Does the new school of mobile devices that requires specialized content for proprietary digital platforms undermine the open nature of the Internet? A case can be made, especially as Apple and Amazon try to steer traffic away from the open Web.

At issue are these proprietary mobile devices which require content to be tailored to meet their standards. Also at issue is the veto power these devices? manufacturers and retailers have over content or commerce through their channels.

Perhaps it is yet another chapter in the evolution of digital content, led by mobile devices. Or perhaps it is filling a need ? the urgent necessity of monetizing digital content ? that the World Wide Web cannot meet.

Whatever the reasons, one thing is clear: as more content goes through Apple, Amazon and potentially Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Dell, Research In Motion, Samsung and HP devices, the delivery of content will fracture into smaller markets.

Digital content distribution fragments
Such fragmentation will benefit the individual companies that control the distribution channels. It may also benefit content owners such as newspaper and magazine publishers.

But the end result will be a Bantustan of content, requiring content makers to tailor their product or services to several publishing platforms. Imagine hundreds of cable channels, but each with different technology requirements to view television shows.

Is that a good thing? Yes, and no.

It is a good thing because publishers will be paid for their labor in putting the content together.

It is a good thing because it will condition consumers of digital content to pay for specialized news or information in the way they already are open to paying, say, 99 cents for a song on the Apple iTunes store or $1.99 for an application in the Apple App Store.

It is not a good thing because it reverses the progress of the past two decades in making the Web what it is ? a channel where content is freely available without raising any barriers of entry for either consumer or producer.

New life for paid content
The Web was certainly not designed to become a channel for free products ? as news publishers unfortunately discovered. Retail online is not free, nor are software downloads of popular programs including those from Adobe, Intuit and Microsoft products, for example.

However, in their pursuit of eyeballs, publishers failed to understand that it was flawed business sense to offer news free on the Internet while charging readers for the print product. Consumers quickly cottoned on, and hence the avalanche toward online consumption of news.

Now, with the new Apple iPad and the Amazon Kindle, news and book publishers and entertainment companies hope that smarter mobile devices with multiple capabilities will convince consumers to pay for written, audio and visual content.

And consumers yet might, although it will require en masse migration to walled-garden content for consumers to have little option but to pay for digital news, content and entertainment.

What advertisers need to watch is how these mobile devices evolve as serious channels for delivery of paid content. Who knows, the day may not be far when Amazon opens up the Kindle and Apple follows suit with the iPad to relevant advertising related to new book releases or entertainment.

So the definition of mobile marketing, media, content and commerce gets yet broader to accommodate the distribution of paid content. Where that leaves the Web ? more an information and retail channel than a free news channel? ? is left to the imagination of the brave, bold and disruptive.