Users aren’t consuming content en masse – but they are using mobile phones to communicate. In a word, content isn’t king; communication is. Blyk, an pan-European MVNO set to launch in August on the Orange network in the U.K., is betting its bottom line on this observation, according to this e-consultancy post recounting the main points of a recent address by Blyk to a group of prospective advertisers.

Blyk co-founder Antti Öhrling is quoted as saying: “The first myth that people tend to believe is that content is king in the mobile domain. You have to think about the medium. Mobile is a communications channel, not a content channel. The next generation of the mobile experience will still be around communication, not content.” He added: “[Content] is really something that everyone is looking to be the next holy grail in the industry, but if you look at the research for our audience – 16-24 year olds - mobile is a communications channel, not a content channel.”

Against this backdrop, Blyk’s business model is about providing users free calls and text messages if they accept SMS and MMS ads. The model won’t result in a tidal wave of spam, Öhrling said, because all ads sent by Blyk’s advertisers will go through its moderation panel. What’s more, the company will limit the amount each user receives from brands to four per day. Blyk’s sales pitch aside, it may be on to something. SMS still accounts for the lion’s share of data revenues and the industry expects a similar windfall from mobile IM (and a seismic shift in user behavior when we finally have interop).