The phrase "March Madness" is most often uttered in the context of the NCAA basketball tournament (Men’s and Women’s) where "bracketologists" make their livelihood trying to predict which teams will make it to the Final Four.

I think March Madness has spilled over into other areas. For example, what the heck is going on with the stock market?

What’s this deal about "ruby-colored" and "crimson-colored" phones? It’s March and nearly St. Patrick’s Day, so where’s the green?

The Madness has hit mobile providers as they vie for customers by offering unique phones and "only available here" content. What do I mean by that? Let’s see, Sprint is providing made for mobile content for the NCAA Final Four that includes a Tournament Center, hosted by sports journalist Chris Rose, a March Madness Coaches Preview Show, and a feature called Bracket Buster Upsets.

Earlier in the month, we heard about Verizon’s plan to offer television services run by MediaFlo in 20 U.S. markets. For $15 a month, it delivers eight channels that broadcast full-length TV shows to phones 24 hours a day.

AT&T is on-board too,having signed an agreement with MediaFlo to deliver mobile entertainment and information services to customers in late 2007.

Speaking of AT&T, did you hear about the new experience? On Monday, AT&T unveiled a new way to shop for and experience an array of communications and entertainment services with the official re-branding of a Cingular retail store in Houston.

"The new AT&T Experience Store, larger than the typical Cingular store, not only received an extreme makeover -- both inside and out -- but is the first to demonstrate the benefits of housing AT&T's product suite under one roof. It is also the first to feature a fully integrated media experience made possible through convergence by encouraging interaction with the company's extensive portfolio of wireless, broadband, video and wireline voice products and services via several experience and personalization stations located throughout the store."

The New York Times did a write-up about it, which is great since the photos that I’ve seen don’t do much to tell the story.

More Madness: According to iSuppli Corp, the mobile content market will grow to $35.3 billion by 2011, from $16.3 billion in 2006. Images were the number-one mobile content product consumed in 2006. iSuppli predicts images will fall to fourth place in 2011, with over-the-air full music track downloads, mobile games, streaming and VOD video and ringtones destined to become the dominant mobile-content categories. That’s huge!

Still More Madness: Thanks to YouTube and Google, it seems like the phrase "user-generated content" (UGC) is appearing everywhere. Recently, there was a story in The Wall Street Journal that discussed how UGC was the next "mobile battlefield." The example provided was See Me TV, a service offered by European cellphone provider 3. See Me TV allows users to shoot video on their mobile phones, bypass Web giants like Google Inc.'s YouTube or Yahoo Inc. and post it to a gallery where it can be watched by others on their phones. Users downloaded 12 million video clips for between 20 cents to $1.35 a pop in the first 12 months after this service was introduced.

Let’s think about this for a minute. It seems to me that we are entering a period of time where "I can’t talk right now, I’m busy" takes on a whole new meaning.

Of course, I keep seeing people bumping into things because they are looking down instead of where they are going. But I digress. Let’s hop off the “Madness” wagon and look at a couple more interesting mobile stories that crossed my desk.

Like Fandango for your cell phone!

Marcus Theaters and Mobile Candy Dish have launched a pilot program for a service that allows consumers to use their mobile phones, to get movie information and buy tickets. The press release wasn’t clear on what types of phones were being used in this pilot program, but it did state that when you arrive at the theater, you would simply tap the phone on the point-of-sale (POS) terminal device, much like swiping a credit card, and the transaction would be complete.

How the heck do they do it? Inquiring minds want to know.

Earlier this month, Bob Tedeschi of The New York Times wrote a story about mobile Internet applications that allow shoppers to use their cellphones and PDAs to search the inventory and prices at the local mall and, sometimes, turn up last-minute bargains and promotions. Now that’s an interesting concept. The key will be in how much time it saves (and aggravation it eliminates).

At this point, you are probably wondering if I’m ever going to actually "Talk Treo" in my column. And the answer is…

Remember how I mentioned that I was heading to Arizona to watch some Spring Training baseball? Well this is the week and since I had to file my column early, you are getting something quite different from the norm.

Palm News

Palm had quite a few announcements that made the deadline.

Palm to Report Q3 Results on March 22

Palm said it will announce its third quarter fiscal year 2007 financial results on Thursday, March 22, shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. Pacific), followed by a conference call for the public at 4:30 p.m. Eastern (1:30 p.m. Pacific).

The conference call will be hosted by Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer, and Andy Brown, chief financial officer. There will be a webcast, accessible at Palm's Investor Relations website.

Where in the World is Palm this Week?

Treo 680 in Argentina

Palm and CTI Movil announced the availability of the Treo 680 in Argentina. CTI Movil is the first mobile telecommunications company in Argentina to have national coverage. They have more than 10 million clients as of December 2006.

Treo 700wx in Puerto Rico

Palm Treo 700wx Smartphone Launches on Centennial Network in Puerto Rico. Centennial is one of the largest telecommunications service providers in the United States and the Caribbean serving approximately 17.3 million inhabitants and over 1,051,200 wireless service subscribers.

Treo 700p in Mexico

Palm and Iusacell announced availability of the Treo 700p on the Iusacell network in Mexico. Grupo Iusacell, S.A. de C.V. (Iusacell, BMV: CEL) is a wireless cellular services and PCS provider in Mexico with nation-wide coverage.

Treo 680 in Chile

Palm and Claro announced the availability of the Treo 680 in Chile. Claro is part of the America Movil Group, the most important telecommunication company in Latin America and one of the largest wireless carriers in the world. The company began operations in the Chilean market in 2005.

Note: The rest of the regular features of Talkin’ Treo will return next week

Endnotes & Ponderables:

Guess it’s time to circle back around to Madness. Here’s one more story that caught my eye.

According to the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2007 St. Patrick's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, consumers will spend an estimated $3.76 billion on St. Patrick's Day. That figure, which includes money spent in bars and restaurants, is up from estimated spending of $2.69 billion in 2006 and nearly double the $1.94 billion spent in 2005. The average consumer is expected to dish out $34.89 celebrating the holiday compared to last year's $27.94 and 2005's $22.95. That’s a lot of green beer!

Oh yeah, and that’s a wrap too!

Talkin’ Treo will be back in full force next week.

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