In The Mobile Advertising Panel Roundup in AORTA, industry experts view privacy issues as a priority in developing mobile ad campaigns. I applaud their concern but I'm a bit worried on the implementation side. If given the chance, I think industry members must all agree on the scope and limitations of the word "privacy". After all, the event cites that mobile advertising means different things to different people. Logically, privacy is always relative.

While I'm a little bit disinterested on the technical side, I find the idea of using recommendations as form of non-intrusive advertising very interesting. It is possible then that the key to connect mobile consumers and mobile ad agencies lies in what marketing guys call as buzz marketing.

There was some discussion on the meaning of mobile advertising and how promotions and marketing are part of the same mix. Jai said that recommendation is another form of advertising which appears non-intrusive and is actually useful for the consumers. Amazon gets a good chunk of their revenues from recommendation clicks. I myself find them quite useful and end up buying dozens of books this way every year.

Victor thought that the "promotions" piece (tied to local search) is actually going to be a much more lucrative business than the banner ads or even media search related advertising.

Simply put, buzz marketing is word-of-mouth marketing - effective and affordable. To make things more interesting, marketing experts believe that technology dramatically magnified the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Mobile phones, e-mails, chats, and blogs (ahem) allow people to connect easily and recommend products/services instantly.

I guess it is time to return the favor and let mobile technology rely on word-of-mouth marketing.

To know more about Buzz Marketing, you can download a free sample through this link. You can also visit the site Buzz Marketing.

Thanks to AORTA and I hope they have more discussions on mobile advertising.