for ad professionals who are increasing their comfort, knowledge, and interest in online advertising. With this massive uptick in online spending, ad inventory, and Internet venture prospects, the online marketing world may be overlooking the realities of a competitive landscape. Could they be headed for a perfect storm?

Recently, I spoke to a young college graduate who landed an online advertising sales job for a company that represents media inventory for Web-based properties. In his first six months with the company, he sold over $2.5 million in ad space, and he expects to triple that for the remainder of 2008. It reminded me of my post-college display ad sales days at a community newspaper in upstate New York about 20 years ago. The only difference between us was that I was lucky if I landed a few thousand dollars a week in ad sales.

Optimistic ad professionals should also be aware of negative factors that can influence the market demand for online advertising, causing it to not grow as rapidly as predicted. There are three storm systems that can contribute to an online marketing meltdown.

First, the incredible content frenzy of blogging, social networking, and corporate data dumping online is creating another build-it-and-they-will-come mentality. This approach is unhealthy as revenue expectations are once again too easily incubated for anyone that can put a banner ad placeholder on a Web page.

Secondly, marketers, and the investors that fund their activities, are given the green light to expand their online advertising efforts far beyond traditional market testing. This is also fueling the build-out mentality, which throws online development investments into a large pool where return revenues become questionable at best.

Lastly, the new online media environment keeps renewing its own marketing offerings by advancing its own technology, whether it is video or mobile, and changing its advertising standards. The good news for the immediate future is that those subversive, annoying online direct marketers (e.g., love drugs, apparatus enlargements, etc.) that have run free for years are being pushed out of sight by more sophisticated brands that have more legitimate products and services to offer.

The great chase for the almighty ad dollar is just starting to heat up in this domain. With each new online media venture, out-of-the-woodwork publishers are banking on revenue generation from -- you guessed it -- advertisers. The challenge is that the increased ad dollar spending will never really make it to the majority of new ventures, which are grasping for a limited supply of insertion orders. The huge pile of online marketing dollars will quickly mature and be directed to those “top of the food chain” properties that are successfully proven and, most likely, already in the media space.

Years ago, there was a similar chase among limited players, each vying to build out a Web property in hopes of attracting ad dollars that simply never came. We all know what happened to our happy little network then.

Today, we may have this exciting increase of ad dollar spending online, but it comes with very unhealthy highs and lows that can fuel a storm. The low is based on the notion that anyone can participate in the creation of an online media. The high turns out to be a very inflated expectation that the ad monies will be waiting for them in the lobby.

The end result of all these factors leads me to believe that the majority of new media publishing ventures that expect to float in money will ultimately sink as the bulk of online advertising revenue stays with a very limited number of very weatherproof properties.

— Peter W. Bowman, Executive Vice President, Avericom