Talk about “walk before you run.” The debate about mobile advertising –- and whether users will accept it—has just started and already vendors are lining up with new ways to push more advertising to users. Forget banners and interstitials while looking for content on the network, now technologies announced during 3GSM by companies such as Zi Corp, Tegic and Openwave would let operators observe and monetize the individual user’s click stream whether they seek content on the mobile web or on their phones.

Zi Corp’s, a provider of intelligent interface solutions, demoed an approach that’s a lot like desktop search on steroids. In this scenario, the mere act of searching for content – even if it’s stored on the phone – can trigger the delivery of related offers and/or mobile ads when users go on the network. This is possible because Zi’s technology monitors what users do with their phone and then hands this information on to operators, who can use it as the basis of their own AdWords-like approach. For example, a search for a music track stored on the phone could trigger an ad offering the chance to buy more content in the same genre. 

In a nutshell, operators, MVNOs and media companies now have a mechanism for inserting mobile ads linked to what the user is doing in real-time. It’s search advertising without the search. However, inserting ads in the middle these activities could be a risky business, and there is a danger this could turn into spam. It’s a trade-off: the approach clearly allows operators and content providers to make money on mobile search – in all its forms – without having to use (or share revenues with) a search engine provider.  However, ads at every turn can be annoying – no matter how relevant they might be.

Openwave’s approach – dubbed Contextual Merchandizing – monitors individual user’s click stream data and passes this on to operators, allowing them to effectively monetize off-deck traffic with targeted advertising. Rather than exclude search engines from the action, Openwave has partnered with JumpTap. The tie-up will make use JumpTap’s advertisements and search related targeting information and allow operators to deliver relevant and contextual advertisements to the end user (and most likely suggest content that takes users back to the operator portal). The jury is out on whether these approaches might open the flood gates for advertising overkill. Chances are they will. But they also could cause a shift in the mobile advertising balance of power that could put operators on a much more equal footing with search engines.