I have written about pros and cons of mobile marketing, bluetooth marketing and gphone, but what is the future of mobile marketing now where Skype, Google, Yahoo! etc are trying to push the limits and bring it to the new level? It seems that 2008 may be a breakthrough for mobile marketing, but experts are in other opinion. David Verklin, CEO of Aegis Media Americas, has said that 2008 isn’t the year of mobile, 2009 will be. I think it is partly because things in mobile field have developed rapidly and people/companies just have to get use to that. At the same time majority of companies and people still don’t have a clear understanding, that is why we would need a year to digest all this information. Here are some key points why 2008 won’t be a mobile’s year.

1. Data prices are too high
2. To use newer products you can target only to people with new devices
3. Engagement post-click. Lack of ecosystem partners and campaign integration
4. Buyers still say it’s hard to make a deal
5. 2.5G isn’t fast enough
6. We still need to use mass media to drive people to concentrated places, i.e. from TV to web

But these are just a few aspects. Manish Jha the CEO of Vantrix said that his company deals with interoperability issues - they have a database of 13,000 phone types. Think about it. You may have enough of a headache building your website for PC and Mac. Or just on PC, for IE and Firefox. Or just in IE, 6 vs. 7. Think that’s bad? Try 13,000 phones.

It seems that 2008 will show us will mobile marketing stay in puberty or do a breakthrough in marketing field.