It is still not clear how successful content publishers will be in their recent efforts to cash in on the popularity of casual gaming. The monstrous success of sites like Pogo.com and PopCap titles everywhere suggests that opening a game center at a women or men’s service site somehow will keep them on the site longer. SoapOperaDigest.com just opened such a wing, and we have seen the model floated at iVillage and MaximOnline in the past. This genere remains an enticing lure for publishers. New research from Interpret shows a stunning reach for casual gaming, up to 145 million users in 2007, and 71 million of those play for 1 to 2 hours per week. The seriously sticky medium increased its average play time per week last year by 28%, to 5.1 hours. Best news for publishers is that 85% of users prefer ad-supported free gaming. Interpret found that casual gamers are 22% more likely to seek out new product information and 36% more likely than the average user to switch brands for the sake of change. In other words, gaming environments on third party publishing sites could be ideal platforms for branding messages…if publishers really can push their visitors into these areas.

In a controversial set of reports and posts last week, a research attached to the 3G trade association, GSMA pegged the value of the mobile media platform at $250 billion by 2010. Blogger fuses blew up everywhere, but it was unclear whether the initial analyst from STL was misunderstood. Whatever. It underscores the point that mobile marketing spend is projected all over the map, as mocoNews’ Tricia Duryea rightly points out. Why hasn’t mobile learned the lesson of the early Web and enforced a little self discipline? When was the last time a journalist reporting on these ridiculous estimates of mobile media spending asked the simple question, “how do you figure?” Are these research companies actually speaking directly with mobile marketing companies about the level of revenues they are seeing or the actual spending patterns among media buyers? Are they presuming hockey stick pick up of mobile media that in fact is not occurring in the U.S. market? Are they anticipating budget shifts to mobile that have no precedent…ever? What we need is a central organization like the Mobile Marketing Association to perform the same quasi-official market sizing duties the IAB currently performs. The MMA should leverage its connections throughout the content and marketing value chain to issue reasonable estimates of current spending so that projections have some sane starting point.

The abrupt crash and burn of Zwick and Herskovitz’s Quarterlife Web series on NBC last week seems to be another indication that Internet video is a bit less than the hype surrounding it. The brutal truth of Web “TV” is that in a decade of trying, the new medium has failed to contribute any substantial video brand to pop culture. Small flashes like VuGuru’s “Prom Queen” serial last year and the oft-mention “lonelygirl15” series serve as nice curios. But we are far away from any real eco-system of advertising and content production for Web video. But beyond that, Quaterlife only calls attention to just how bad much of these programs are. The show’s characters and situations were staggeringly clichéd (film students, aspiring writer, corporate baddies, and the inevitable actress-in-training) all wrapped in the silly conceit of a show that is both on and about a blog. In fact, two of the main characters reprise the Zwick and Herskovitz “thirtysomething” ad agency wannabe duo. Note to programmers. Even self-absorbed Gen-Yers want to see something more from their media than a self-serving mirror.