Oh where oh where could my little iPhone be?

Asia, man. Asia. It’s where lots of little sheep, I mean gadgets, run off to. In this case, they estimate 1.7 million iPhones that have not been activated in the States may have buggered off to other countries for unregistered, unlocked use. Six months ago, when a six-man team from iPhoneSIMfree.com "cracked open" the iPhone for use outside of the AT&T network in the US, and Europeans and Asians the world around clasped their hands in joy.

Ryan Block on Engadget said, "It’s done. Seriously. They wouldn’t tell us when and how
they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that
they’ll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so). We can
hardly believe the iPhone’s finally been cracked. No, scratch that –
we just can’t believe it took this long." Well Glory Hallelujah.

Why do we care? When little guys find clever ways to outsmart The Man, to chip away at the big profits of big companies, who really wins? Does Apple really lose that much? (No, says Saul Hansell in the NYTimes blog. They still get 50 bucks from each phone, sans activation.) Let’s take this lesson with us as we cheer on U2 in their battle against music piracy as they attack the big guys. Am I talking about big music producers?  Of course not. U2 manager Paul McGuinness blames the ISP providers. Oh, those big guys.

According the the Financial Times, he told
delegates at the music industry’s international trade show in France that they had "concerned themselves for too long with
the small fries who organised illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing on the
internet," suggesting that "we shift
the focus of moral pressure away from the individual P2P file thief and
on to the multibillion dollar industries that benefit from these
countless tiny crimes. The ISPs, the telcos, the device-makers.” (You gotta wonder how they translated "small fries" for French-speaking attendees.)

He then called for a partnership in the future with the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Comcast, and even Facebook, to work together to fight pirates.  Right.

Mobile marketing is here. Oh, wait, I’ve already said this. Many times. But last week when Yahoo and T-Mobile announced their partnership that would bring ads to UK cell phones it sort of became more of a reality. This doesn’t scare Google in the least, because T-Mobile uses them for mobile search. More importantly, Yahoo is still the loser in the Internet game, cutting thousands of jobs in an effort to stay competitive i.e. not sink into the muck of third-tier Internet portals.

But I don’t want to talk about losers. I want to talk about winners! YEAH! bring it on! and on!

We now know that mobile marketing will be as popular among marketers as a Kirsten Dunst lookalike in Vientiane. Though, unlike this phenonemon, there’s bound to be some haters. Imagine the possibilities of reaching consumers anywhere and everywhere they go. Walking, talking, looking at ads. Fabulous.

But telephone advertising is not just limited to mobile. The latest in TALK technology in VoIP systems is in-call marketing. Someone making a call to, say, Chicago, might hear an ad for flights to O’Hare as they waiting to be connected. Will this piss people off? Answer: yes, unless you offer something in return, like free calls. Oh, they’re already "free" – this is just the long-expected effort to monetize these services. I should have known.

Here come the doubters: Angela Steele, mobile marketing vice president at ad buyer Starcom
USA. "The first question I would have is how is privacy being handled," she said. "People need to know that by using the service, that information
can be used for advertising." Yes, yes, be clear about it, people.

Mediapost said that now Ads Target Super Bowl Female Fans, a good idea when you consider that 45% of the audience is historically female. Over 130 million people will watch "at least some of it," according to a Fox spokesperson. That, to me, sounds like how women might watch it – in between gossip sessions and dip-making. (I can say this freely, as I openly enjoy both of these activities.)

…when it looked like the Dallas Cowboys
might make it, "some people talked about how good that would be for
ratings, to have the teams with the two cutest quarterbacks playing one
another. But I think that’s insulting–a woman isn’t going to sit
through a three-and-a-half-hour game because she thinks the quarterback
is cute."

I beg to differ. Yes, maybe I wouldn’t watch the whole thing, but certainly choice bits. Better yet, watch it later and cut out all the non-cute-quarterback shots. Oh, and Doritos.

More on girly Super Bowls: Unilever has hired some artsy fartsy Parisians to do their Super Bowl ad for Sunsilk. AdAge called it a "Super Bowl first" in which a brand hires a design shop instead of one of the big agencies that specializes in TV ads. Also jumping on board are the digital guys, driving a "massive digital effort" and driving women to the website lifecantwait.com. Will it work?

More importantly, when are they going to run out of spots? For the bargain price of $3 million spots a pop, it might be sooner than you think.

Have you read The Ugly Little Boy and The Widget, the Wadget, and the Boff? I didn’t think so. It’s an Isaac Asimov tale, further described as

the depiction of 21st-century society rounded out and the history of
the Neanderthal tribe from which the eponymous boy was abducted more
fully given. When the woebegone waif, now named Timmie, was snatched
from his epoch, he was brought into a pool of no-time, which exists
coincident with the present.

