the guardian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has been some time since I first remember trying to sign The Guardian to the YOC media network, sometime in 2009.  From memory at the time, 4th Screen were selling around 1 million page views per month.  I have posted below the latest figures from their site**, that figure now stands at 6.2 million and generates more unique browsers and monthly page views than their iOS, Android and iOS tablet apps combined.  These figures are somewhat surprising but not because their mobile internet has the biggest pull,  rather that their mobile traffic has only 6 fold in 4 or so years and all their mobile channels are not generating significant page impressions.

I have always been an advocate for mobile internet and I do get and understand that having an app strategy for print and digital publishers makes perfect sense.  After all, I have personally been involved in building so many for clients as such, why wouldn’t I think this.  My bigger question is why is their mobile internet site and apps not generating higher levels of uniques or monthly page impressions?  We know they have an award winning app and their paid for model seemed to work and made them a small profit after development costs.

But… why is their mobile internet site generating far less monthly page impressions in ratio to their applications? And… are their applications generating enough impressions in ratio to the unique users?

Mobile Internet

Generating 6.2 million page impressions from 2.5 million unique browsers can be averaged out that for every one customer visiting the site once a month is only generating 2.5 page impressions per visit.  I am guessing that their customers are visiting more than once a month which would mean they are generating even less impressions per visit (just divide the impression number by the number of visits).  As you can see from these states it becomes somewhat disappointing and raises some concern.  Maybe I am interpreting unique browsers wrongly as unique users, but it sounds like the same thing to me.

The iphone app is a little better…

Again applying the same principle generating 1 million page impressions from 34,000 uniques can be averaged out that for every 1 customer using the app once a month is generating about 30 impressions per visit.  Like their mobile internet users the reality is they are visiting more than once a month and therefore the impressions they generate per visit are even less.

Lets look at the rest, again applying the same methodology…

iPad app

45,113 monthly uniques generating 3.45 million page impressions equates to 1 customer visiting once a month generating 75 page impressions per visit.

Android app

11,000 monthly uniques are generating 1.2 million page impressions equates to 1 customer visiting once a month generating 110 page impressions per visit.

What does this all mean?

In summary, it shows that their Android app is generating a much richer experience than their other channels.  Or maybe Android users are just more engaged than iOS users.  We have to be careful here as their mobile internet site will have traffic from all devices but overall the statistics suggest that most of their mobile site users are less engaged than their app users.

In my experience, working with print and digital publishers it is typical for a user to generate up to 10 impressions per visit but at an absolute minimum of visiting the site or apps 2 to 3 times a week.  This would mean you would have to divide those impressions (generated by the users) by approximately 12.  In doing that, the numbers would suggest that only their Android app and iPad app are delivering a rich experience where the user is most engaged generating 9 to 6 impressions per visit respectively.  The others fall well short of this and their mobile internet site alarmingly so.

m.guardian**

A dedicated mobile site giving users access to guardiannews.comcontent any time and from any device. It is optimised for mobile screen sizes and connection speeds.

Traffic:

2.5 million monthly unique browsers
6.2 million monthly page views

m.guardian is showing incredible growth and almost doubled its traffic over the course of 2011 – growth that is outstripping total growth of the mobile internet market (+25% yr on yr).

Users are accessing a broad range of content through m.guardian with the top five most visited sections being world news, football, sport, technology and Comment is free. Comment is free alone delivers over 250,000 page views per month – an indication that users are valuable opinion leaders.

iPhone app

An award winning iPhone app featuring video, live blogs and more that is available free to users in the US.

Traffic:

34,000 monthly unique browsers

1 million monthly page views

With steady growth in unique browsers of almost 50% over the last four months, the iPhone app is another strong performer in GNM’s mobile portfolio. What’s more, the proportion of heavy users is high at just over 50%. That, combined with a strong frequency metric for user behaviour, indicates a very loyal and engaged audience.

