Following up on a recent BRANDEblog post, there are many opinions out there about how mobile technology is being used. According to a piece in a recent issue of Red Herring, consumers are using their mobile devices in a multitude of ways, but quite differently than professionals.

As of June 2006, Telephia quoted the number of unique monthly mobile web users as 34.6 million. The top 5 sites browsed amongst those surveyed were:
- Yahoo Mail (approximately 6.5 million)
- The Weather Channel (approximately 5.5 million)
- ESPN (approximately 5 million)
- Google Search (approximately 4.25 million)
- MSN Hotmail (approximately 3.5 million)

M:Metrics compiled the following usage statistics between April and August of this year:
- Text-Messaging: Less than 40%
- Photo-Messaging: Less than 15%
- News-Browsing: Less than 15%
- Personal E-Mail: Less than 10%
- Business E-Mail: Exactly 5%

However, Harris Interactive's study on messages sent to phone subscribers for new services seems to be falling upon deaf ears. In regards to consumer response rate:
- No responses: 68%
- 1 response: 22%
- 2 responses: 7%
- 3+ responses: 3%

The best conclusion I can gather from this piece in Red Herring is that mobile phones are widely being used, and are increasingly becoming part of people's personal and professional lives. However, the promises of the mobile technology have yet to be realized in the United States and it may take more than clever branding for U.S.-based companies to reach the current plateaus of Europe and the Asia-Pacific.