When you read exciting news about mobile start-ups receiving another bunch of financing, of course you get excited to be working in mobile industry. But on the other hand, you worry.

You worry about the American economy, for instance. My wife obsesses with stories about people who had taken loans immeasurable with their income, and now are getting into trouble with the real estate market going down. Yet a few years ago the market was boo-oo-ming.

So, does everything need to go from extreme excitement and overestimation to a fast slide down, bursting of the bubble and complete pessimism? Will mobile industry experience the bubble on its way to maturity?

To understand what is going on, read (at least the beginning of) “The Great Unraveling” by Paul Krugman where he references (better yet, read this one:) Robert Shiller’s “Irrational Exuberance” on the Ponzi game (read “bubble”) economy:

“Imagine, just hypothetically, that a new set of technologies – technologies that are really, truly, deeply fabulous – has just emerged. And suppose also that a number of companies have been created to exploit these new technologies, in the entirely honest – but very hard to assess – belief that they will eventually be able to earn huge profits. For the time being they earn little if any money; even if they make an accounting profit, they must continually raise more cash to pay for equipment, acquisitions and so on. Still, as the evidence for a true technological revolution mounts, the prices of their stocks keep rising, producing huge capital gains for early investors. And this attracts ever more investors, pushing the prices still higher. If the process goes long enough – and there is no reason it cannot go on for years – the doubters will start to look like fools, and the bears will go into hibernation. Everyone (well, almost everyone) may be completely sincere; nonetheless, in effect you get a Ponzi scheme without a Ponzi, a scam with no scammer.”

Internet – which we all love now and which has delivered magic as (well, almost) promised – has lived through the burst of a bubble. The bursting has killed big companies and has discredited the idea for years. Will we witness the same with mobile marketing? (If yes, follow the Levi Strauss strategy: “Let other get caught up in the gold rush, we’ll sell them the supplies.”)

There is a natural rush of operators to become natural monopolies and to grab onto the “everything on-deck” idea despite some rational voices to the contrary (see http://www.telecoms.com/itmgco.....15416.html on a story of the largest Indian operator choosing to outsource). The same is true for mobile marketing. I can hear conversations in offices of mobile operators on the C-level: “There is this buzz everywhere about mobile marketing. Don’t we have all the data and access that no one has? And what, you say we cannot sell a … (name it: e.g. on-deck portal)? Mobilemarket it NOW!”

And guess what happens? Who will be implementing the campaign – marketers with years of marketing experience or techies without marketing background? Do I need to tell you? Right, technology people will implement and produce results that will discredit the idea for the tops as well as for the industry.

When there is hype, we need people with experience to take care of it. Like the world’s top tennis coach in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” who does not know how, but who does tell if a person is going to double-fault on a serve.

Experience counts! Despites the gold rush, think about what is “gold” for you, where “gold” is, and how to get it. Sending SMS spam may kill the idea; appending ads to the balance info may make you millions (http://www.mobilemarketingmaga.....at-wa.html).

Finding a revenue model, a way to tap into the youth generation (or the $$$ of the U.S. market projections), and to figure out the ‘killer app’ is part of the technological evolution. I suppose the other point here is that part of the nature of a bubble is that it will eventualy break. The point I think some are trying to make here is that the true breaking point is not going to happen for some time - because this is just a continuation of a series of innovations that will have just begun to hit our industry. So in that light, I do agree that the innovation and experimentation is just beginning to simmer…

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Thanks,
Avinash.