Ads on Cell Phones

NPH got a new phone over the summer, and when we did so we sought out a phone that was a phone and nothing else. No camera, no web browser, no video: just a phone. And we found it (pictured there on the left).

Part of the reason we wanted such a simple phone was that we just don't use all that other stuff. We wouldn't surf the web from a mobile device, we already had an mp3 player, and limited video clips streamed over your phone screen just seems like a dumb way to waste time. But another reason to avoid those bells and whistles is that with content-delivery streams comes advertising. NPH didn't figure that it would take long for those mobile video clips to subject us to ad content (the same way that networks' online versions of their shows do).

Well, Mark Glacer over at MediaShift has a post about this very thing, the prospect of your cell phone being used to assail you with advertising. His post is an innocently posed question: "What do you think . . ."; but consumer reports are already saying what people think. "No thanks." Make no mistake: any time a device can be used for any kind of communication, be it audio, text, video, or anything else, that device is going to be used for advertising purposes. The text message function on the new NPH phone has already been hit up by ads from the its service provider. If we start getting all kinds of ads on the thing, we may just have to get a phone without text capability. If that's even possible.