Your questions were fantastic and have given us — and the conference presenters — a lot of great ideas for discussion topics. You also made it very difficult to choose a winner!

So, without further ado, our free ticket winners are…

Chana Hercenberg:
As a consultant, someone who has spent time researching the industry [...], I would say one of the most important issues to address for a business going mobile is how do you best design a robust and engaging money making mobile page in a small amount of space? What are the best technologies available, and what are the best tips for optimizing the space?

Sudhir Bhojwani:
Are we going to see more of companies such as Blyk ad model MVNO? How big is this market really? I feel it only affects young subscribers.

Tim Peter:
Simple question: Why do we think anyone will *ever* transact using a handset when they’re holding a phone in their hands? Wouldn’t it just be easier to call? Shouldn’t the emphasis be on tracking the outcome of the call itself and using *that* as the call-to-action?

Don’t forget: We’re assembling a crew of mobile marketing experts to answer not just these, but ALL of your other questions in following posts. Stay tuned!

. .

P.S. IMC is still offering a 20% discount for GrokDotCom readers.

The IMC Mobile Marketing conference, in addition to offering a 20% discount to all GrokDotCom readers (click here for details), is letting us give away three free tickets to their event.

How To Enter

All you need to do is leave a question — not a comment — below that addresses a common or interesting concern about mobile marketing.

Be specific. The more detail you give, the better our chances of giving you a clear answer.

The three most interesting questions (according to Bryan and me) win. It’s that simple!

Who Should Enter

Anyone reading this who wants to learn more about mobile marketing; especially those who read GrokDotCom often but don’t comment. We’re setting one of the free tickets aside for a first-time commenter, so don’t be shy!

Why You Should Bother

Because EVERYONE’S questions will be answered. That’s right. Even if you don’t win, we will have mobile marketing experts (from the conference and others) answer your questions. Besides, your odds of winning free tickets are pretty darn good.

How You’ll Know if You’ve Won

We will email you. We’ll also announce the winners next Monday in a new post.

Good luck, and may the best questions win!

UPDATE: Thanks for the great questions, everyone! The winners have been announced. So, if you have already left a question below, we will get your question answered in upcoming posts as soon as possible.

. .

Editor’s Note: Happening in the same hotel, the two days prior, June 2nd and 3rd respectively, FutureNow’s Persuasive Online Copywriting and Call to Action seminars give you even more profitable excuses to visit New York.

Who: A variety of industry experts, including FutureNow’s Bryan Eisenberg, Alan Levy (BlogTalkRadio), Peter Olfe (Yojo Mobile), Dan Melinger (Socialight), Ludo Collin (Starcut), Wil Tan (MojiPage), Phil Kemelor (Semphonic), Jennifer LeClaire (Conversion Press), Eric Hansen (SiteSpect), and more.

What: The Internet Marketing Conference (IMC) promises to bring some fresh thinking about mobile marketing to New York City this June. This conference is entirely dedicated to understanding how emerging mobile technologies will affect radio, reach, widgets, multivariate testing, location-based marketing, search, promotional marketing, web analytics, marketing strategy, and more.

You can talk, read e-mail, and send text and multimedia messages through the mobile, but is it possible to do more? The speakers at IMC New York 2008 will discuss the possibilities and limitations of reaching people on the move.

Join Bryan as he discusses themes from his forthcoming book, Always Be Testing, and how proven online marketing techniques can help maximize the return on your mobile investment.

When: June 4, 2008

Where: New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania | 401 Seventh Avenue (at 33rd St.) | New York, NY 10001

Why: Because, whether you like it or not, mobile delivery is the future and you need to be ready. Besides, we like New York in June. How about you?

How much? As an extra incentive for loyal Grok readers, the people at IMC have been kind enough to extend our conference discount to all of you. When you register, simply put in code “GDC” at checkout to receive 20% off your total conference price (the discount will be shown on the summary page, the last step before paying).

For more info, visit the IMC website.

I already have a leash, model number BlackBerry 8700g. I enjoy guilty introverted fantasies of a device that will allow me to provide a mild-yet-meaningful electric shock to everybody who calls me; not to torture them, but to have them reconsider whether or not it requires a conversation.

With a voice that no librarian could love, I’m certain that I’ve been that cretin who won’t shut up more often than I’m comfortable admitting. Not wanting to be rude, I’ll apologize if I’ve disturbed you. But my liberty should end at the boundaries of your liberty, otherwise just call it license and add it to those “rights” so bellicosely defended by libertines garbed in libertarian costumes.

My friend recently purchased a cell phone jammer. I don’t know if he ever used it but we laughed deviously at its delicious potential during show and tell. Can you imagine?