In addition to the regular news content, users have a strong preference for football, sport and business content.

iPad app

We launched our critically acclaimed iPad app in October 2011 and since then it has been downloaded more than 500,000 times (globally). With a clean, modern design and easy navigation the Guardian iPad app is immensely readable.

Traffic:

45,113 monthly unique browsers

3.45 million monthly page views

Android App

Free to download and available from the Android market worldwide it contains the latest news, sport, comment, reviews, videos, podcasts and picture galleries from the Guardian website.

Traffic:

11,000 monthly unique browsers

1.2 million monthly page views

The app delivers a globally minded audience of opinion leaders and the most popular sections include football, Comment is free and world news.

Furthermore, over one in three are heavy users and this has steadily increased over the last few months – an indication that user loyalty and engagement is growing.

SOURCE**: Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/advertising/mobile?newsfeed=true)

It is becoming harder and harder to differentiate between a smartphone and tablet.  However, there are two distinctive behaviours that will not change.  Browsing the internet ‘at home’ and ‘on the go’.  There is a certain size tablet that will mainly stay at home for the internet browsing as described in the article such as an iPad or other earlier tablet devices. In parallel, the newer smaller devices such as Galaxy Note that blur the line between smartphone and tablet lean towards being a device that access information ‘on the go’ and equally ‘at home’.  The key difference is they are delivering a larger visual experience ‘on the go’ and a larger enough experience to access the internet ‘at home’ that could be considered richer than traditional smartphones.  Maybe we should call them internetphones

Posted By } David Moth

One tablet generates as many website visits as four smartphones, according to data from Adobe’s Digital Index Report.

By the end of Q1 2012 smartphones accounted for 6.1% of site visits compared to 4.3% on tablet.

However, smartphones only maintain a greater share of website visits due to the lower penetration rate of tablets.

The report highlights that from 2010 through to 2011 there were 5.3 times more smartphones shipped across North America and Western Europe compared to tablets.

Adobe predicts that at its current rate of growth tablet traffic will surpass smartphone traffic within 12 months.

Within a year of its launch in Q2 2010 the iPad accounted for 1% of total website visits, reaching 4.3% of total visits by the end of 2011.

In contrast, within the first two years of the iPhone market entry, smartphones accounted for 0.4% of total website visits, taking nearly three years to reach 1% of total visits.

If this trend continues then tablets will account for more than 10% of website visits in 2014.

But Adobe’s report isn’t the first piece of research to highlight the growing popularity of tablets.

A recent survey by InMobi and Mobext found that 69% of tablet owners make a purchase on their device every month.

This highlights the fact that e-tailers need to have a tablet strategy in place.

Our comprehensive blog post, ‘tablets: the opportunity for marketers‘, has a number of tips for how advertisers should seek to target tablet users.

However, we should also be careful not to overstate the importance of tablets, as despite similar levels of engagement PCs drive disproportionately more website visits than tablets.

Adobe’s report shows across North America and Western Europe there were six times more PCs shipped than tablets in between 2009 and 2011.

Yet in Q1 2012 PCs accounted for 19 times more website visits.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious – people use PCs all day at work, and most tablet owners will also use a PC for browsing at home.

Adobe report also appears to fail to take into account the millions of PCs in existence before 2009.

Finally, the data shows that tablet users are more likely to use their device to visit certain types of websites.

For example, consumers consider tablets and PCs to be nearly interchangeable for media consumption and for repeated interactions with financial service providers.

“This suggests that consumers consider tablets to be similar to PCs for visits that are repeated, routine, involve passive consumption of content, and so on.”

However, PC conversion rates are much higher than tablet for retail and travel sites, “suggesting that consumers prefer PCs for visits involving research, comparison of alternatives, and online purchasing.”

