Is mobile failing? (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – Friday, June 15, 2012)

Earlier this week, I reviewed the content marketing and mobile lessons I learned while at the HEDNA conference in Madrid. But I kept coming back to the questions about mobile in particular, because, according to Gartner, mobile devices will rank as the number 1 way to get online as soon as next year.

Here’s what caught my attention this week in the mobile marketing sphere:

• Leading off, Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic asks, “What If Mobile Ads Just Don’t Work?” Given the hoopla surrounding Facebook’s IPO (and subsequent IP… uh-oh), it’s a fair question.
• Madrigal suggests in his piece that “…the mobile revolution may represent a doomsday for free ad-supported content and services.” Others may have had the same thought, with magazines and YouTube YouTube discovering power in a subscription model.
• Despite these “doom and gloom” scenarios, it’s interesting how effectively Twitter monetizes mobile.
• Also, one of Coca-Cola’s senior execs recently suggested that all companies “Plan with mobile as the first screen,” largely because of its effectiveness at reaching many types of customers and because those customers engage so heavily with the device.
• Finally, maybe the problem isn’t mobile. Maybe it’s that companies are talking to the wrong people. Alexis Madrigal returns to this week’s list by noting that the primary customer online may be women, not men. No matter the device, the most important thing to get right is to talk to the right customer.

Have a great weekend, Big Thinkers. And, for those parents among you, Happy Father’s Day! (Yes, even to the mothers. Us dads couldn’t do it without you).

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