The Associated Press reports that while all sorts of initiatives are underway, mobile advertising is an industry still in its infancy but showing promise:

"More than 80 percent of Americans now own cell phones - a statistic Jupiter Research analyst Neil Strother equated with carrying a potential advertising channel in their pocket."

Advertisers are gambling small amounts of money with lots of different chips, trying everything from contests to banner ads, to see what works and what doesn't.

"It's the Wild, Wild West right now," said Rick Sizemore, chief strategy officer for the tech consultancy Multimedia Intelligence, in the report. "This is an interesting and compelling vehicle, but they don't necessarily know who to work with. There are so many options out there - a lot of hype with no substance, and then a couple of gems."

This will all likely continue through 2008 as well. "That's how a new market is being created," said Dan Olschwang, chief executive of JumpTap Inc., an ad-technology company, in the article. "People adopt all kinds of stuff they know from other medium and gradually the industry learns how to utilize the best in this new medium that's called the mobile phone."

(Image courtesy of the Associated Press)

Mobile advertising still at tryout stage [AP via Yahoo! News]