In 2011 I gave a talk at conference that The Media Kitchen had organized about the impact of mobile on marketing. While everyone else presenting was talking about how to make mobile ads work, I was openly critical of advertising on mobile platforms altogether arguing that ads were (a) mostly annoying given the small screen size and (b) likely to be replaced by direct commerce. I just tried to find my slides from that talk but unfortunately came up empty. 

I was reminded of the talk when I read a post on Venturebeat this weekend about the difference between Tencent’s model in China and Facebook’s and Google’s approach here. Tencent’s WeChat makes the bulk of its revenues from direct commerce, meaning in-app transactions. The post mentions that Facebook is pushing directly into transactions again. If Facebook pulls that off it will be a real threat to Google which does not have a successful messaging app itself (despite having launched several, most recently Allo).

Messaging apps are of course not the only way that direct commerce can happen on mobile. A few companies, such as Uber, will have their own apps that people install and use directly. Another way is for existing apps to integrate commerce functions, for instance using Button. Location intelligence as provided by Foursquare will also play a significant role here: for instance, if I can book a table at a nearby restaurant as I am walking through a part of town, that’s the kind of direct commerce experience that improves dramatically on ads.

So while this shift has been talked about for some time now, I believe we are reaching an important turning point. The big question though is still what this means for content consumed on mobile devices. And here too I think we will see a change with interesting subscription offerings being developed.