Posts Tagged ‘mobile web’

Guardian mobile site drives mores unique browsers & traffic than apps & tablets combined but where is the engagement?

Posted: May 17, 2012 in Digital Marketing, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Applications, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Platforms, Mobile Technology, Online, Publishing, Publishing Industry, Tablets, Technology, Uncategorized, User Experience & Usability
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Deutsch: logo der tageszeitung the guardian

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?

Image representing Android as depicted in Crun...

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)

Number of mobile advertisers jumps: report

Posted: June 9, 2011 in Digital Trends, Display advertising, Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Industry News, Multichannel Marketing, Smartphones, Strategy and Planning
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Image representing comScore as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Posted by ] Patricio Robles

For many years, mobile has been the ‘next big thing’ for advertisers. And to be sure, the market for mobile ads has grown by leaps and bounds in dollar-terms.

The latest figure evidencing the growth of mobile as an advertising medium: according to comScore, the number of advertisers in the U.S. running mobile campaigns has grown exponentially in the past two years.

When comScore looked at Ad Metrix Mobile data for 600 of the mobile internet‘s properties in April, the number of advertisers was 689, an increase of more than 120% from two years ago.

Needless to say, if the market for mobile advertising to grow rapidly into the future, larger numbers of advertisers need to buy into the medium.

In theory, mobile will have a key role to play in most multichannel advertising strategies in the future, and the timing appears to be right now. Thanks in large part to the rise of smart phones and greater use of the mobile internet, advertisers are increasingly experimenting with mobile ads. And in many cases, they should be liking what they see.

According to a recent study, click through rates on mobile search ads are 2.7% higher on average than their desktop counterparts.

But there’s still a huge amount of room for growth. Right now, comScore says that the mobile content and publishing category accounts for 50% of mobile ads served, with consumer discretionary representing another 26%.

That means more than three-quarters of mobile ads cover just two categories. Lucrative categories, like financial services, aren’t as prominent — yet.

The key to continued growth of mobile advertising would appear to be continued smart phone ownership. According to comScore, smart phone users access their mobile browsers and mobile apps at much greater clips than their feature phone-owning counterparts, 82.3% and 85% to 19.1% and 15.9%, respectively.

Currently, 31% of mobile phone owners have a smart phone. But that number is increasing rapidly; last year, just 20% of mobile phone owners in the U.S. owned a smart phone.

The numbers make it clear: if the number of smart phone owners keeps going up, so too will the number of advertisers spending on mobile ads. In turn, publishers already active in mobile will see more opportunities to build ad revenue, and publishers not active in mobile will have greater incentives to develop a mobile strategy.

Via: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7623-number-of-mobile-advertisers-jumps-report?utm_medium=email&utm_source=topic

Shoes.com: 85pc of purchases come from mobile Web, not apps

Posted: May 11, 2011 in Digital Marketing, Digital Trends, E-Commerce, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, M-Commerce, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Applications, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Platforms, Mobile Search, Mobile Technology, Multichannel Marketing, Online, Publishing, Publishing Industry, Retail, Search, Smartphones, Strategy and Planning, Technology, Telecommunications
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My Comments on the below:

I am a bit late finding this article but there you go.  I find the stats really interesting.  Despite the fact they offer shoes for all, I am guessing here that their main user base is made up of Women.  I can instantly relate to their experience.  If I look at my partner who since purchasing her an android phone (6 months ago), who by the way is a kind of techno-phoebe, has moved from a 0 to a 10 user of the mobile internet (0 being not at all and 10 being everyday more than once).  However, despite this amazing change of her use of phones not once has she been bothered by apps.  This is not because she is not aware or has not tried them but she is used to searching for content when she wants.  She finds it easy.  She already knows which sites she has interest in and what sites she would buy clothes/shoes and whatever other flavour.  It is interesting as her peers also share the same thought process, yet their male counterparts and very engrossed into both mobile internet & apps.  In fact the more I think about it especially apps that help them not have to think for themselves or games of course!  Anyhow, before I digress, this supports the experience shoes.com has described.  As women, being the main demographic (again this is an assumption) of shoes.com, they are comfortable and familiar with SEARCH (and aren’t we all, no matter our gender) hence making more purchases via the mobile site than apps.  Therefore, as long as the e-commerce site is mobile optimised and the URL re-directs are in place then their customers will happily discover and purchase via the mobile internet site (as we in the industry call m-commerce, a transaction made via the mobile device).

