SAN FRANCISCO--In its marketing efforts, The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association touts its Wireless IT & Entertainment show as one show with two personalities. Only half of that is right: It is, in fact, one show.

This is a mobile content show. To call it something other than that--a show about how to mobilize the enterprise, for example--is to unduly complicate things. Even if much of the content being discussed and demonstrated at this event is geared toward making the enterprise more mobile, this is still a content show. It's a show about the kinds of content that can be transmitted over wireless networks, about the middleware platforms that support and manage the transmission of that content, about the devices that allow people to receive and use that content, and about the carriers that are putting that content on their networks and trying to sell it to their customers.

With all due respect to the CTIA, the association is not doing the best job organizing and hosting that kind of show. Mobile content is exciting, and the way the CTIA is positioning this event and moderating the discussion simply isn't very exciting. Perhaps owing to the constraints of sponsorship commitments and the general need to please, the CTIA allows companies to use the show's biggest, best-attended sessions as commercials for their products and technologies. What the association should be doing is putting carriers, content companies, platform developers and handset makers on stage together and facilitating real and compelling discussion and debate about the myriad mobile content challenges facing the wireless industry.

To be honest, though, it's not clear how much the CTIA's shortfall in that regard really matters. The nature of mobile content and the kinds of companies that make and support it--ranging from music labels to game makers to technology platform developers--give this event a life of its own and the ability to morph in a way that lets any and all companies involved get exactly what they need out of it. Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music, for example, called CTIA "a music show" multiple times during his keynote address this morning.

Even though it still represents just a small fraction of revenue for wireless carriers, mobile content is undeniably important to the wireless industry's future. Because of its mobile content focus, this show comes with a built-in buzz and energy that just can't be stifled. What it needs to flourish is for someone to channel those inherent strengths and make this event even more appealing and compelling to the wireless industry.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com.