We all know what sports advertising consists of, right? Beer and Viagra ads, wall to wall, with the occasional pitch for shaving cream and cars. Chest-thumping "macho" stuff, nothing with geek appeal to be seen anywhere.

Wrong. If the ads in the American and National League baseball playoffs were any indication, the King of Beers has given way to the Ring for Ears. Yes, our national pastime has become the latest staging ground for the cell phone wars – and the competition in the commercial breaks was much fiercer than that on the field.

If you left the games on for any length of time, chances are you can name at least three current or soon-to-be-released smartphones. Apple was present, of course, with iPhone ads, though they weren't that frequent. T-Mobil flogged its Android-powered MyTouch relentlessly – it's easy to think that they were trying to distract the public from Sidekickgate, but the ads were most likely placed before the disaster. Blackberry served up a series of ads with the theme "Do what you love, love what you do" (which would be a good slogan for us at Fan to Pro).

And then, there was Verizon Wireless, still the biggest cell phone company in America, which went after rival AT&T like a pit bull. First, there was the "There's a map for that!" series of ads, which parodied Apple's well-known "There's an app for that!" and claimed their 3D coverage was much more extensive than that of the House of iPhone.

Finally, in the last couple of games of the series, they uncorked a series of teaser ads for their own android phone, the Droid, that looked like an iPhone ad (except it used the slogan 'iDon't" to underline things they say the iPhone doesn't do) crossed with "The Ring." Yes, the debut of a new phone gets teaser trailers now, as if they were explosion-filled summer blockbusters.

What does this all mean? For one thing, the cell phone wars are getting more nasty, and it's only a matter of time before there's casualties. (Sprint is the likely candidate to be the first). This is getting to be a volatile area, and if you work for one of these companies, expect things to get rocky and ever-changing as the cell phone makers try to outdo each other.

Also, it's no longer a matter of "Android is coming." It's now "Android is here, and it's not going anywhere." It seems that any cell phone company that isn't AT&T (or, for that matter, Sprint) is now putting all their chips on Google's OS. If you're a developer of mobile software, learn Android and learn it now.

And also, if you're in advertising and marketing, know your audience – which these cell phone makers obviously do. Sports fans are prime targets for high-end phones, since they're heavy users of the devices – they use them to check scores, watch streaming video and send "OH MY GOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?" texts to their friends during games. (Trust me, my brother is a fanatical Phillies fan armed with an iPhone.)

Stay tuned, the phone wars have found a new venue. With more and more tech toys coming onto the market all the time, once can only imagine what the cellular slugfest will be like by the time we get to the Super Bowl.

- Bonnie