Adobe’s Digital Index Report presents findings from an analysis of 23bn visits made to more than 325 mobile and traditional brand websites from January to March of 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Via: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9880-one-tablet-generates-as-many-website-visits-as-four-smartphones?utm_medium=email&utm_source=daily_pulse

Google is tweaking its mobile browser and working with other companies on changing the way basic Internet technologies work. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

Like many users of mobile devices, Arvind Jain is annoyed by how long it takes Web pages to load over cellular connections.

The Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) engineering director is continually monitoring Internet-access rates — from hotels, offices and airport lounges around the world — looking for ways to speed things up. Jain’s mission: get websites to load over mobile- phone networks twice as quickly as they do now. Today’s times are typically 9.2 seconds in the U.S.

The goal is part of a companywide initiative for Google, the world’s biggest search-engine provider, which aims to use faster mobile Internet access to unlock billions of dollars in additional e-commerce and online advertising. When people are waiting for pages to load, they aren’t shopping or viewing ads. That’s hampering everyone from giant Internet companies to local businesses trying to reach customers.

“There’s a clear correlation between speed and the success of your online business,” Jain said.

What makes a mobile Web connection slow? In some cases, it’s the carriers’ network — say, if users can’t get 3G or 4G service on their phones. Often, though, it’s because the Web page wasn’t designed to load quickly on a wireless device. The site may have high-resolution pictures or data-intensive effects. Beyond that, Internet protocols and software aren’t always optimized for mobile connections, which can lose some of the data they transmit.

Website Abandonment

An especially long delay can cause consumers to give up on purchases altogether, and the risk is more acute on mobile phones than with desktop computers. Twice as many mobile-phone users abandon a website for reasons such as sluggishness than their desktop counterparts, according to Forrester Research Inc. (FORR) (FORR)That results in lost revenue for online sellers, as well as companies like Google, the U.S. leader in mobile advertising.

To fix the problem, Google is tweaking its mobile browser and working with other companies on changing the way basic Internet technologies work. It’s also rolling out tools that help website owners see the connection between their sites’ performance and sales. That can prod businesses to spend the money needed to speed up their services.

Faster mobile Web loads could increase mobile-commerce sales in the U.S. by 10 percent, or about $600 million a year, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester. They also could help online commerce in general: Almost half of mobile users are unlikely to return to a website at all if they had trouble accessing it from their phone, a 2011 study by Equation Research found.

Hurting Business

“There’s a big business impact to these kind of struggles,” said Geoff Galat, vice president of worldwide marketing at Tealeaf Technology Inc., a provider of website- improvement software.

Faster mobile Web speeds also translate into additional mobile-ad revenue. A 30 percent improvement in mobile Internet’s speed could lead to a 15 percent rise in ad sales, said Trevor Healy, chief executive officer of mobile-ad provider Amobee Inc. U.S. mobile-advertising spending will reach $2.61 billion this year, up from $1.45 billion in 2011, according to EMarketer Inc.

While carriers adopting 4G networks have helped speed up the mobile Internet, those upgrades won’t have the biggest impact on performance, said Craig Mathias, founder of consulting firm Farpoint Group in Ashland, Massachusetts. Improvements to servers, browsers and other Internet software are even more important, he said.

Catching up to Desktops

Google has plenty of company in trying to accelerate mobile connections. Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) (AKAM), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT), Mozilla and a slew of startups are all focused on optimizing Web performance.

The effort could be help mobile speeds catch up with desktop rates by 2014, said Lelah Manz, chief strategist for e- commerce at Akamai. For now, wired users are far ahead. They haven’t had to deal with nine-second downloads since at least 2001, according to Akamai.

“Mobile has to catch up,” Manz said. “Your shoppers are more distracted on a mobile device, and the performance is more important. This realization has just started to hit in the last six to nine months.”

To get there, Google has been tweaking its Chrome Web browser for Android, the most popular smartphone operating system. The software will rely more heavily on artificial intelligence in predicting what Web address someone wants to visit — and then start loading the page while the user is still typing. That feature is currently available in a beta-test form, Jain said.

