FierceMobileContent columnist Sue Marek posted an interesting column about how difficult it is to find mobile media content, along with a look at one company's solution to the problem. She said that consumers are unlikely to purchase mobile content that they don't know exists or can't find.

"A small startup called Digital Sidebar has an interesting solution that uses the white space that appears in your phone's screen when you receive a phone call or read a text message," Marek wrote. "In other words, when your cell phone rings, you automatically look at the screen to see the number of the caller. Likewise, when you receive a text message, you look at the screen to see the message that tells you a text has been sent. Digital Sidebar proposes to insert content into that space."

Digital Sidebar's original goal was to use that space for mobile advertising--since as a society we must cram as much advertising as possible into every single available space on the planet. But finding content in this way would still be advertising or promotion-driven, even if it's not a typical display ad in and of itself. Plus, Digital Sidebar requires a client which will only work on certain phones.

We'd still like to see some kind of content portal solution that integrates within a cell phone's main interface. Most efforts we've seen to date either lack interesting content--because they only contain limited clips and other media bits that the Soviet Carrier Overlords make money off of--or are just too difficult to navigate on a 2-inch cell phone screen.

Solving the content discovery dilemma [FierceMobileContent]