If you were to believe mobile social networks about their advertising predictions, they will by 2012 be raking in between $28 to $52 billion dollars in ad revenue. Given that normal online ad revenue only broke $27 billion for the first time in 2007, and with predicted drops in ad budgets due to the economic recession, the mobile predictions seem a bit hard to swallow.
Colin Gibbs of RCRWirelessNews brings us these predictions from Informa Telecoms & Media, and they may seem outrageous. They do to me, anyhow. Traditional online topped $27 billion globally with devices (PCs) people are more accustomed. But mobile is something that is still in a state of relative infancy in a large portion of the world. Yes, mobile handsets are everywhere, but how many places use them beyond their phone features on a regular basis? Japan is well known for their tendency to do everything from their handsets, but in countries such as the United States, you might see us doing simple checks for sports scores or the weather; intensive, fully- interactive browsing is not quite the norm. Yet. Continue Reading »