Web Protocols

Google also is pushing for revisions to Internet protocols, the decades-old rules that govern the way the Web functions. The changes would better handle the quirks of modern mobile networks, such as their propensity to occasionally lose data en route. A revision called TCP PRR, for example, will deploy a new algorithm that accounts for data losses and network congestion.

Another adjustment, called TCP Fast Open, will eliminate the need to synchronize the phone and the server before transmitting the data. Once the revision is adopted, synchronization will happen at the same time as the transfer of data from a website.

Google recently updated its Google Analytics feature to let Web publishers overlay the speed of their site with business measurements, such as revenue per day. That helps them see the correlation and figure out return on investment.

Akamai, meanwhile, is working with Ericsson AB (ERICB), the world’s largest maker of wireless networks, to develop special technology that carriers can use to provide priority Web access to users of retail websites, Manz said. The technology will become available in the U.S. in 2013, she said.

Fewer Requests

In March, Akamai released the Aqua Mobile Accelerator, a technology that sends multiple packets over the mobile network at the same time, cutting down on the number of repeat requests.

Startups are plunging into mobile Web optimization as well. For the past two months, CloudFlare Inc. has been testing a feature called Polish, which automatically goes through images on websites and ensures they are compressed correctly. Mobile- app maker Onavo Mobile Ltd., makes sure images only load when users scroll down to the part of the Web page where the pictures would be visible.

For retailers, such technical advances can’t come soon enough. Said Jonathan Johnson, president of retailer Overstock.com Inc., a Web discounter based in Salt Lake City: “The longer purchasers have to wait, the more frustrated they get, and the more likely they are to leave the site.”

Via: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-19/google-seeks-billions-by-boosting-mobile-internet-speeds#p1

To contact the reporter on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland, Oregon, at okharif@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Thomas Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

A nice article summing up the basics of mobile advertising.  I would point out that another Key Metric is Conversion i.e what happens after the click: download a piece of content, register to a service, make a transaction etc etc.

Posted By } David Hillis (@davidhillis)

So you have built your mobile website or app and now you want to monetize it. You have a few options: you can sell apps on iTunes or other stores, charge a subscription or paywall, or make your content free and subsidize it with advertising.

The best approach will be determined by your audience, the value of your content or service and your distribution model.

If you are looking to grow your user base substantially, advertising is one of the only effective approaches. By some estimates an app distributed for free will have 10 times more downloads compared with a paid application.

With the growth in smartphones, mobile sites and apps, mobile has become the fastest growing category in advertising. According to eMarketer, mobile advertising spending in the US will grow 80 percent to over US$ 2.6 billion in 2012. And many experts expect mobile advertising to exceed desktop web advertising in the next few years. Whether you are a developer, a publisher or marketer, mobile advertising is a hot topic.

Yet, despite the increased spending in mobile advertising, publishers and advertisers alike are challenged with understanding the key metrics in mobile advertising, as well as finding a reliable way to forecast mobile advertising revenues and ROI.

The opportunity for mobile advertising far exceeds display ads. From location-based services, to bluecasting, to video, to interstitial web pages, there are many ways to create sponsorship. But for most sites and apps, mobile advertising is still focused on display ads. When using display or banner advertising, there are a few key metrics that provide the foundation for nearly any mobile advertising campaign.

Key Mobile Ad Metrics

eCPM

The estimated cost-per-thousand (or Roman number M) is the key metric in mobile advertising. This is the amount that a publisher is paid on average per 1,000 impressions.

For publishers, bulk mobile eCPMs range on average between US$ 1.25 per thousand impressions to as little as US$ .25 per thousand. On the desktop web, advertising is usually sold by either CPM or PPC (pay-per-click). In PPC, also called CPC (cost-per-click), the publisher only gets paid when a user clicks on an ad.