Cellphones have changed our lives forever. Remember the Seinfeld episode in the Chinese restaurant where they couldn’t reach each other? That episode is about 15 years old and it feels as fresh as the leftovers in the Honeymooners’ icebox.

We love our cellphones and, as they evolve, we can’t imagine life without them. We hate our cellphones as they become more intrusive in our lives and the lives of others.

Do you ever turn off your cell phone? Do you ever ask other people to? What are/should be/might be the rules?

TheNew York Times also got me thinking about this in an article called “Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally“:

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent.

The technology is not new… [Read the full article - registration required]

What are the implications of the new Google mobile platform?

But that depends on what your definition of the word “free” is. If city governments pay, taxpayers flip the bill. If Google picks up the tab, “free” means ad-supported. Any way you slice it, innovation isn’t free, and Wi-Fi doesn’t mean what it used to. That seems to be why Google recently announced its Wi-Max ambitions and plan for creating a free wireless mobile network.

We’ve seen this before. Back in 2005, Google claimed it would give free Wi-Fi to San Francisco residents, which it hasn’t — yet. Meanwhile, several U.S. city governments, moving at a snail’s pace, have been talking about “municipal Wi-Fi” for years. Very few have made it happen, and the ones that have are regretting it to various degrees.

As it turns out, what’s good for Spokane, WA, may not be work for Philadelphia, PA.

BusinessWeek’s Olga Kharif reports on “Why Wi-Fi Networks are Floundering“:

While 415 U.S. cities and counties are now building or planning to build municipal Wi-Fi networks, “deployments are slowing down slightly,” says Esme Vos, founder of consultancy MuniWireless.com. Vos’s tally still marks a nearly 70% jump from mid-2006, when there were 247 muni Wi-Fi projects on tap, but that’s down from the torrid pace of a year earlier, when deployment plans doubled.

Perhaps the clearest hint of trouble ahead is that some of the companies partnering with cities on these projects, including EarthLink (ELNK) and AT&T (T), are having second thoughts about remaining in the municipal Wi-Fi business.

In San Francisco, recent developments have left many observers scratching their heads over whether that city’s Wi-Fi project, announced more than a year ago, will ever get off the ground. In July, the president of the city’s Board of Supervisors revealed that he was seeking to change the terms of the preliminary contracts awarded to EarthLink and Google (GOOG)

Could it be? Is Google the “deadbeat dad” of free wireless internet service?

I wouldn’t count on it. Creating a Wi-Fi grid for a city as hilly and tech-obsessed as San Francisco is way more complicated than partnering with Sprint to retrofit its existing cell phone towers with longer-range Wi-Max equipment. (In the past, they’ve explored other alternatives )

Google is playing it smart by stalling on free Wi-Fi. Perhaps they spoke too soon, but they’re planning their business model from every angle before giving it away for free in the form of Wi-Max.

Maybe the cities should have done the same. Being an early adopter is great, so long as you’re not stuck with outdated technology to support the huddled masses and their $1,000+ laptops.

UPDATE — GigaOm reports that a company called Meraki will give San Francisco free Wi-Fi. It would seem they’ve beat Google to the punch if not for the fact that Google & Sequoia Capital funded Meraki earlier this year.

MarketingVOX shares this Ball State University study on college students and mobile advertising…

Among the survey findings:

• 37.4 percent of college students said it would only take the offer of a free ring tone for them to accept advertisements on their cell phones.
• 21.4 percent preferred a discount or coupon to a restaurant, movie or grocery store.
• 20 percent wanted free minutes, upgrades, access to the internet or music.

Pay close attention to that last group. They’re the smart kids.

It’s widely known that Gen-Y are text message fiends, but ringtones are losing their luster with the smart kids. Why are the smart kids so important? Simple. They’re the trend-setters.

Wait a minute, though. Don’t they all just steal their music? Maybe just a bit. But while Apple (APPL) brags about selling its 3 billionth song, EMusic — which is more youth-driven, anyway — is innovating mobile distribution. And it seems Google’s willing to trade mobile ads for internet service.

Looks like the smart kids might get their wish after all…

How will they do that? By transforming the mobile experience, of course.

Yesterday, we discussed how Google’s WiMax deal with Sprint makes sense. Today, the mobile revolution seems imminent. Google’s feeling double-lucky . . .

Stephen Arnold, a Kentucky-based analyst who has been tracking Google with trainspotting accuracy for a number of years, has found 17 telephony-related patents and patent applications by Google and another dozen with a tangential link, says an article in Red Herring. Even if Google does not plan to commercialize all those bells and whistles, it still means that “Eleven to 12 percent of Google’s innovation effort since 1999 is in telco,” says the analyst.

