Two approaches. Built your own, or partner. REI took the partner approach, and it seems to be paying off in terms of number of downloads.

If you don't already know about it, I ame across a good mobile blog today. It's actually published by a wireless division within Omnicom and Fleishman-Hillard.

According to the report, people will be buying tickets to a lot of things via their mobile phones. The biggest spend will be on transportation, understandably. From there, entertainment, and then sporting events.

Those sales figures are the tip of a very long marketing process, promoting the airfares/airlines and entertainment and marketing events. So it's something the marketers will be focusing on in addition to all their current activities.

While entertainment industry marketing may not be transactional today, it likely will be soon.

A couple of logical but good stats. According to research, 46% of those using social networks have visited their favorite social service on a phone. The clear leaders are Facebook and MySpace, which mean's its really about the network, and the phone is the facilitator. An obvious indicator that any online service should consider their options in mobile very seriously.

Must read. The juicy bites include:

* 370 students registering 443 devices
* % of applicants registering online in 03: 33%; Last year? 89%
* Majority of freshmen own a Mac, not a PC
* Of all students on campus, only 5 have landlines