It was inevitable. The youth have been experimenting with mobile internet browsing despite its clunkiness and long before proper data bundles were made available by the cellular networks.

All that has changed now…and will continue to change at a very rapid pace. “More people in the world will have their first interaction with the internet with mobile than with laptop,” said internet co-founder (and Google vice president) Vinton Cerf at a five-day web conference which wrapped up on Friday (April 24, 2009) in Madrid. (ABS-CBN calls it “boom times for mobile”)

There are more than 3.5 billion mobile phones on the planet (4 billion according to this source) and undoubtedly the number of phones with internet browsing capabilities will increase dramatically. The iPhone is the envy of (m)any (a) mobile phone user, but with its elegance comes a price. Most ardent Apple fans will own one (and continue to ridicule people who don’t), but mobile device manufacturers have felt the pressure and similar phones are now popping up all over the show.

“The move to mobile access is very important as mobile devices are the first way that people in developing countries get their first contact with the web,” said one of the inventors of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee.

Just five percent of Africans currently surf the web, compared to 23 percent of the entire population of the globe, the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union said in a report last month.

The greatest downside of mobile internet has been the difficulty with browsing web pages on the small screens of mobile phones, subsequently dampening consumer demand.

Enter the iPhone (and the Samsung Omnia, Sony-Ericsson Xperia, HTC Touch Pro, Blackberry Storm and many others)

With its touch screen capabilities, the iPhone enabled users to scroll web pages by touching the screen and dragging, while zooming into certain areas by double tapping on the screen. Mobile internet browser, Opera, soon followed suite.

Also fueling the growing appeal of mobile Internet access is the fact that applications and web sites are now being developed just for portable devices and their smaller size.

“One of the most exciting developments is that the Web is going mobile. We can finally access all these things anywhere, anytime,” said Belgian software scientist Robert Cailliau who designed the web with Berners-Lee in 1989.

There is suddenly a huge market opening for mobile web and application developers, undoubtedly spurred on by the iPhone App Store, creating smarter, quicker and more effective ways of connecting to our favourite sites.

More Googlers are excited by the prospect, with Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, stating:  “Mobile devices are the most important technology of (them) all.”

These are exciting times, but also poses and enormous gap for businesses to jump in early and grab market share of an already gigantic, yet ever growing, mobile web browsing, “always on, always connected” generation.

Is your business available on mobile?
What are your favourite apps on your phone?

There is something distinctly different between iPhone users and well…the rest of the mobile world. For one, iPhone users are decidedly more attractive than their rather unspectacular smart phone using peers. At least that is something they will have you believe. And they probably have a point.

Steve Jobs is the male sex symbol of technology companies (He made turtlenecks fashionable again…no?). Compare Steve to Microsoft’s man of mediocrity, Bill Gates, and it is probably not very difficult to fathom where Apple users get their profound sense of vanity from.

But in addition to that, you get the sense that iPhone users have a rather unwholesome affinity to their mobile phones, something they seem willing to fight till death for. It is not unlikely at any given moment to witness a war of words between Apple iPhone users and especially our Windows Mobile burdened Boondocks. And considering the inferiority complex most Windows Mobile users suffer from, it’s not a fair battle in the least.

Some of us have gone to great lengths to find applications to override the Windows Mobile operating system. There are even applications out there that simulate the Apple iPhone interface. Can you imagine the verbal abuse one would have to cop if an iPhone user recognizes your cheap attempt at twinning a unique product such as the iPhone? I mean, who does that? (I only had it on like, briefly, ok!)

According to @nealkernohan, a rather eccentric looking chap, not at all unlike the sort you would imagine using an Apple iPhone, “there is an active iPhone community and a buzz about them. People who have them are excited when they talk about them and about the apps.” Further, he reckons “other phones just cannot gain that much hype and momentum. Everybody knows Apple and knows Steve jobs. Who is Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo?” And I must admit I don’t have the faintest clue…

Despite the fact that the iPhone is the best selling phone of all times, it is unlikely that the iPhone would ever enjoy the market share of Nokia. Still, the business world seems desperate to get into its pants. Of course it is 2009, and if content is king, niche is queen and Apple is the sultry mistress. And we all know which is the most fun (wink…wink). Yet, it is still rather profound to witness the lopsided buzz that is created around this “superb” phone.

