Here is the report on the latest. The process is quite simple. Users set their preferences at www.adtechlab.com. They can choose within 30+ different categories of offers (movies, coffee shops, restaurants, books etc...), then submit. That is it. Soon they will be able to do the same by simply sending a text message to a short code. The advertiser set a profile and enter his own text coupons to send to opt-in users. They are only allowed to reach users within their category. No-Spam. The company clearly states that they rather send 3-4 coupons a month to a user who asked for the offer, than invading their cell phone with irrelevant coupons they will not use.

Because users state their zip code, Adtechlab next feature will help provide a better service for location-based coupons (no one wants to drive 45 minutes to save a few dollars on lunch), and advertisers can deploy national campaign or local campaign (starting December) within a certain radius of a particular zip code. Good news for local mom&pop shops.

Adtechlab is working on deploying more features to accommodate users. One that is interesting is a GPS-coupons. It works like Google Adwords. Marketers will upload their offers and wait until someone sends a request to get a coupon for lunch, or shoes etc... she ( the user) will be located and the server will send her coupons within a certain radius. Cool if you are out of town and looking for some place to grab lunch. They are working on the concept of paying users for each text-coupons or ad their receive.

Mobile-coupon is not new. In fact a few companies such as Cell fire, Flytxt offer such services. In Europe it is very common to see cell phone users flash their tiny screen to merchants to redeem coupons. The reason mobile -coupons have not taken off in America so far is that companies focus more on the technology than the marketing strategy. The platform only eases the message delivery and storage. What is more relevant is what? when? to whom? Adtechlab wants to bring users and advertisers together on the same platform.

It is hard to say how fast mobile-coupons is going to take off in the US. What is sure is that cell phones are mostly used for talking and text messaging. And that has a cost. If we can save money or earn money through services such as Cellfire and Adtechlab, then why not?