Over in New Orleans, the assumption at this year's CTIA show is "The Next Big Thing" is video.

Video clips, sold like ringtones. The mobile Web is TV, just as last year's mobile Web was radio. (The picture is from the story linked-to in this paragraph, at PocketPCMag.com.)

I think this is wrong-headed thinking.

That's not to say video won't have a place. It will, especially where desktop Internet penetration is low. Within a few years, I suspect, we'll see a "mobile BitTorrent", because the kind of video that will be in highest demand will be that which is most likely to be suppressed, and not shown on TV.

But video still isn't the Killer App for the next wave. Video is going to remain a niche.

What is the Next Big Thing? Glad you asked.

Alternate attention. That's what cell phones are all about.

Mobile attention is limited. You don't give 100% of your attention to your mobile device, and for the most part you're not going to. A TV picture requires your eyes on it to be useful, and that's too much attention for most of us.

This has always been the battle. It's hard to get both hands, plus the eyes, onto a mobile device. Each time we move in that direction, we're pulled away from it by the market.

Time to start listening to the market.

So what's the best, most profitable way for the industry to take advantage of both alternate attention and the move toward greater video fidelity?

A 3MOG game will take whatever level of attention you give it, from casual back-of-the-mind attention to full immersion. And it won't demand fancy graphics to deliver value, either. Because most of a multiplayer game takes place in your mind.

Notice, please, how your own attention is being diverted to the picture at the right. Depending on your sex and your level of interest in what I'm saying here, anywhere from 10-50% of your attention is being diverted.

But you still got through the paragraph.

That's alternate attention. A great phone application should learn to live with as much or as little of your attention as users choose to give it. 3MOG games do this wonderfully. You've got your avatar, you've got your alternate reality, you can turn it on-and-off at your leisure, when you have attention for it.

You're in the life you're living, but through your phone you're in the life you like. (That's how T-Mobile spokeswoman Catherine Zeta-Jones might say it. Quoting from her Academy Award-winning role in Chicago, "You can even marry Harry but mess around with Ike.")

The point is that distraction, the "crime" phones are accused of committing when they're used in traffic, is in fact their function. And the most malleable form of distraction comes in a game, a virtual, alternate universe you inhabit in however much of your mind you care to devote to it.

It will take time for people to accustom themselves to their own and others' alternate attention patterns. Many of us are still adapting to what phones already do. But norms are already developing, have been developing for decades. And at least with alternate reality games it means people will be using their minds, and interacting with others.

Just not (always) the others in front of them.