Ask and you shall get: That mantra worked for several mobile companies as they proudly announced millions of dollars in new funding last week. Is this the beginning of a mobile boom?

Let's do the roll call of enriched recipients: $25 million for mobile monitoring service Integrated Media Measurement Inc.; $12 million for mobile ad network Ad Infuse; $8 million for retail and mobile media delivery firm Modiv Media; and $6.2 million for mobile real estate listing firm Smarter Agent.

What's obvious from this development is that venture capital firms and other deep-pocketed investors are coming round to the idea that mobile marketing is a viable channel. VCs only fund if they feel their investments will generate returns or can be flipped for several times their value.

For the large part, most of the money raised will go toward investments in technology, talent, marketing and acquisitions. All cost money, especially since high demand is chasing limited supply.

To wit: Reliable mobile marketing and measurement technology is work in progress. Content and inventory is limited for marketers who want to allocate significant budgets to mobile advertising. The number of companies with viable mobile technology is not large enough, not battle-tested or way below the radar for potential buyers to take note.

Also, there's the issue of talent. While the mobile channel has been around for more than a decade, its use in marketing is fairly recent. There simply aren't enough executives with much experience in mobile marketing, media and commerce. Yes, there is no shortage of technologists. But what is needed here is talent with an understanding of how mobile technology translates to delivering great experiences for mobile content and commerce as well as advertising.

Easy come, easy go
So the money will wend its way to meeting those needs. But mobile marketers must not succumb to the same temptations as Internet companies did in the late 1990s.

Then, fueled by VC and investment banking money, dot-coms threw millions and billions of dollars at ideas and indulgences that defied economic logic. They chased eyeballs for audience growth, but took their eyes off the ball for revenue growth. They rented fancy digs, flew first class, busted expense accounts, advertised and marketed where they shouldn't have. They built Web sites that pleased designers but neglected consumers.

Those were heady days and some of the extravagance was necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff, to let the market decide the survival of the fittest. But they forgot that the only way a business survives is generating more income than expense. Not every dot-com was fortunate enough to have patient parents and investors or loyal customers.

There is a chance that the mobile marketing industry might experience a similar mob-com mania this year or even next. Or it may not happen. Many executives helming mobile marketing firms today lived through the dot-com days. They are smarter, wiser and now want to be richer.