A cell phone revolution?

Top technology executives at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday said mobile Internet will eventually let advertisers tailor messages based on a user's location.

Here are some quotations from the panel discussion they held:

"In theory location-based advertising will be a very good business and useful to the end user," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt (picture).

Moderator David Kirkpatrick noted the number of people with cell phones far outnumbers those with personal computers.

"It will not be long before we are all carrying video (transmitting) cell phones. What we now call the cell phone is becoming the de facto Internet device. The technology industry is rapidly becoming the mobile technology industry," said Kirkpatrick, who is the senior editor for Internet and technology at Fortune Magazine.

Wang Jianzhou, whose company is the largest mobile provider in China, noted China boasts a half billion mobile users and is adding to the number at a rate of 6 million per month. The future, he said, was with "location advertising" enabled by the devices' global positioning system.
SONY CEO Howard Stringer was more skeptical, saying young users of mobile phones don't like advertising.

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