AOL to purchase Third Screen Media

The future of mobile marketing is a bit brighter this morning, with the news that AOL will purchase Third Screen Media, incorporating the mobile marketing platform into the already developed Advertising.com fold.

by Kristina Knight

Terms of the deal have not been released.

Lynda Clarizio, president of Advertising.com said, “Third Screen Media is the perfect complement to these core differentiators, offering the same unique advantages in the mobile marketplace. From display advertising to video advertising to mobile advertising, this acquisition firmly positions Advertising.com as the one-stop shop for online advertisers and publishers.”

According to many analysts the move is exactly what the mobile medium needed to validate mobile marketing efforts. Analysts have the US mobile marketing sector growing from $421 million last year to $4.7 billion by 2011. The global market is expected to increase to $11.3 billion by 2011.

Still, mobile marketing has a lot of growing to do in order to catch up with the rest of the online marketing world. According to some reports, only about 11% of mobile phone users in the US also use the mobile Internet, download music or watch videos on their mobile phones. The big problems seem to be service and cost of the platforms. Until users see that they can access the mobile Internet wherever they are, the platforms will likely be used only sporadically.

As that problem is seen too, the cost issue will likely go down as well. Users have indicated that receiving advertising messages in exchange for downloads, etc. is preferable to simply paying subscription fees. However, they prefer to do neither until the service issue is cleared up.