Starting your car and doing your banking all via wi-fi? Who will be able to afford it?

According to Mediamark Research, cell-only households outnumber landline-only homes. In fact among 18-24 year olds who live alone 57% are cell-phone only. Mobile devices also outnumber personal computers three-to-one and with the approaching broadband speeds, it is inevitable that the web and the mobile world are converging.

Connecting anywhere and anytime, mobile might very well transform how we search and use information in the not to distant future. But what will this new paradigm look like? To understand mobile search and marketing opportunities one needs to understand the mobile environment.

It was only in the late 1990s that the first WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled cell phone was introduced. This allowed subscribers for the first time the opportunity to browse the web from their cellular phone. But unlike the freedom associated with web search from PC the mobile search is controlled by the Telco carriers who are in the business of selling ring tones, games, videos, other mobile ready web content, and search by kilobyte for loading web pages. Each carrier controls what goes on their network so it is not a dynamic environment. For example I read that it took engineers 5 years to get flash onto mobile.

In addition to the challenge of controlled networks the mobile environment is fragmented supporting 200 different devices and operating systems (each with different sized screens), and 40 different web browsers.

Research by Harris Interactive indicates that 90% of mobile users say they are not interested in receiving ads on their mobile phones but 78% say they would consider incentive-based advertisements. In terms of preferred ad formats 56% (over half) prefer text messages, 40% would like to receive picture messages, and less than 20% would choose to receive video ads. The main reason for the unpopularity of video ads was concern about price fo download.

Regardless of the hurdles in the mobile space, just as the PC transformed our lives so is there the potential of the mobile phone to become a truly “personal” device that changes the way we live. Mobile search and marketing effectiveness will depend on cost to the user.