Since Timmie is condemned to living within
that pool forever, his presence raises moral questions: Is it abusive
to leave him alone in this limbo for eternity? Would it be equally
cruel to send him back to the Ice Age?

These are questions that not even I, in full working mode, can attempt to tackle. In fact, it makes me a little teary to even think about it. Why not let someone else explore not these issues, but those with the same terminology (wadgets, limbo, and woebegone waifs) and casually observe the discussion, all while less-casually drinking?

SFBIG is sponsoring a panel tomorrow — Thursday the 24th of January — in which some clever people will talk about "The Wadget Revolution." Let’s be clear: I have no idea what a wadget is. (I do, however, know what a woebegone waif is, having seen Oliver! the musical upwards of 18 times.) But if SFBIG thinks it is important enough to have an event centered around it, and would even go so far as to call it a revolution, then by god, you should attend.

When: 6-10pm (panel begins at 7:00pm)
Where: St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco
What to Wear: your best business SF-casual. trendy riding boots optional.
What to Bring: a flask full of JW Black. what a way to make new friends!

Well, not really. That’s the problem with webcasts. You have no idea how many people are actually attending. It could be hundreds, thousands, but it could also be tens, ones. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but that’s one of the things about virtual education that may be sadly disappearing. Unlike the attentive(?) and engaged (??) ad:tech panel crowds, webcast audiences are not all in one place, doodling in their notebooks, gasping in amazement, or boo-ing and hissing — at opportune moments, of course.

But I doubt we’d get much reaction from the non-virtual audience of B2B’s Media Business Webcast dealing with Online Content. Moderated by B2B’s Matthew Schwartz, and featuring 3 distinguished panelists in the areas of publishing, social media, and digital distribution, the webcast was worth not its salt but maybe 40 minutes worth of pepper. And the fact that you could listen to them while lounging on your loveseat or chowing down on Mixt Greens made it all the better. Still, like most presentations, you can’t help but zone out during the parts that are ‘uninteresting’ or simply not relevant to your own personal situation. And not to sound too adult, too business-y, but we just can’t afford to waste time on information that we don’t need. It got me craving a search engine for webcasts. Imagine, you have 30 minutes free in the middle of the afternoon, and have been meaning to do some research on Agile Development, but are feeling rather lazy and can’t conduct that search all by your lonesome. So you type it into the Webcast portal and voilà! a plethora of panelist speakers and presentations to choose from. Oh, if only…

From the Great British Isle: a report called "The Impact of Social Networking in the UK" says that social networks are going to give search engines a run for their (advertising) money. Emma Thelwell of The Telegraph writes,

Social networks know far more about their users than
search engines and traditional portals. They could, for example, choose
to show an advertisement only to men who live in Leeds, aged between 34
and 55, who enjoy Italian food. This information
could command much higher advertising rates than the straight forward
‘sponsored links’ that are shown on Google.

Seriously. Just as messaging may be replacing email, ad dollars on portals may shift towards social network sites, especially if they can get their act together and improve their search and navigation capabilities, making company/brand information easier to find and therefore boosting targeted
advertising campaigns. The current state of search on social network sites is "appalling", according to Robin Goad, a co-author of the report, so there is obviously a lot of room for improvement.

But let’s not put all the blame on the technology, or lack thereof. As Nick Burns of SNL’s Your Company’s Computer Guy might ask, "It’s the email that’s stupid, not you right?"

Right on. Even if places like MySpace, Facebook, and (let’s give the Brits a shout-out) Bebo even had sophisticated search capabilities, would users even know how to use it correctly? Yet another study from the UK reports on the habits of the "Google Generation" — concluding that "kids born
since 1993 aren’t quite the Internet super-sleuths they’re sometimes
made out to be." Their information-finding skills are not quite up to par. They might be better with technology, but they also "tend to use much simpler
applications and fewer facilities than many imagine." Not that I was imagining a 14-year old searching though the annals of the Library of Congress for primary historical documents, but we’d still like to think that they’re using relevant search terms, reading text instead of just looking at pictures, and not copying and pasting all the time. But it just ain’t so.

The Catch-22 of it all is that as search improves on social networks, which is considered this generation’s "space", traditional sources of information like libraries are going to have to be careful not to "invade" the space used primarily for social (and now commercial) functions. Should the search market be fragmented? Will we eventually have a different portal for every industry or category?

Seeking diplomatic immunity from advertising? Maybe brand ambassadorship is the way to go.

AdWeek reports on how citizen journalism and user-generated content, all the rage of 2007, is evolving into something called "citizen marketing", where branding and buzz is put in the hands of Joe Consumer.