Mobile advertising differs from the desktop Internet in that some networks, like Apple’s popular iAd program, provide a blended model that provides a minimum CPM rate as well as an incremental PPC fee. Of course Google is still one of the major advertising players in mobile and, as with desktop advertising, heavily slants towards PPC.

Regardless of whether you use CPM, PPC or a blended model, forecasting will still use CPM units with an assumed click-thru rate (CTR), which is why the “e” for estimated has been appended to the CPM metric.

CTR

The click-thru rate, or conversion rate, is how often a user actually clicks on an advertisement compared with how often an ad is shown. If an ad is clicked on one time per one hundred impressions, the CTR is one percent.

Impressions

Each time an ad is displayed it creates an impression. How a site or application is created and which ad network or server is utilized will impact the number of impressions.

Refresh Rate

Refresh rates are how often a new ad is loaded.

Many mobile ad networks have a refresh rate of 30 seconds. Thus, a two minute session on a mobile application will generate four impressions. However for Apple iAD the refresh rate is every three minutes, which would result in only one impression within a two minute session. Moreover, some ad services will create a new impression for every page view on a mobile website.

When forecasting your impressions you need to know the ad refresh rate, the average duration of an app session per user, and if page views and/or duration are used to create impressions. You also need to determine which refresh rate will create the most click-through rates for your ads.

Fill Rate

The fill rate is how often an ad is delivered compared to how many times it is requested.

Mobile usage far exceeds the amount of available paid advertising, and fill rates for mobile websites and applications are notoriously low. Although fill rates vary between networks, Apple iAD often only delivers a 25 percent fill rate, or in other words only one ad delivered per four requests. Other networks boast higher fill rates, but often with substantially lower CPMs.

Ideally, publishers will utilize multiple ad networks to fill 100 percent of the inventory. This may be supported through client-side script in the site or app, or by using a mobile ad server, such as AdWhirl, that can broker the ad requests.

Ad Units

The ad unit refers to the dimensions of the mobile ad.

Ad unit standards are in a bit of flux, complicated by the sheer number of handsets and screen sizes on the market. But the most popular smartphone banner size is 300 x 50 pixels.

The Mobile Marketing Association advocates the following ad units.

Full-Feature and Smartphone Standard Ad Units:

• 120×20
• 168×28
• 216×36
• 300×250 (Smartphones Only)
• 300×50 (Smartphones Only)
• 320×50 (Smartphones Only)

Tablet Standard Ad Units:

• 300×250
• 468×60
• 728×90
• 1024×90

Category

The subject of the app or mobile site is referred to as the “category.”

Some categories have much higher eCPMs compared to other categories. When purchasing mobile advertising you need to think about which categories you want to support based on the positioning and relevancy of your product or service.

Publishers need to understand that the topic of the app or site will dramatically affect the rate that advertisers will pay to place ads. For instance, according to a recent report published by Velti, the weather category averages over twice the eCPM of games.

Platform

The platform is the type of device that the mobile ad is delivered on.

Platform can impact the eCPM earned for ads as well as the ad units required to deliver those ads. The most popular platform is Apple iOS, accounting for over 50 percent of all mobile ad impressions and often generating the highest eCPMs for mobile ads.

Forecasting Mobile Ad Revenue for Publishers

As a mobile web or app publisher it can be challenging to forecast mobile ad revenue, especially if you are using multiple ad networks to fill the available advertising inventory, and if those networks use a CPM or PPC model. To make an accurate forecast you need to make some broad assumptions.

The first item to forecast is how many impressions you think you can generate. This will be calculated by:

1. The number of times per month people will use your mobile site or app
2. The average duration of each session of usage for your mobile site or app
3. The refresh rate for how often the ads are loaded with the app or web page

Once you understand how many impressions you can generate, you need to calculate the eCPM rate for each thousand impressions. This will be impacted by:

1. The category of your app or website
2. The click-thru rate for ads on your app or site
3. The platform(s) your app or site are delivered on

Lastly you need to calculate the fill rate for how much of the available ad inventory will be filled by an ad network. Assuming you are using multiple networks to increase your fill rate, you need to determine which percentage of requests will be filled by which network, and at which rates.

