An interesting article from BusinessWeek called The Sell-Phone Revolution is a mirror of mobile users' growing concern over the heightened attempt of mobile carriers to crack and profit from mobile marketing and advertising. The projection from ABI Research is enough motivation to almost all mobile ad agencies to push and enter the mainstream the market. On the other hand, the research from Forrester must serve as a caution.

Judging from the tone of this article, it seems that mobile users are now moving targets of profit-driven ad companies without regard to welfare and respect to privacy. In the end, they might even know more about us! In a way it is reminiscent of Will Smith's Enemy of the State.

Any advertising that causes someone to flip open their cell phone and see an ad won't be a wondrous moment

The bigger concern for many mobile users may be that advertisers will simply know their phone number. The industry is ostensibly developing guidelines that keep users from being barraged with messages-restricting, say, how often an advertiser may contact the same consumer in a month. But that cat may be out of the bag: Mobile-phone users who received unwanted messages already have filed lawsuits against marketers.

While this might be a hasty generalization, it is also important to consider these factors to make mobile marketing a seamless interaction between buyers and sellers.

From a mobile carrier's perspective, these advancements in mobile technologies like use of GPS, Zip codes, or area codes to pinpoint location of users are considered major victories. Conversely, consumers view this as intrusion of privacy and security. In the end, disconnect and antagonism take place.

Once again, this is negative publicity for mobile marketing companies. It seems that there is a lot of fence mending to do to grab sizeable share in this emerging channel. More importantly, it serves as a challenge to improve performance and involve customer insights in future developments.

Via BusinessWeek