What’s next on the agenda? The analyst believes Google is working on a new kind of “doubly lucky” predictive search for mobile devices. This will take users directly to search results, incorporating location and time of day into the findings, and will even use a form of predictive typing to guess at what the user wants to find–not unlike predictive word programs like T9 that are used in SMS. All of this will be in aid of reducing the time it takes to engage with the Internet on a mobile, he says in an interview with Red Herring.

Might they be triple-lucky? Today’s New York Times reports that the FCC has agreed to play nice during its upcoming spectrum auction.

If you haven’t realized, Google’s taking search to the next level. Contextual, temporal, and geographical relevance is the name of the game.

Whatever happens with the upcoming spectrum bid, Google’s mobile ambitions are on solid ground. The only question is: Do you feel lucky?

Well… Do ya?

[*UPDATE: ClickZ reports of two "highly observant search bloggers" who've noticed what appears to be behavioral targeting from Google.]

[Cue laughter and eye-rolling.]

Enter Google’s deal with Sprint, and its promise to bid at least $4.6 billion at the FCC’s upcoming spectrum auction for the coveted 700-megahertz range. This frequency is the ultimate sweet-spot for broadcasting, and it’s been collecting dust ever since you stopped adjusting rabbit ears on your TV.

Why such a bold move? SiliconValleyWatcher’s Tom Foremski believes Google will become a wireless telco with its own fat backbone:

Google is not interested in search. It is interested in connecting the dots in user behavior. My cell phone can tell Google a huge amount of information about my user behaviors. And as Om Malik at Business 2.0 GigaOm, rightly points out, location is a powerful thing when you are in the contextual ad business…

Still, Foremski doesn’t see WiMax as the answer. He proposes that Google change its model entirely, and morph into a telco. But the thing is, as ComputerWorld reports, Sprint’s doing it anyway…

Mobile WiMAX should provide far superior performance than the cellular operators’ 3G networks and Sprint has said it would charge less. In simple terms, mobile WiMAX would give Sprint at least a two-year lead over its competitors in terms of providing fast wireless broadband access.

Even more important, Sprint has said it would be an open network. By contrast, Sprint’s cellular competitors think the world is clamoring for walled-garden closed networks with overpriced service plans.

Meanwhile, the likes of PBS’s Robert X. Cringely have, well, cringed at the idea. “Is Google on crack?” Cringely seems to think so…

[...] what Google has done is a bold and foolish act in which it is hard to find an upside for the company. If they intended to actually win the auction, which I wish they would, then they wouldn’t have tried setting these conditions. They would just bid a truckload of money and walk away with the spectrum. But this thing they did do, what is it? It makes no sense at all, and one could argue, in fact, that is fiduciary suicide.

[...] This could be a fake, a head feint on Google’s part. By attempting to set these conditions on any eventual auction winner, Google is tacitly telling the mobile carriers that it really doesn’t intend to bid or doesn’t intend to bid above the $4.6 billion threshold. Emboldened by this the telcos, who are also arrogant and have a kind of reptilian craftiness, may decide to save their resources and only bid, say, $10 billion. But what if Google bids $20 billion? Well then it’s a whole new ballgame.

I hope that is Google’s plan, but I fear that it isn’t.

Like Cringely, Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal thinks Google might be bluffing…

[...] Threatening to become a wireless carrier is one sure way to get the attention of those already in the mobile space. Surely the likes of Verizon and AT&T would be willing to accommodate Google’s partnership ambitions, just so long as the company stays out of their business.

Perhaps. Time will tell if it really is a bluff, but a Sprint/Google network would work. Google provides the ads while Sprint manages the network. Why is this such a stretch? Beal’s skepticism seems healthy, but Cringely’s is way overblown.

Google isn’t on drugs. Google is the drug.

Google’s Objective: Organize All the World’s Information

But to what end?

By organizing, cataloging, delivering, and analyzing the intentions and behavior of people, they’ve learned how to make lots of money. Google has always been more focused on distribution and delivery than they have been on advertising. Sure, the ads are where Google’s revenue comes from, but it’s a symptom — not the cause — of their current distribution model: search.

Now, close your eyes for a moment (or at least squint so you can still read this) and picture network that doesn’t require you going to Google.com or using a freaking browser toolbar to get table-scrap ads shoved in your face — highly relevant ones at that. Who’s searching now?

So, now for my own spectrum speculation:

• Google will bid as much as it takes to win the auction.
• A revenue share with Sprint will allow advertising to pay for the whole enchilada.
• Pure-play broadband providers will continue to distinguish themselves with premium “last-mile” delivery, but they’ll have to get real about pricing. (Gen Y doesn’t fear an open network.)
• Other wireless carriers won’t take long to flirt with Google.