Overall spending on citizen marketing is growing and
is expected to top $1 billion in 2007, up from $980 million in 2006,
according to PQ Media’s word-of-mouth marketing forecast. That number
is expected to swell to almost $4 billion by 2011.

These programs "hire" consumers, via incentives and
rewards, to act as part PR agents, part sales reps and part
evangelists. They mix the spontaneity of buzz building with technology
to instigate, guide and measure what repeat customers are saying to
each other about their brands.

Be careful, though. There’s a fine line between instigating and guiding  – and downright manipulation. See WOMMA’s Unethical Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies and be careful not to tread too close to that line. And also know how to keep it separate from
straight-up advertising and public relations and that it "requires a different mindset,
strategies and toolkit", according to Small Planet Partners. Hop onto the trend, but go about it with as much care as you’d use for any other aspect of your campaign.

It’s nearly time for mobile marketing to bust out onto the advertising field with all the energy of a sidelined football (sorry: soccer) player. So much promise. Such talent.

As Fortune’s Techland blog relates, "estimates of mobile advertising revenues have often turned out to be
overblown, but that doesn’t mean the industry isn’t making headway." Some big players in the online ad biz made mobile ad-related purchases, and 2008 may prove to be the year in which these acquisitions play out. Let the young blood battle it out, while the seasoned players sit back and enjoy the show.

And what a show it’s going to be. Web analysts predict that overall mobile ad spending will cross the $1 billion
threshold for the first time, generating $1.55 billion in revenue in 2008. For comparison’s sake, I’ll tell you that it was a mere $878 million last year.

But there are challenges. The Boston Globe has an article on mobile advertising still being in the ‘tryout stages,’ and quotes Multimedia Intelligence CSO Rick Sizemore (I’m not even going to talk about this last name. It’s just too fantastic. A mouse pad tagline in the making.) as saying,  "It’s the Wild, Wild West right now. This is an interesting and compelling vehicle, but they don’t
necessarily know who to work with. There are so many options out there
– a lot of hype with no substance, and then a couple of gems."

Gems, my eye. Asia may be the only real gem right now in their use of QR code for special promotions. But the Oregonian ski bums & bunnies may not be too far off.

Deloitte and Touche released a new media survey in which they discovered that, as the Hollywood Reporter put it, "Auds are more wired." Meaning, we be connected! I mean, we’ve already been connected for business, obv, as more people get all Blackberried out and are constantly online (and checking email) from eight-to-five. But now it’s for entertainment value.

TV is still ahead, with 85% of those surveyed saying that TV advertising still has the
most impact on their buying habits. But get this – online ads are the John Edwards of the adbiz, coming in second at 65%. Magazines (Hillary?) trickle behind, at 63%. Boo hoo.

And let’s take a look at the most effective of the online ads:

Search Engine Results Ads – 78%
Interactive – 62%
Banner Ads – 60%
Pre-roll and Post-roll -  31% and 19% respectively
Embedded Ads – 17%

One last rather interesting point to glean from the survey is all about content. Consumers (67% of them, that is) said that they would "willingly be exposed
to more online ads if it meant they could receive free content they
found valuable." They find Internet ads to be more intrusive and bothersome than those in newspapers and magazines, but would mind less, and probably pay attention more, if the content was relevant. Hence the effectiveness of search engine results ads (see above). But what is going to happen in the future? Will people start paying for content in order to avoid advertisements? According to the study thirty-seven percent would. Goodbye ad models, hello subscription.

The eMarketer predictions are in, and 2008 is looking quite rosy for online marketers. (Did you think it wasn’t?) Leading the pack will be the Beijing Olympics and the presidential election. Online video and specialized search will be at the forefront of new innovations and speedy growth, and overall ad spend is expected to be "surprisingly resilient, even in the
potentially recessionary economy."

With money tight, marketing
executives will continue to gravitate toward the Internet, looking for
more measurable ad formats to buttress their positions.

So we can sit tight on that. The debatable issue for 2008, I think, is going to be ad spend on social-networking sites. The Washington Post wrote about the eMarketer report that ad spend on these sites is expected to grow 75
percent next year, to $2.1 billion.  Facebook and MySpace attract the most attention, of course, with more than 70
percent of all U.S. social-network ad spending last year.

Some still think they’re just a fad. Many believe that the Internet has always been about community, and the value of one’s network is in its scope and reach. A la Metcalfe. But, as the Washington Post article points out, ad spend on smaller, niche sites is growing.

Of the $920
million spent this year to advertise on social networks, 8.2 percent
went to niche sites, up from 7 percent in 2006, according to eMarketer.
Next year, niche sites’ share of ad revenue is expected to grow to 10
percent.

I don’t think social networks are a fad. But there is certainly room for growth, or rather, change. And ultimately, their business model is going to have to evolve. That is what the coming year should bring.