Conclusion

Mobile is the future of advertising. It delivers location, context, behavior and other dimensions that promise to make advertising more relevant for end users and more profitable for publishers.

Yet today mobile advertising is in a bit of a freefall, with mobile usage growing faster than available advertising, resulting in falling eCPM rates. On the other side, the growth of mobile is creating more impressions, which equates to more revenue for publishers. Deciding if mobile advertising fits your business requires building a strong forecast model and then testing those assumptions as you go to market.

Whatever direction you take, the one thing you can count on is that it will all change tomorrow. The mobile industry is evolving at such a fast pace that any advertising program will need to be readdressed on a near continual basis.

Feel free to share your thoughts and questions on mobile advertising in the comments below.

Via: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/understanding-mobile-advertising-015180.php

With just over a month until the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 is enforced, it was high time that an organisation with the weight to set a precedent got off the fence and took a serious position on the matter.

Who better than the UK’s Government Digital Service?

I’m not sure I expected the UK government to be the one to lead the charge on cookie law compliance, and I’m certain I didn’t expect them to be the ones to argue that web analytics are “essential”, but that’s exactly what they’ve done with their snappily titled Implementer Guide to Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECRs) for public sector websites.

So does it stand up to scrutiny? And more pressingly, does it get the rest of us out of a potentially difficult situation?

The government’s argument

The Government Digital Service (GDS) takes the view that web analytics are “essential to the effective operation of government websites” and that “at present the setting of cookies is the most effective way of doing this”.

Further, they feel that web analytics cookies are “minimally intrusive” and that “their usage tends to be controlled by the first-party” (emphasis theirs).

Finally they point to a statement in the Information Commissioner’s Guidance on the rules on the use of cookies and similar technologies which would appear to seal the deal:

Provided clear information is given about their activities we are unlikely to prioritise first-party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action.

Does it stack up?

The title of the GDS’s blog post, It’s not about cookies, it’s about privacy, echoes sentiments expressed in my own recent article on privacy and the cookie law for the LBi bigmouthmedia blog: Joe Public does not, on the whole, have a firm grasp of online privacy, and we don’t have to look very hard to see stark contradictions between popular belief and patterns of behaviour.

So getting hung up on the technology isn’t the point; we must instead concern ourselves with the end result.

Still, laudable as it is, the GDS’s concern for the spirit rather than the letter of the law doesn’t stop them from protecting their own priorities, relying largely on the ICO’s statement that they’re “unlikely to prioritise first-party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action” to justify doing little to change their current analytics implementations.

Like private sector website owners, they’re not terribly keen on obtaining informed consent, either, calling it “disruptive to the user experience”, by which they mean, of course, that practically nobody will consent.

They’re not explicit about how they’ll address this problem, but they will apparently seek to “raise the awareness levels amongst users of government websites about the uses and functions of cookies”.

The other sticking point is that elsewhere in the quoted Guidance document, the ICO advises that analytics cookies are “unlikely to fall within the exception” and defines “the exception” as applying only to cookies which are “for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication” or which are “strictly necessary” (as distinguished from “reasonably necessary”).

In other words it could go either way and, like many organisations considering their cookie options, the GDS seems set to take a gamble that the ICO won’t crack down on analytics.

That’s not a position I’d have expected the government to take and, as an ex-local government officer myself, I have some sympathy with whichever poor soul had to write the risk assessments.

Of course, one could take a view that their aims of assuring the “best possible user experience” and encouraging “citizens to use more cost-effective channels for accessing government services” means that what’s good for them is good for their users, but that seems like the thin end of a wedge and an argument that would be unlikely to cut much ice with the ICO were a private company to be the first to make it.

