Admob just published their October metrics report. First, I should say - congratulations to Admob. They are at nearly SIX BILLION (5.8 billion to be exact) ad requests per month. That's a huge number compared to where they were a year ago. And, they don't represent the entire market.

There's a lot more mobile web browsing going on than they see. And what is crazy - or not so crazy - is that the majority of it is still on your basic feature phone. An astonishing four percent IS on iPhones. You have to go down to #10 on the list to get to another mid-sized device with a larger than average screen. The RAZR ranks #2. This creates an interesting development dilemma for content providers, but more on that later.

Page three of the report is dedicated to the impact of the iPhone on the market. It's definitely worth a read. I won't steal their thunder by listing all the highlights here. Topline - they had nearly 150 million requests from iPhones in the US alone. The requests about doubled between end of September and end of October. (Can't wait to see Apple/AT&T's Q4 earnings ... how many of these devices are you guys selling?)

How about 17 percent of ad requests coming out of Mexico coming from the iPhone? Can't remember which carrier Apple launched with there. T-Mobile won't tell me how much they are pricing iPhone data plans at in the US. (Kidding)

Admob and this industry are just getting started. Apple announced 200 million downloads a couple of weeks back. They haven't said what percentage are paid and what percentage are free. Let's assume the majority are free (I'll use myself and go with a sample size of n=1). There is a tremendous audience there that will likely be served ads in the future to support the free download model. Admob has some cool ad formats they've developed for the iPhone that we're just starting to see. Their report sites 400 iPhone apps and sites currently being served. I expect to see the traffic from iPhones continue to increase as more applications use their product.

The Safari browser on the iPhone is great, etc., but I only use it as a last resort if there isn't a widget or app that will get me what I need.

This is getting to be pretty exciting. Stay tuned.