Smartphone advertising sucks. For whom the Kettlebell tolls.

Advertising on the Internet pretty much sucks hairy donkey balls (far as I know). It's almost always ugly, intrusive and of little value. For all the times we are told that the web has led to a "revolution" in advertising and intelligence and metrics, us users know the truth: it's pretty much a hit-or-miss game, with emphasis on the miss.

A friend recently mentioned to me that I should get kettlebells. Since these are a product I first went to Amazon.com and typed in kettlebells, which was helpful though not complete. Which kind should I buy? What weights? How do I best use them?

For this, I went to Bing.

A day later and now it seems as if every website I visit has a huge BUY KETTLEBELLS! banner at the top of the page and another one to the right.

Of course, I have already moved on. The ads are irrelevant.

One of the reasons that Google has become one of the most profitable, powerful companies on the planet is because the ads they serve are so often directly connected with a specific, timely search. I'm not sure this will be enough in the era of the smartphone.

After all, the screen -- even those big Android screens we are being told (by Android) that we should prefer -- are still not quite big enough to effectively display an ad. One that we will view, at least. Likewise, even if one were to search Google, there is barely room for the 'right' 2 or 3 search links, let alone paid links from advertisers.

Fact is, smartphones have quickly become a trillion-dollar-plus industry, while smartphone advertising remains at the starting gates. It is not an industry that Google, for example, is guaranteed to win. Even if they do have a built-in lead.

One of the reasons Google refuses to provide any real cost and revenue data in their earnings statements re Android is because, as an advertising company, they simply don't make much advertising revenue at all. Right now, Android is all costs and nothing but costs.

Apple is re-tooling iAd, which has to date been a failure.

I read this morning that Millennial Media, the *second* largest mobile advertising company in the US is preparing its IPO.

For an embarrassingly tiny $75 million! Google just dropped twice that amount to buy Zagat restaurant reviews. $75 million aint shit.

If the stationary web permanently changed advertising then I can assure you that the mobile web will change it once again. Advertising in the mobile web will be unlike advertising in the stationary web. The race is on.

The dream of mobile advertising, if we can call it that, is that the smartphone provides real-time, hyperlocal data that should provide a more powerful understanding of the user's specific needs. Thus, advertising will be better. No more needless Kettelbell banners, for example. All the data about our location, our activities, what we are doing, who we are with, what is near us, who is near us, should all lend itself to something that is less an advertisement and more, say, a welcome appeal.

That's the dream, at least. My fear, of course, is that the knowledge -- the data -- that is effectively locked inside our smartphones won't be fully accessed nor fully understood on a powerful, personal level for many more years. Meaning, we have years and years of being bombarded with noise desperately trying to get us to spend our money on stuff we don't want, don't need.