Via: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9416-eu-cookie-law-uk-government-crumbles?utm_medium=email&utm_source=daily_pulse

We are looking for several permanent developers with the desire and skill to build our new mobile venture. If you fulfil a significant portion of the desired skills and experiences we’d like to hear from you.

Knowledge and understanding of the web and mobile market is a must have.  If this sounds of interest please let us know and we can send through full details.

Kind regards,

Christian

New Mobile Venture (Stealth Mode)

Founder

Image via CrunchBase

2011 was a year of rapid growth and change in the mobile advertising industry. It was the year that saw smartphones, Tablets and the mobile internet become mainstream among consumers, and that saw marketers and advertisers increase spend and begin prioritising mobile. 2012 looks set to be even more of a critical year in the development of the industry. From Adfonic’s own data and knowledge of the industry we predict that the following developments will become hot topics over the next 12 months.

Tablet boom
With the iPad being one of 2011′s most popular Christmas presents, and with the new Kindle Fire making tablets more affordable and accessible, we can expect to see tablet devices replacing lower-end laptops and notebooks over the course of 2012. It is not unrealistic to expect that Tablet ownership will more than double.

Rich media going mass market
Rich media is already emerging as a game-changer for the mobile advertising industry, as it offers the consumer a more engaging and interactive experience and facilitates superior branding opportunities for advertisers. Until now, rich media advertisements for mobile have, for the most part, been offered as a premium or niche service across a small number of high end mobile publishers. In 2012, mobile ad networks will be offering rich media on a global scale, giving advertisers access to millions of consumers and challenging budgets across other media channels.

Advertising spend shifting towards mobile
As smartphone penetration booms, consumer mobile usage will continue to increase and extend across new times of the day. For example, one of the most quoted use cases in 2011 has been consumer use of tablet or smartphone devices during TV commercials. Consumers are browsing mobile sites and using apps on their tablets and smartphones in place of TV commercial consumption, which suggests that the perception of mobile as primarily an extension of the PC internet will finally disappear. It is becoming increasingly clear that mobile operates as an alternative to the “fixed internet” for many people and this can no longer be ignored. Advertising budgets will increasingly follow the consumer over to mobile.

Phasing out of feature phones
Smartphones are now becoming more economically accessible to all consumer segments as a result of the large range of Android devices coupled with Apple’s pricing strategy for older phones. As the number of services and options begin to concentrate on tablet and smartphone platforms, advertisers and agencies will slowly phase out features phones from their plans.

Apple and UDIDs
During 2010 and 2011, much investment poured into app tracked campaigns enabling advertisers to deliver installed apps at low cost. A new common approach, superseding UDIDs, will become mainstream across agencies, advertisers, ad networks and other players in the ecosystem, as Apple plans to phase out access to the UDID on its mobile devices.

Mobile web versus applications 
During 2011, there were hints (driven predominantly by large industry players opting for HTML5 over a multi-app approach) of the mobile web challenging applications as the way forward for mobile internet usage. During 2012, we are likely to see this debate evolve with the potential for some major decisions by digital players to impact the market and force some rethinking.

Geo-location services 
There is likely to be more integration across marketing channels, platforms and other parties that will enable geo-location services and advertising to ramp up during 2012. Driven predominantly out of the US (where most geo-location business is currently concentrated) we are likely to see more demand for campaigns targeted to smaller areas (ring-fencing) with a view to driving footfall into retail stores, restaurants and other outlets.

Increasing use of mobile payments 
While this may not be the year that mobile payments become mainstream, many players will come together to make significant progress in piecing together the mobile commerce ecosystem. The success of Google Wallet last year will drive industry players forward in 2012, with major advertising events like the Olympics providing a springboard for new, exciting innovations around mobile commerce.

