Since about 1997, mobile marketers have been proclaiming each year that "This is the year of mobile!" Well I think that this time they could be right, but not necessarily in the way that anyone thought mobile would go.

I remember when WAP was first released here... I also remember it being slow and fairly boring and I think it may have been the speed + lack of creative that have stopped brand marketers especially in the FMCG sector from using mobile as a viable channel of communication.

Even if you're not a fan of Apple or the iPhone you have to admit that without it we'd still be in what I like to refer to as "the dark ages" of mobile marketing. The iPhone was to mobile what the Playstation3 was to Sinclair's Spectrum ZX. A proper smartphone that gave a real internet browsing experience as well as the ability to customise what your phone was capable of via the app store.

Phones are getting smarter though and with the advent of new technologies such as NFC (near field communication) could phones by used as the next bank cards for oyster style payment? But what other pieces of cool mobile technology could we see in the next few years?

The advent of the tablet (yes yes the iPad) in 2010 saw a new revolution in how we use mobile devices, considering 5 years ago Microsoft had given up on the idea as they didn't think it would work and now all of a sudden after Apple released the iPad every major manufacturer is trying to produce a decent competitor.

So what could stop this from happening? Apart from the iPhone and the iPad the other major contributor to this growth in mobile use is that the networks started to offer unlimited data allowances which meant that people could get used to using their phones to be always connected. Fairly recently this has been changed to smaller data allowances, so as more people get smartphones there's a chance that they won't use them to their full potential making the use of rich content a thing of the past again. At least one network here in the Uk is still offering unlimited data, so lets hope they keep it that way!