And I use the word superb very loosely. Considering that the Apple iPhone cannot send MMS messages, forward standard text messages, record videos, cut and paste, has a meager two megapixel camera and can only run applications that are specifically built for the it, superb is hardly a word I would use, yet its owners are perversely loyal to a model that doesn’t carry the grey matter, but packs the rack of your typical Girl of the Playboy Mansion.

Yet it’s the Windows Mobile owners that take the abuse, regardless of phones like the Samsung Omnia, HTC Touch Pro and the likes that can do all of that and more, but is rather nonchalantly dismissed as a competitor, simply because of the operating system.

But dismissed it should be. For a Windows Mobile driven phone is not a player in the mobile technology field, it is just too darn boring.

News just broke that Amazon released an application for the iPhone to work like their fairly popular Kindle. From a colossal smart mobility market, Amazon chooses (consciously above all) to only target the Apple iPhone user base. In essence, that grants them exclusivity, causing hype and an ever inflating ego among Apple iPhone users. And this is just one example of the enormous first-to-market benefits iPhone users have.

It is obvious that if you want to be part of the cool gang in gadgetry, an iPhone is a non-negotiable. It is the gadget of the new millennium and multi-billion-dollar companies, application vendors and garage-bound college dropouts simply salivate at serving the godlike creatures that own them.

If you’re a regular Windows Mobile smart phone user like me, get to the back of the line idiot…and wait for the good stuff. For it will come. Eventually. And while we wait, let’s marvel in silence at the functionality of the piece of equipment we hide from rest of the world.

Because…We chose functionality over cool! We chose cost effectiveness over hype! We chose mainstream over niche! And for that we’ll have to pay the price of an average eternity…

Mercedes Benz has recently added to their marketing mechanics by including mobile to its repertoire of value added services. This is another innovative move from another top international brand, one that surely puts a smile on the faces of each of the Benz’s family members, iPhone users, not to mention the agency responsible for this piece of development.

The mobile portal as it is known contains four sections including New Vehicles, Brand World, Entertainment and Service & Contact and it has been joined by additional entertainment platforms such as Mercedes-Benz TV and the music download service Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape.

The range of personalized services is rounded off by a car configurator and information on the technical details of each model offered by the Stuttgart-based automotive brand.

There are a multitude of features to this new development, but I’d rather spare my readers the technical specifications and focus on one rather important question: Why would Mercedes Benz, “the car for the older man”, identify the need to create a mobile internet platform for its fans?

Some of you might rightly argue that Mercedes Benz have become a lot more savvy of late, especially considering their uber cool new C-Class BMW basher, a car that certainly appeals to the more established and young executive market alike. But is mobile marketing pushing the envelope a bit far?

Let’s look at a couple of the core benefits of mobile marketing: Adding value to service delivery, ranging from access within reception areas to the global accessibility and uptake of the device. That’s massive value any which way you look at it. It is also likely to cloud the downsides to any mobile campaign, which is where my skepticism is borne from.

Without having any figures or ROI measurements to my availability, there are a couple of problems I can identify with developing mobile services to complement your brand, more so if you are smaller business and every marketing penny counts.

After the initial hype around the platform, what are the reasonable expectations of sustained usage of the site? If we look at demographics, it’s almost a given that the younger generation appeals much stronger to these types of technological advances and the younger the user, the shorter the attention span or interest.

Yes, it is a cool new addition to my iPhone, but how long does it take before this excitement is filed in the back of my phone’s memory bank and first in line for deletion once I run out of my incredibly large storage space?

Mobile is a strong and effective medium for marketing and brand awareness, but it’s important to keep a clear understanding of the basic needs of your business. It’s sometimes very easy to get carried away with creative campaigns, often lacking longevity, when simple and clear communications would’ve sufficed.

There are two types of businesses:

1. The Mercedes Benz’s with the capital to fill every possible marketing channel with content, regardless of the sustainability of its value add and the purchasing potential of the market it serves.
2. The hundreds of thousands of other businesses that need to focus a lot of time and energy on selecting a channel that reaches the largest possible target audience and ensuring that the campaigns possess the potential to optimally sustain its value.

Make sure you know in which category your business resides.