In the early adoption days of mobile internet we saw that many publisher, media owners and e-commerce sites were receiving anywhere up to 5% of their users online coming from a mobile device.  Whilst with one hand this was positive news, with the other it was bad. As the sites that were not optimised for mobile you can start to work out the potential loss of revenues and/or damage to the brand/media owner by delivering a poor user experience and/or no real payment flow.  Traditional publishers and media owners quickly woke up when they saw these stats.  However, the retail industry was very slow to react.  It wasn’t until Steve Jobs created the iPhone and apps that they retail sector started to take the space semi-seriously.  It is great to see now how retailers or e-commerce sites are starting to understand and experience this space better and as the article suggests ‘not just jumping on the app-bandwagon’.

Posted By ] Rimma Kats

Shoes.com's mobile site

SAN FRANCISCO – A Brown Shoes Co. exec at the Mobile Shopping Summit said that 85 percent of mobile purchases come from the shoes.com mobile site and not its applications, proving that retailers should focus on having a Web presence before jumping on the app bandwagon.

Panelists during the “Mobile Roadmap Part I: Key Evaluation Criteria For Developing Your Initial Mobile Platform – The Keys To Mobile Merchandizing” session discussed the challenges and success their companies face with mobile. The panel was moderated by Marci Troutman, CEO of Sitminis, Atlanta.

“We had a strong ecommerce platform,” said Pete Hogan, vice president of ecommerce at Brown Shoe Co., St. Louis. “We were seeing a lot of agencies contact us about mobile and there were few players in the game two years ago.

“Eighty-five percent of our mobile sales come from the mobile Web and not apps,” he said.

Future of mobile
According to Mr. Hogan, the company’s long-term mobile strategy will involve the use of HTML5 to provide a richer experience to consumers on their mobile devices.

For companies that are looking to develop mobile sites or apps, it is important to keep the consumer in mind and try to make the overall mobile commerce experience as seamless as possible.

“Think about your business and how many times people touch your business,” Mr. Hogan said. “If you’re Starbucks then it’s daily, if you’re McDonalds it’s weekly.

“If our customer is a registered customer, we wanted to make sure we auto filled their shipping information,” he said. “That’s where you help them save time.”

A majority of consumers who download applications to their mobile devices do not use most of them.

A mobile site is an ideal tool to capture that consumer at the point-of-sale, per the panelists.

However, companies wanting to enter the application space should make sure that their apps provide a different experience than the mobile site. A lot of the time, mobile apps are geared towards loyalists, pushing deals and alerts to them daily.

There needs to be an incentive for consumers to click on that app icon when they want to shop instead of going to the company’s mobile site.

The mobile site, on the other hand, is an access point for existing and potential customers and should be treated with that in mind.

Brown Shoe first developed a mobile site and then an iPhone application.

Currently, the company has three iPhone applications, three mobile-optimized sites and three Android apps.

According to Mr. Hogan, the company’s mobile site mimics its ecommerce site and now features personalized recommendations and ratings.

“We tried to add most of the bells and whistles,” Mr. Hogan said. “However, there are still a few missing things.

“Tracking is also important – we can see when customers are coming to our mobile properties,” he said. “The ROI is trackable.”

Mobile extension
Dale Monson, senior vice president of operations at The Sportsman’s Guide, said that the company is currently working on a second version of its mobile site.

Although the company has a mobile presence, Mr. Monson said that it has not invested in marketing efforts to promote its applications.

“When we launched our iPhone app, we wanted to make sure we were in the market,” Mr. Monson said. “The main challenge we had was a lot of items on our Web site and it’s difficult to push that into the mobile and have consumers shop easily.

“However, we have not had a good marketing program yet to push the downloads,” he said. “We have not invested in marketing efforts for our apps.”

Via: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/04/28/shoes-com-85pc-of-purchases-come-from-mobile-web-not-apps

Rimma Kats is staff reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily and Mobile Marketer. Reach her at rimma@mobilemarketer.com.

China’s Mobile Ads Will Double to $1.16 Billion in 2014, EMarketer Says

Posted: April 20, 2011 in Digital Display Advertising, Digital Trends, Display advertising, Industry News, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet
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Posted By ] By Douglas MacMillan

Advertising on mobile devices in China will more than double to $1.16 billion in the next three years, growing faster than the U.S. market, according to a report by EMarketer Inc.

