You might want to bookmark this page — it’s bound to come in handy in the months ahead.

eMarketer reports here on sharp year-to-year increases in the percentage of mobile phone owners using their phones to browse the Internet and read email.

The worldwide figure increased to 56 percent in 2005, up from 36 percent the year before. In North America, the increase was even sharper: 28 percent in 2004 rose to 60 percent. Japan leads the world: 82 percent in 2004 rose to 92 percent in 2005.

Takeaway for marketers: Phone technology is improving, phone prices are coming down and the public is getting used to the idea that phones are for more than just talking. If you think that big clunky box on your desktop revolutionized marketing and communications over the past 10 years, wait and see what happens in the next 10.

In this DMNews.com article about email authentication, Dave Lewis of StrongMail Systems alerts us to Pew Research findings that “more than 50 percent of consumers trust email less and nearly 25 percent use it less. Email’s reliability has taken a big hit, too, as 20 percent to 30 percent of legitimate, opt-in email gets caught in the filters intended to prevent abuse.”

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re not thinking about authentication yet, it’s time to start.

This commercial for the Commodore Vic-20 would be a hoot even if it didn’t have William Shatner.

“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”
—Jeff Bezos