Wireless ad standards taking shape
On Wednesday, the Wireless Advertising Association released its suggestions for the standard way to show advertising on cell phones and personal digital assistants. The standards try to dictate, for instance, the number of characters that an advertisement accompanying a short text message should have or how long a pop-up ad should stay on a cell phone's screen.
With a standard set of formats and sizes, the WAA hopes to smooth the path for those who create advertising campaigns. Industry analyst Ovum predicts that revenue from wireless advertising will reach the billion-dollar level by 2006. Jupiter Research isn't that aggressive.
It predicts companies will spend about $700 million on wireless advertising by 2005.
Carriers and wireless service providers are also banking on advertising to help recoup the billions they are spending to provide a high-speed, always-on cell phone capable of downloading things like music or games.
But analysts and industry insiders are split on whether the wireless industry, which is still relatively young, should even have standards for advertising right now. WAA Chairman Robert O'Hare believes it's necessary and draws a parallel to newspapers, which adopted a standard set of sizes for the advertisements they display. --Ben Charny, ZDNet News