Wireless advertising is coming of age

by mobileman (02/01/2008 - 17:32)

The use of advertising on a mobile device is poised for the big take-off. There are several factors that are contributing to the rightness of the model, right now.

The easiest model to understand is the willingness of large content providers to spend advertising investment to attract subscribers to their premium-SMS services. Today, much of that investment is directed at the Web. There is evidence to suggest that the effectiveness and conversion rates for ads on a handset, for services that are targeted for the handset, is superior to the Web.

This conclusion is almost completely intuitive.

If you are sitting in a stadium and you see a beer commercial, you are more likely to purchase a beer, immediately. If you are instead in an environment that does not have that immediate purchase opportunity (like watching the game on TV), the effectiveness of that ad to drive immediate sales is reduced.

So, ads for handset-targeted services seem like a complete no-brainer for the industry.

These ads can come in various forms.

Carriers are opening their Wireless Web (WAP) portals to advertising through both agencies and direct contract. With this model, the carriers can get a cut of the ad revenue. The real estate bears limited space, so ads are required to be as condensed as possible to be effective.

Other models include MMS interstitial slides and SMS tags. Both of these models have been experimented with and have not been widely deployed — yet.

The next wave of ads is also being brought in through the Trojan Horse that is a combination of Smartphones and Google services.

With Internet-compatible browsing on iPhones and others, the traditional Web advertising model is being dragged on handsets. Based on browser type, ads will be targeted on Smartphones for services that are applicable for the phone itself and for the mobile consumer.

These latest models have the potential to remove the carrier from the advertising value chain.

I am sure there are significant discussions throughout the carrier community on trying to derive value from this emerging and potentially huge revenue stream. Anyone care to weigh in? I welcome your comments!

Category: Mobile

Tag: wapportals

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Upoc’s community speaks out on President of Iran's speech at Columbia University

by mobileman (09/26/2007 - 22:01)

Upoc’s community speaks out on President of Iran's Speech at Columbia University

At Upoc, we conduct a weekly poll of opted-in poll takers. During most weeks, the poll centers on some aspect of pop culture.

With the big news item of the week being the Iranian president's speech at Columbia University, I decided to use the poll to ask our community what they thought of that event.

Here is the poll question as it went out to approximately 350,000 mobile users:

President Mahmound Ahmadinejad of Iran’s speech at Columbia University …

A) Should not have happened

B) Was okay – supports free speech

C) Don’t know/don’t care

Our typical response rate is in the mid-single digits. While this is not a strict scientific poll, it has enough responders and a broad enough cross-section of demographic groups to give some valid indication of the pulse of the American public.

A similar poll was published in the New York Daily News. In that poll of approximately 2,000 New Yorkers, 57% approved of Columbia University’s decision and 43% thought it was wrong.

The Upoc demographic tends to have an average age in the late 20s/early 30s, with almost an equal male/female split. All races, religions, geographic regions and political leanings are represented.

We have chat groups from all major religions. We have left- and right-oriented politics, as well all the varieties of sexual orientation. We have social networking in English, Spanish, French, Italian and several other languages.

So, the community does skew toward a younger demographic, and thus under-represents the 40+ population. With all that in mind, here are the results:

Should not have happened 35%

Was okay – supports free speech 31%

Don’t know/don’t care 34%

The Upoc community is basically evenly split between thinking that permitting the speech was a mistake, or “okay,” with a similar percentage undecided or not caring.

The purpose of the poll was not to make any particular political statement, but to show the value of mobile polling in rapidly reaching a diverse audience and getting results back quickly and efficiently. The whole effort required five minutes of one customer service representative's time.

As far as the interpretation of the results, I leave that to you, and other political pundits!

Category: politics, polls

Tag: columbia freedomofsppech tyrannt

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Blog Storming!

by mobileman (09/20/2007 - 16:22)

Blog Storming!

During the past couple of years, the blogosphere has been full of mobile-application projections and predictions. I have blogged about many of these in the past months. Location-Based Services (LBS), On-Deck Portals, Off-Deck Services, microblogs, video, games, TV, chaperone services, the Iphone, the Google phone … the list goes on.

My question is, what's next? The trends that we are seeing in Web and mobile make a specific prognostication somewhat risky. But of course, here is my try:

I believe that a mobile device is fundamentally a personal communications device. We have already seen the early trend of the “type and style” of a device making a fashion statement or reflecting your inner self in some deep Madison Avenue ad manner. This was furthered by the ringtone explosion.

Consumers wanted others to hear their ringtones because it makes a statement in some psychological way about who they are. This is true even if the ringtone goes off in the middle of a bunch of strangers. It is part of self-definition. On the Web, this trend of self-definition is being carried on by the explosion of blog and networking sites.

Since I believe that the past is a good roadmap to the future – the

next big thing in wireless will center on new ways to self-define and announce yourself to the world. We have gone through the visual (what phone I have) and the audible (what ringtone I have). The connection with self-definition and the Web is inevitable. The next big wave of mobile application will involve the ability to define yourself through your mobile- application environment.

Microblogging from your phone, allowing your friends to track where you are (LBS) on your Web social network, streaming live video and audio from your live experience to your Web persona. In essence, this all equates to consumers becoming real-time publishers of their own reality-TV channel. Call it "Blog Storming." Where am I, What am I doing, What am I seeing, What am I hearing and experiencing.

The new generation of Mobile 2.0 applications will have to be self-awareness and self-reporting. It is still intrusive to stop what you are doing to send that SMS or MMS. You take yourself out of the activity to send a message about. The application must be recording your environment seamlessly.

I probably would have not predicted the popularity of reality television, but if watching people chasing each other around on some deserted island is good TV, then watching millions of people run around in their daily lives would prove irresistible. MTV is as much the reality network as it is a music network!

While I would never want to do this myself – the attraction of this type of application and society's voyeuristic side will make Blog Storming the perfect storm.