Was just watching CSI:NY and the intro showed a typical public service call for a missing person on TV. This got me thinking about the effectiveness of mass media in our social media age. With so much content (on and offline), and just as many channels to consume them by, how does anyone convey a message effectively to the masses? The only medium that came to mind was the mobile phone. In Singapore, there's over 100% penetration rate, which means everyone has one next to them all the time. Sure there are other messaging platforms such as email, and possibly Facebook, but those platforms lack the attention and focus people give to messages on their mobiles. So the public service can definitely make use of SMS to reach the masses, but when the same is done for advertising or marketing, it becomes annoying and instead of converting you piss off the consumer. My take is mobile web content. 90% of the time I surf on my mobile phone, I'm either using Google Reader or Google News. Not that I can't access other websites, but they are not designed for the mobile platform making them difficult to read. High-qaulity content has always been the driver for mass adoption of technology. The vastness of the Internet drove adoption of broadband, well produced shows drove the adoption of cable TV. But mobile phones actually came before the content making them the ideal platform with no barrier to entry for the consumer. I believe in the near future we'll see some really good must-see / must-read mobile only content. Will you be a part of it?