Mobile advertising in China will grow 158 percent by 2014, EMarketer predicted in a report to be published today. In the U.S., mobile ad sales will grow 131 percent to $2.55 billion over the same period, the report said.

Advertisers are boosting spending on text and graphic display ads for handheld devices in China as portions of the world’s largest Web market increasingly migrate to mobile phones. The country will add almost 200 million mobile Internet users over the next three years, bringing the total to 568 million in 2014, according to EMarketer.

“Because mobile devices are often the primary way that consumers access digital content” in China and other emerging markets, advertisers enjoy a “heightened appeal relative to a more mature market, where you have higher PC penetration rates,” said Noah Elkin, principal analyst at EMarketer in New York.

Emerging markets for mobile advertising such as India, Brazil and Russia are growing at even faster rates than China. India’s mobile ad spending will total $190 million in 2014, up more than threefold from this year. Brazil’s mobile ads will grow almost fivefold to $117 million in the same period. Mobile advertising in Russia will more than triple to $72 million in 2014.

In the U.S., competition for mobile ad dollars has drawn large technology companies to make acquisitions in the industry. Google Inc. (GOOG) purchased mobile ad provider AdMob last year for about $700 million. The same year, Apple Inc. (AAPL) acquired Quattro Wireless, another startup selling ads placed on mobile devices.

Via: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-19/china-s-mobile-ads-will-top-1-billion-in-2014-emarketer-says.html

UK retailers aren’t ready for mobile commerce: survey

Posted: April 14, 2011 in Digital Trends, E-Commerce, Industry News, M-Commerce, Mobile Industry News, Multichannel Marketing, Online, Retail
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Posted by ] 14 April 2011 11:23am by Graham Charlton

Though the majority of retailers are convinced that mobile commerce will eventually become as popular as e-commerce, just 16% have a strategy in place, and 28% have no plans to implement one.

The findings are based on a Vanson Bourne survey of 100 marketing and IT directors at UK retailers, and 1,000 consumers.

Here’s a few highlights from the study…

Retailers’ attitudes to mobile commerce

The timescales vary, but 83% believe mobile commerce will be as popular as e-commerce within five years, though the 6% who think it already is perhaps need to check some recent stats. Popularity is growing, but it’s not near e-commerce just yet.

Mobile commerce and retailers

Compared to US firms such as eBay and Amazon, many UK retailers have been relatively slow to react to the potential of mobile commerce, but that has changed over the past 12 months.

Whereas a year ago, only a small number of UK retailers had some sort of m-commerce offering, big names like Tesco, M&S and John Lewis have a successful mobile presence.

With these examples, and a number of success stories, from Debenhams, Ocado and others, it’s likely that more retailers will follow suit.

16% of retailers have a mobile commerce strategy fully in place at the moment, a further 18% have implemented some aspects, while 8% have yet to implement it.

So 42% have a strategy at various stages of development, and a further 30% plan to develop an m-commerce site or app at some point. Clearly, the 28% with no plans remain to be convinced.

A mobile retail site doesn’t have to cost the earth, and it can provide an opportunity for smaller retailers to compete with big guys. For example, retro t-shirt and gifts site TruffleShuffle developed a mobile website for a just a few hundred pounds.

I asked Pat Wood of TruffleShuffle how the mobile site had worked, and the early results are very promising. Conversion rates are relatively low, but have jumped from 0.32% in Q1 2010 to 0.46% in Q1 2011.

While in Q1 last year, mobile sales accounted for just 0.3% of turnover, in the first quarter this year, this figure was 3.95%. Considering that the site was implemented at a low cost, and just by following some basic mobile commerce best practice guidelines, it proves the value of a mobile strategy.

The debate over whether retailers should develop a mobile site or app is an interesting one, and it seems the retailers in this study are split more or less down the middle on this issue.

Slightly more (45%) feel the apps are the most important mobile channel for them, an 40% think mobile sites:

I think a mobile site is perhaps the best first step in a mobile commerce strategy, as they can appeal to the broadest possible customer base, though there are still things that apps can do better, such as barcode scanning.

