COMMERCIAL APPEAL

For all the hullabaloo over the so-called “nasty” push-to-talk advertising feud between Nextel Communications and Verizon Wireless, those ads at least focused on the value of the services they were promoting. The other currently televised Nextel ad is more bewildering. In it, two businessmen rapidly negotiate a deal back and forth using P2T. But they don't need the service or even the phones; they're sitting two feet away from each other.

To the layman, P2T comes off looking pretty superfluous. If this feature is in such high demand that carriers don't even need to argue its usefulness, then why even bother to advertise it? Then again, this is the same industry whose TV spots told consumers they needed text messaging in the event a ferret ever latched onto their tongues and left them mute. Is that really messaging's killer app? In advertising, the goal is often to be memorable rather than meaningful. And with that in mind, carriers have been known to dump money into some pretty questionable commercials (two words: Carrot Top).

At the same time, when we hear how much more deeply mobile data applications are embraced in other nations, we dismiss it as an untranslatable cultural phenomenon. Maybe they just have more ferrets over there. In any case, plenty more mobile data apps are on the way. If carriers need to spar with each other to tell people how best to use those new apps, then bring on the next feud.