A few weeks ago I received a subpoena from the FTC to come and testify in Washington DC and share my experience with advertising in mobile applications. I have spent a good bit of time explaining to the FTC why this acquisition isn’t a problem and will actually benefit app publishers.

Many of Sax.net’s iPhone apps are ad-supported, and we’ve been using a variety of ad-networks, including AdMob, Google Adsense, and Quattro Wireless. Using Adwhirl and some in-house technology it’s very easy to monitor the results of different networks and switch in real-time to the one that yields the highest return. Other solutions, like Mobclix, provide similar technology, putting different ad networks in the most direct competition against each other.

How could there be a competitive problem in a market where customers can constantly compare results and completely switch to a different vendor in a matter of minutes? Google’s acquisition of Admob and Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless are signs that the market is heating up. This is the type of competition the FTC should encourage.

To compete beyond price, ad networks are developing innovative new ways to yield higher returns and make their ads more appealing to consumers: Apple iAd focuses on making ads more emotional, Quattro and Admob have built highly interactive ads, and Google Adsense uses keyword targeting to make ads more relevant.

Meanwhile new players, many of them venture-funded, appear in this market on an almost monthly basis. Does this seem like a market that needs help from the Federal Trade Commission right now?

This reminds me of the movie Minority Report, where Washington DC-based law enforcement officers arrest people to stop possible murders before they happen. Is the FTC concerned that some day one of the players involved in mobile advertising might become the leader in serving engaging ads that consumers love? Is the role of the FTC really to prevent future success?

Let me explain:

Windows 7 Phone Series is clearly awesome.

It’s well designed and easy to develop for. Most importantly, it creates accountability for the user experience: you’ll know exactly which application is culpable if speed or battery life go down. With a tap or two you’ll completely obliterate the guilty app from your device. Both adding and removing apps and content is simple, quick, and risk-free. The UI is simple, modern and consistent.

The iPad is clearly awesome.

An affordable device that feels luxurious and lets you do everything that’s important to you related to words, music, pictures, and video. The iPad will become at least as popular as the iPhone. It’ll be a new platform for apps and content to thrive on.

A Tablet edition of Windows 7 Phone Series is inevitable.

It’s super easy for Microsoft to do this, and OEM partners will be begging for it. Because of the way the OS is designed, all the troubles that plague users of regular Windows will just vanish. The result will be a device that is so much better than any PC in everything that matters: faster, safer, dramatically more battery life, with a beautiful and consistent UI. Also, easier to support for carriers and manufacturers. It will kill the PC.

The new application platform will be something much simpler than a traditional PC. In many ways, the current PC is still a hobby device: you have to become an expert (or hire one) to simply use and maintain it. The iPad and the Windows Phone Series tablets will change that.

This change will have several important implications:

The app is the new website

The iPhone appstore has proven that people love apps if they can trust them. There will be literally millions of apps, they’ll all be free or very cheap. And like websites, lots of them will be terrible, and some will become indispensable.

Apps and content will blend.

Books, magazines, and movies. They’re all coming to life. Books are becoming interactive. Movies become games. Even radio shows (like This American Life) are turning into apps. Newspapers, magazines, and news TV networks are reinventing themselves. This is all happening because apps have become as easy and safe to install (and remove) as content.

A big gatekeeper battle is looming.

iTunes, Amazon Kindle, Windows Store, studios, publishers, and all the phone carriers will be waging an epic battle for a piece of the app/content pie. This is where Microsoft has an edge over Apple. Remember the All Things D interview where Jobs said he admired Microsoft’s ability to partner and wished Apple had that more in their DNA? He was right, and it’s still true. While Apple will continue to have a mostly adversarial relationship with many of its business partners, Microsoft will figure out a way for everyone in their eco-system to make money.

Forget Android and Chromium.

Google will never be dominant as a platform company. Android has many of the problems of desktop Windows and without apps Chromium offers too little. There’s no room for a #3 in a drag race. Google will continue to be enormously successful is its core business as a match maker between people, information, and merchants. RIM/Blackberry is the wild card.

This trend is unstoppable. The era of tinkering will soon be over. Computing is for techies. Personal computing is dead. From now on, it’s purely personal.