Whether retailers have a mobile commerce strategy in place or not, more and more customers are buying smartphones, and many of those will be looking to make purchases.

There is still an opportunity for retailers to launch mobile retail sites and apps, and to gain a head start on competitors in this channel.

Via: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7418-uk-retailers-aren-t-ready-for-mobile-commerce-survey?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Mobile advertising should be incorporated into all media buys: Yahoo

Posted: April 12, 2011 in Digital Display Advertising, Digital Marketing, Display advertising, Industry News, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Industry News, Performance Advertising, Smartphones, Tablets
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Posted By ]  Giselle Tsirulnik

There is no question as to whether consumers have embraced smartphones with open arms, and the mobile Internet has finally reached enough scale to offer critical opportunities for marketers, according to Yahoo Inc.

According to Yahoo’s report, “Mobile Internet – Delivering on the Promise of Mobile Advertising,” brands have not yet realized the full potential of mobile advertising. In order to do so in 2011, brands need to approach mobile as a channel and not just a strategy.

“Mobile Internet came of age in 2010, offering advertisers the scale, tools and technology to develop effective campaigns and vie for a fair share of major media budgets,” Yahoo says in the executive summary of the report. “However, mobile advertising still lags behind the opportunity.

“Will brands realize the full potential of mobile in 2011? To do so, marketers will need to approach mobile as a channel, not a strategy, albeit a particularly effective channel due to its ability to connect with consumers in a very personal way.

“If it feels like mobile phones are everywhere, it’s because they are.”

Content consumption
With 96 percent wireless penetration in the United States as of December, according to CTIA – The Wireless Association, mobile phones are everywhere.

Mobile phones are personal devices and consumers are unusually attached to them, claiming they are an extension of their person and psyche, per Yahoo.

This dependence on the mobile device is for more than just voice services. Consumers are consuming a huge amount of content via their devices, with the Internet at the top of the content consumption food chain.

According to Yahoo, 86 percent of mobile Internet users surf the mobile Web while watching television.

Consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile devices for shopping, checking bank balances, locating restaurants or stores, navigating routes, monitoring health, paying bills, downloading music and videos, texting friends and making phone calls.

Yahoo says these behaviors prove that consumers have embraced smartphones with open arms and mobile Internet has finally reached enough scale to offer critical opportunities for marketers.

And then came the tablet.

Yahoo says in its report that tablets have emerged as a potential contender for screen dominance. With approximately 10.3 million tablet users in 2010 and that number expected to reach 82.1 million by 2015, tablets such as the iPad have undoubtedly caused a disruption in the mobile space.

In 2012 tablet sales will grow to 36 percent of U.S. PC sales, according to Yahoo, and this number will likely outstrip notebooks/mini-PCs, which are expected to be 32 percent of overall PC sales.

IPad users are open to advertising, especially if coupled with an interesting video (49 percent) or interactive features (46 percent), according to Yahoo.

Mobile advertising
There are obvious opportunities having to do with mobile advertising.

“Faster network speeds, function-rich smartphones and tablets, a burgeoning portfolio of applications and more engaging ad formats like screen takeovers and expandable ads enable mobile to compete with more established media,” the Yahoo report says. “As for mobile’s position in the media rankings, the facts speak for themselves.

“Mobile attracts younger, more affluent and more educated consumers and delivers on performance benchmarks such as awareness, message association and purchase intent,” it says.

Yahoo claims the most important function of the mobile device, as it pertains to marketing, is its ability to move the consumer through the purchase funnel.

Fifty percent of mobile users claim they have gone on to make a purchase after researching on their device, per Yahoo. A whopping 90 percent of mobile users access the Internet while in retail locations, turning the device into a sort of shopping companion.

According to Yahoo, mobile advertising is most effective when campaigns are coupled with online display. The company said in its report that the combination of mobile and online amplifies budget efficiencies and achieves synergies that increase key metrics such as awareness and purchase intent.

To prove this point, integrated mobile and PC campaigns resulted in a 54 percent increase in brand awareness, a 46 percent increase in brand favorability and a 42 percent increase in aided brand awareness, according to Yahoo.

Additionally, click-through rates on a movie campaign on mobile are 30-times higher than the PC counterpart. Ad recall scored 15 percent higher among users who viewed a mobile ad than any other channel.

