It’s important for readers of blogs to know if a writer has an agenda. So I thought you’d be interested to know that I’m doing a fair bit of consulting right now for AdMob, which I hope will deepen in due course.

You can see my original take on AdMob here, if you’re curious. And by the way, I wrote that BEFORE starting any discussions with them, as far as a professional relationship is concerned.

I’ve been involved with mobile marketing for nearly six years now, both as an observer and a participant, which by any standards makes me a veteran. And Admob is the nearest thing I’ve seen yet to a great solution.

It helps mobile website publishers monetise their sites by serving up unobtrusive text-based ads as people are browsing on their mobiles.

Advertisers claim that they get 4 times the effectiveness over the web. This is not surprising as the ads are so pre-qualified. The user must have the right phone settings to be able to click through or download content. And the targeting means that ads are only served on handsets that are compatible with the content that’s being sold.

Users are also clicking through like crazy, demonstrating that many of us find advertising acceptable if it’s useful and relevant.

So far, the main advertisers are content owners, as it’s the first time the mobile channel can be used to actually market mobile products. Historically this has been done via other media, especially offline, funnily enough. So for these types of company, it’s a bit of a no brainer.

But the interesting factors for me are twofold:

1. AdMob enables targeting by handset type. This presents a fascinating opportunity if you’re a handset manufacturer as you can both reward loyal customers and precision target competitors’ handsets with different messages. How powerful is that?

2. Web based ads aren’t used exclusively to sell computer related products and services. So will the mobile channel emerge as a medium in its own right and attract advertising dollars from brands outside mobile content? I think the answer is yes, but maybe this will take time to develop.

As far as MobHappy is concerned, it’s going to be business as usual. Both Carlo and I will continue to contribute, although we’re always on the look out for new talent to join us. I may naturally write a little more about mobile marketing, but I certainly don’t intend to focus on that exclusively. And if I think it’s important to the story, I will post a little reminder of my possible vested interest.

One opportunity that might be created for MobHappy though, is that I’ll be focusing a lot on getting to know emerging players in mobile content, games and applications. This is an area that we like covering here and hopefully you like reading about too. So this will mean we can expect more of this type of coverage too.

I hope you found this interesting and not too self-promotional. My intent is merely to keep you informed of possible bias creeping in to my writing and analysis - and to ask you to let me know if you spot anything! But I don’t think I’ll have a problem remaining disinterested in my writing and I hope you’ll carry on reading.