Facebook and mobile advertising
Facebook has been holding back on pushing mobile advertising aggressively. With close to 1bn users online, and over 300m users now accessing Facebook via their mobile, it provides a significant game-changer and possible milestone for the mobile advertising industry. However Facebook decides to execute on mobile advertising will, without a doubt, have a big impact on the digital industry in general.

Further progress on standards and privacy
With mobile advertising moving at such a fast pace in terms of innovation and market demand, there will be  increasing requirements for further standardisation (ad formats, for example, including rich media) and frameworks and policies driven by the trade bodies on privacy and data.

Via: http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/content/whats-trending-2012?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I am now looking at the next big thing and will update all via my blog in due course.  It is exciting times for mobile and we are all moving at an incredible rate.  So many fantastic new start ups with so many ingenious ideas all to make our lives better.  I believe we strive to help people communicate, engage, consume, learn, inform and so much more.

This global society that we have born is the future and will change lives forever to come.  No borders, no politics, no fuss.  A generation of globally connected people wanting to share experiences and information from across all corners of the globe.

I am privileged to be part of such an amazing evolution of communication…

Following eBay‘s grand introduction of its X.commerce open-source platform at the Innovate Developer Conference last week, eBay is having another week to boast about.

This afternoon eBay reported third-quarter earnings of $490.5 million, or 37 cents a share. Non-GAAP earnings were 48 cents a share on revenue of $2.97 billion.

Wall Street was expecting eBay to report third-quarter earnings of 48 cents a share, rising from earnings of 40 cents last year, on revenue of $2.91 billion.

In prepared remarks, eBay president and CEO John Donahoe touted the mobile-commerce strategy:

Our company reported another strong quarter, with eBay, PayPal and GSI each performing well. Mobile commerce continues to accelerate as consumers change the way they shop and pay. We expect eBay mobile commerce to generate almost $5 billion in merchandise volume this year and PayPal mobile to exceed $3.5 billion in payment volume. Mobile is one way online and offline shopping are blending into a single commerce environment. We are focused on enabling commerce, helping consumers shop anytime, anywhere, and being the commerce partner of choice for retailers of all sizes.

PayPal more than any other company in eBay’s expanding portfolio (including eBay itself) is really responsible for strengthening eBay’s mobile-commerce plan.

For starters, PayPal now stands at more than 103 million active accounts and counting–a 14 percent increase year over year. The payments service also signs up an average of 1 million new accounts each month.

PayPal’s revenue is also up 32 percent year-over-year, which is primarily due to increased integration on eBay and more adoption by merchants and consumers. Additionally, PayPal is now used by 63 of the top 100 top online retailers in North America–up from 56 last year.

“PayPal is driving innovation and customer convenience in the mobile arena,” Donahoe added during the quarterly investors call this afternoon, reiterating that we will likely see more change in commerce in the next three years than we’ve seen in the last decade.

Donahoe posited that consumers want to shop anytime, anywhere, and at the moment, “merchants can’t compete when consumers have shopping malls in their pockets.”

“X.commerce makes our technology and global platforms available to third-party developers, which we believe will accelerate commerce innovation,” Donahoe argued.

For the outlook, eBay is predicting a revenue of $3.2 billion to $3.35 billion at the end of the fourth quarter with non-GAAP earnings 55 cents to 58 cents a share. Wall Street is looking for earnings of 58 cents a share on revenue of $3.3 billion for the fourth quarter.

For 2011, eBay is planning on delivering revenue between $11.5 billion and $11.6 billion with non-GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.98 to $2.01.

Additional numbers:

• Non-GAAP net income was $628.2 million.
• eBay generated $809 million of operating cash flow and $526 million of free cash flow during the third quarter.
• GSI, which was acquired in the second quarter of 2011, contributed $202.6 million in revenue for the third quarter by generating $608 million in global e-commerce merchandise sales during the quarter.

Via: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20122767-93/ebay-rides-mobile-commerce-to-strong-earnings/