“Use mobile ad buys strategically to smooth over audience troughs when traditional advertising traffic diminishes during work hours and on weekends,” Yahoo says in its report. “Mobile is finally scalable enough to be an extension of an advertiser’s communication strategy and should be incorporated into all buys.”

Via: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/9637.html

Mobile Advertising to Reach $3.3B Spend in 2011 and $20.6B in 2015

Posted: April 12, 2011 in Digital Display Advertising, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Industry News
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New Gartner research estimates that the total spend on mobile advertising will reach the $3.3 Billion in 2011, growing to over $20.6 Billion by 2015.

The North American market will account for roughly 1/5 of the $3.3B total this year, or roughly $707M, and 28% in 2015 — or $5.8 billion. That’s equal to about 20% of the estimated $26 billion in U.S. Online ad spending projected for 2015. Breaking it down a bit further for 2011, search- and map-related advertising will account for the largest share of ad dollars by far, at nearly $1.5 billion globally.

Mobile Web display and in-app display ads will each account for just over $800 million, audio/video will generate $96 million, and SMS/MMS and Instant Messaging advertising will make up $112.5 million.

By 2015, however, the split in ad-spending will level out a bit as display closes the gap with search. Search in four years will account for about $7 billion; mobile Web display, almost $6 billion; in-app display, $5.3 billion; audio/video, $2 billion and SMS/MMS/IM, $247.3 million, according to the research. The most interesting tidbit from the data was Gartners predictions for the mobile app vs. mobile Web debate.

The research firm expects mobile apps to have the upper hand when it comes to drawing ad dollars until 2013, “when the mobile Web will eventually return as HTML5 standards become established.” ”While the growth rate for mobile advertising will peak in 2011 and in 2012, more than doubling each year, it won’t reach its optimum point for some time,” stated the report. ”We expect that targeting and contextualization, especially in social sites and applications, will carry on improving throughout the forecast period and beyond.”

Via: http://www.smaato.com/blog-mobileadspend2011/

BBC Shuts WAP Mobile Web Sites (UK)

Posted: January 13, 2011 in Media & Entertainment, Mobile Internet, Mobile Platforms, Mobile Technology, Uncategorized
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The UK based BBC has announced that it has closed its old WAP mobile internet site.

According to BBC, it made the decision based on value for money and usage of the service compared to other services available. Two years ago, WML made up 20% of the BBC mobile internet traffic – today it is less than 1%. In light of the traffic decline, the BBC stated that it cannot justify the expense of maintaining the WML version for an ever-decreasing number of users. They have therefore decided to focus development on the standard XHTML mobile site.

Those devices that support XHTML will be redirected to the XHTML mobile site. People using older WAP phones will get the following message if they try to visit the WAP sites: “We’ve now closed the WML version of BBC Online. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this causes you. However, if your phone supports XHTML, then you can still access BBC Mobile.

In the UK, BT Cellnet (now O2) was heavily criticized within the industry for running marketing campaigns promoting the new WAP phones as having internet like services, when in fact it was a heavily cut down version of what people were expecting to see.

Via: http://wirelessfederation.com/news/33318-bbc-shuts-wap-mobile-web-sites-uk/

Behind BBC Trust’s Apps Decision: Paid Apps Are Screwed Anyway

Posted: July 23, 2010 in Digital Marketing, Industry News, Information communications technology, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Applications, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Phones, Mobile Technology, Smartphones
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By Robert Andrews
twitter @robertandrewsJul 23, 2010 7:22 AM ET

A market assessment commissioned by the BBC Trust to help it decide whether the BBC should release smartphone apps came to a view many will find surprising: that the paid apps goldrush will be extinguished by the mobile web in a few short years.

According to the report from consultancy Mediatique…

“We conclude that the availability of content for free online, which is increasingly accessible via web browsers affording re-purposed content via mobile devices, will make it harder over time for content suppliers to charge for apps that provide access to content available online for free; the advantages of apps (bespoke mobile-purposed content, findability, novelty) will therefore reduce over time.

“Only 25% of apps on Apple’s App Store are free, but these generate 77% of usage. Not all analysts expect the market for apps to continue growing and see mobile web browsing as a more effective consumer proposition over the longer term.”

“The BBC would be entering a market that is already trending toward free apps (in news, sport and long-form video content) and is likely to trend further in that direction over time, irrespective of the BBC’s entry.”

