More than 140 million U.S. consumers will be paying for mobile broadband services in 2013--up from 46 million in 2008, according to a new study by Parks Associates. The research firm also predicts in its "Mobile Broadband: Beyond the Cell Phone" report that the number of smartphones sold in five years will more than triple to 60 million as multimedia devices go mainstream.

In a long overdue move, all the major record labels have agreed to allow Apple to sell tracks without the much-maligned DRM software that limits consumers' ability to transfer music.

In this creative's view, 2009 has to be the year that ad-sponsored online video goes somewhere new. We need to quit relying solely on the backend plumbers and technologists who just add more functionality to video windows -- and, instead, start focusing on the poetry part of the video business: new video narrative structures and applications that will help move the space forward.

A number of companies like PandG and General Mills are making lovely banner and landing page combos that indicate a new seriousness to mobile. But their mobile functionality still leaves me a bit puzzled.

The way people use Facebook is changing. What's more, something very significant is happening in the way people are communicating through social media in general. More and more, folks are sharing videos as a means of personal communication. What this means is that video is coming to Facebook in a big way, but it will not look like the video we have seen on such social media platforms as YouTube and MySpace

Preheaders have received a lot of industry love throughout 2008. We're thrilled to see more email marketers begin to optimize this small but valuable real estate snippet and excited to watch and participate in the evolution of preheader best practices. With 2009 just starting, this seems like a good time to reflect on where the Preheader Express has been stopping, and to begin mapping its future itinerary.

Trend #1: Content and commerce transaction revenues will continue to dwarf mobile advertising revenue -- and will come from more off-portal sources. According to Jupiter Research and numerous other sources, mobile content transactions generated more than $25 billion in worldwide revenue in 2008 and is projected to exceed $50 billion by 2012-13. Add mobile commerce to the mix (in Japan, M-Commerce grossed $6 billion in 2007, double mobile content sales) and transaction-oriented behavior will top $100 billion in this timeframe.

"Finish all your dinner," my Mom used to tell me. "Or you can't be a member of the clean plate club." Not wasting food earned me not only

In a controversial ruling, a federal judge has dismissed a spam lawsuit filed by four Web users against social networking site Reunion.com because the users didn't claim they lost money as a result of e-mails sent by the site.

Cox Cross Media, the digital sales arm of Cox Enterprises, on Monday announced a marketing partnership with the ABC-owned Television Stations Group. Per the deal, CXM will handle online sales for the Web sites of ABC's 10 owned-and-operated local stations