There is so much news and there are so many announcements flying around these days I just have to duck much of the time. However, I feel compelled to point out a fact of some significance that got almost no coverage.
The FCC says that at the end of 2004 there were 178 million landlines and 181.1 million mobile phones in the U.S.
This is a signficant milestone for numerous reasons, one of which is that it shows that there is a signficant mobile marketing opportunity (including Mo-Lo) out there for those who can get the device/user-experience/business model right—a tall order. (I had a very interesting discussion today with Tommy McGloin, SVP of MapQuest, who was extremely bullish on the outlook for mobile.)
There are also implications for the traditional telco/directory industry with VoIP on one side and wireless on the other, and more and more people potentially falling out of the database.
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Greg Sterling is managing editor of The Kelsey Group. He also leads The Kelsey Group’s the Interactive Local Media program, focusing on local search. Greg came to The Kelsey Group from TechTV’s “Working the Web,” the first national television show dedicated to e-business and the Internet.