No-one’s denying the trend toward free consumer content on the desktop web. It’s been possible to charge for mobile app versions, in my view, because they repackage that web content for the palm for the first time, and because there’s no pre-existing free-content culture on mobile.

Neither is anyone ignoring the likely improvements that will be made to mobile web apps in the coming years, especially on Android. But it’s stretching optimism a bit far for Mediatique to say that free content will prevail on mobile in the same way it has on the desktop.

Sure, many leading news publishers’ apps are already free, funded by some nascent ad sales or sponsorships. But, if you take Mediatique’s expectation as a rule, many app developers and publishers alike might as well pack up and go home – or else pray that someone’s working on a web apps store as commercially viable as iTunes Store is today

URL Link:

http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-behind-bbc-trusts-apps-decision-paid-apps-are-screwed-anyway/

Mobile Agencies Look Beyond Apps as Market Evolves

Posted: May 13, 2010 in Digital Marketing, Display advertising, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Search, Mobile Technology, Smartphones, Technology, Telecommunications, Trade Associations, Uncategorized
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Posted By ] Jack Marshall, ClickZ, May 13, 2010

Agencies say branded apps aren’t the be-all, end-all for mobile marketing. Despite the hype surrounding the application space thanks to app-centric devices such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, mobile agencies suggest new technologies like HTML5 and Apple’s iAd product could help turn marketers’ attention away from the crowded branded app space.

At OMMA’s mobile event in New York City yesterday, agency execs discussed the evolution of the space, and offered up views on how the fledgling channel may evolve following the introduction of technologies such as HTML5 and Apple’s iAd mobile advertising product.

During a session titled “Mobile Planning in the Age of Apps, the Mobile Web and the iAd,” panelists warned advertisers not to dive into the app space, and instead placed emphasis on formulating clear mobile strategies before deciding which channels best suit that activity.

“Our initial conversations with clients always start with them getting excited about applications,” said Jared Hopfer, marketing manager at mobile agency Mobext. “As an agency we have to calm them down and talk about the types of functionality that an app would offer that other experiences wouldn’t, and weigh the relative benefits,” he added.

Courtney Renaud, who looks after Paramount Pictures’ account for mec:interaction said the agency was finding particular value in integrating brands with existing apps, rather than building from scratch. “An app isn’t going to be suitable for every movie, so we explore other possibilities such as app sponsorships and takeovers. That way you know the audience is already there, and it risks less for the client,” she said.

Many of the panelists spoke fondly of Apple’s new iAd mobile ad offering, for which agencies say Apple is asking upwards of $1 million dollars for initial buys. Patrick Collins, CEO of agency 5th Finger expressed little doubt the iAd network would provide a superior solution to ad formats currently available in mobile marketing arsenals. “I think we all know that when the iAd is launched we’ll see a lot of very interesting stuff coming through that will really excite brand marketers,” he said.

Though agreeing that Apple’s iAd product showed promise, Renaud said the effectiveness of the channel in comparison to branded applications and other in-app ad solutions was yet to be seen. “It looks like a really robust ad experience, but if we’re talking about an app versus an iAd it will come down to what is most cost efficient,” she said.

Meanwhile, with Apple attempting to corner the market for both applications and the ad offerings within them, other agency executives suggested mobile marketing efforts might well revert to a browser-based medium, with developers adopting HTML5 for mobile-focused sites that function across a range of handsets.

Apple devices do not support Flash, which has prompted developers to accelerate their uptake of the HTML5 programming standard. “HTML5 is very much on our radar. I predict the mobile browser will make a big comeback over the next year or so,” said Dan Rosen, managing director of AKQA Mobile, during a keynote address.

That sentiment was echoed by Publicis Groupe’s head of mobile, Alexandre Mars, during a session on the fragmentation of mobile platforms and the headaches the trend is causing for mobile agencies. “Mobile growth is coming from the mobile Web, and that’s what our clients need to think most about,” he said.

Likewise Paul Palmieri, CEO of mobile ad network Millennial Media, said he too believed growth in mobile use was coming from within the browser. “We see a lot of ad impressions [across the Millennial network], and I think the winning platform is HTML5. It’s going to take three years or so, and there’s no doubt applications are all the rage today, but I think the browser platform will win in the end,” he said.

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