Will ads pay for cell phone bills in future?

[Alexander Turcic]

Next time you're browsing with your cell phone and it slows to a crawl, don't immediately blame the connection. Avertisers and marketing firms are currently drooling over mobile electronics including cell phones and audio players and it'll be only a matter of time before you find sporty cars go racing across your screen while you're trying to push the dial button. BusinessWeek says:

The terrain is wide open, unlike with TV, where branded entertainment advocates contend with long-established business models. Mobile-minded executives harbor hopes that they may be allowed to write some rules of engagement for this platform -- which will grow up without the public service demands placed on TV in its early days. "Unlike television, where [networks] funded the content, and owned and exploited it, here the distributors aren't funding the content," says Ben Silverman, founder of independent production company Reveille LLC and executive producer of NBC's The Office. In mobile, there may be no middleman between programmer and advertiser.

Though I am not wildly enthusiastic about mobile marketing, some form of unobstrusive, well-placed advertisement on mobile handsets could become acceptable. For instance, ads could subsidize the cost of premium content such as directory assistance, ringtones and news services. Well, even if you don't believe it now, ads could also subsidize the time you spend babbling into your cellphone one day.

Related: AdMob delivers pay-per-click mobile advertising