Can a Coupon Live Inside a Cellphone?

Well, yeah, it can. That’s a “doh.”

The NYT’s headline writer asks this question to promo a short article in Sunday’s business section … as though this were something novel. Or hard to do. It’s neither and is common in Japan. In 2006 about 6-in-10 mobile customers in Japan used mobile coupons more than once a month.

The NYT short by Phyllis Korkki features a Jupiter Research report, which suggests Americans aren’t very interested in getting “coupons” via text message. That could be related to the fact that most Americans don’t text (unlike folks in Europe and Asia).

Earlier this month, Silicon Valley Insider noted that AT&T Wireless “is supporting a mobile marketing technique that’s popular abroad, but has yet to catch on here: Ads that can be read by cell phone cameras.” That’s certainly more novel than SMS ads.

And then there’s using your cellphone to pay for things — something that’s done in Asia and Europe (note the date of that report, 2001) as well.

Very little “journalism” in that NYT business section article. Much closer to stenography, with the speaker being Jupiter’s press people. Is this the report from February? Nothing more recent in the mobile marketing section of Jupiter’s site.