More Standard Ad Units for Mobile- IAB Report

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today published a report entitled “Prevailing Mobile In-Application Advertising Formats,” that looks at current and future trends for mobile ad formats and placement on a variety of platforms and devices.
The IAB fielded a simple survey to members who sell in-app ads, asking them to summarize the ad formats they currently support, across seven different platforms for mobile devices, including Android, Blackberry, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Participating publishers in the survey included companies such as 4INFO, the Associated Press, CNN.com, Millennial Media and Pandora, just to name a few.
In terms of smartphone platforms, the IAB concluded that banner sizes are “most harmonious,” meaning the surest way to run a campaign across a majority of smartphone app platforms is to stick to the largest of the 6:1 Mobile Marketing Association mobile banner sizes, which is 300 x 50. A majority of the participants in this survey support 300 x50 directly, and those that don’t generally have a size slightly larger where a 30 0x 50 will fit okay with black or white bars around it.
Interestingly, no publisher in the survey currently offers a landscape-oriented banner (for example, 480×75) for a smartphone app. The IAB expects that landscape ads may start to appear as apps meant to be used in that mode grow more common. Given that apps increasingly work in both portrait and landscape modes, the IAB speculates that one possible market evolution will be for in-app campaigns to design distinct and complementary portrait and landscape banners that run simultaneously.
The report includes much information and can be downloaded here. It breaks down formats for each of the seven aforementioned platforms and even discusses emerging best practices for the industry.

Forward Thinking Mobile Marketing Apps! Simply Impressive!

Location-based services have evolved in ways most of us didn’t foresee just a few yearsago. Instead of cellular tower triangulation–with which forward-thinking marketers imagined that the phone of a person walking by a Starbucks could be “read” and sent a coupon for a latte–it’s all about the apps. Two LBS applications for marketers–WeReward, a cash-payout system which this week put out its Android version, and PlacePop, a virtual loyalty card program currently for iPhones–got me thinking: Like the mobile platform for consumers, LBS software means finely tailor-made offerings for marketers–and this customizability is what will change mobile marketing.
PlacePop, for which an Android edition is in the works, thankfully avoids cloaking itself with socializing and gaming visages meant to convince consumers that it’s “fun” to use them. Instead, it’s a straightforward marketing tool that uses the tried-and-true tactics–loyalty rewards, specific locales, and personalized greetings upon entering a business–of older strategies, like opt-in SMS/text and email, or even those paper stamp cards that make each visit count toward something free or discounted. Consumers can reach increasing status levels, and marketers can choose how to reward their rising number of visits.
PlacePop sounds easy for companies to use, with a soon-to-be-launched self-serve dashboard with which business owners can set up and manage a virtual card program for their location in less than five minutes. The dashboard also enables marketers to see data about activity at their venues, such as who is visiting and how often–providing measurable ROI.
WeReward, which has been available for the iPhone, offers the best incentive of all for consumer participation: Cold hard cash. (Caveat: It’s in increments of nickels and dimes, varying according to the advertiser, until a consumer accrues $10 or more–enough to receive a PayPal payout.) Consumers earn money for checking in and spending money at certain bars, restaurants, and retailers, verified with photos submitted by the consumer, GPS data, and manual reviews. Call it “the app that pays you back.”

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Young Adults- "Aren't Sold" Mobile Organic Search Still King

In an interesting, albeit limited study of roughly 2,210 young people, 47% say they’re using real-time search from the likes of Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis, while just 4% say they would choose paid search results over natural results.
The study, conducted by Tamar, found that people over 55 were the least likely to trust paid search as a trusted source with just 3% choosing it over natural search results. Younger people, however, are increasing their use of mobile to search- as 14% of both 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year-olds use mobile search every day.

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Apple Innovates while Microsoft…Umm well…MS Tablet Rumor

Speaking at the Worldwide Partners Conference in Seattle, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer revealed this week that his company is finally ready to step on the gas and get serious about the scarcity of competition in the tablet marketplace.
Saying Microsoft is poised to bring some “hardcore” attention to the long awaited project, Ballmer indicated that Microsoft will soon roll out a veritable smorgasbord of Windows 7-based slate computers.
Without question, Microsoft has designs on taking down the iPad as the preeminent consumer choice in the tablet marketplace. Ballmer, however, maintains that a Microsoft tablet will present consumers with far more choices and opportunities than anything presently available or in the works.
“We want to give you a great device, a consumer oriented device, but a device that fits and is manageable with today’s enterprise IT solutions… This is a terribly important area for us. It’s certainly an area where—how do I say it?—we feel all of the energy and vigor and push that we have ever felt to innovate, to drive hard, to compete,” Ballmer said.

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Google announces "App Inventor"

Last night, Google unveiled a new Android development tool called “App Inventor” that allows anyone without programming knowledge the ability to create Android apps using a simple drag-and-drop WYSIWYG-style editor.

The new service, announced via this New York Times article, aims to break down the knowledge barrier for creating apps for the Android platform, and has been in beta testing in educational institutions for the past year or so. The service is a Web app that provides a dead simple way to drag and drop elements of an Android app, with the hard-coding being formatted in the background- the same way WYSIWYG editors tore down the barrier to basic HTML editing in the early days of the Internet.

Google claims the service was used by kids in the sixth-grade to create rather powerful apps, indicating just how easy App Inventor can be. ”To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior,” Google says on it’s Website.

The flip side to this, as TechCrunch is pointing out, is that the Android Market could potentially be bombarded with “less-than-stellar” apps that degrade the the Market itself. The same thing happened back when WYSIWYG editors reinvented how Websites are created, and allowed anyone who could drag-and-drop elements the ability to create a Website.

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We'll Show Microsoft Windows Phone 7 love also…

Courtesy of Engadget

Retailers are preparing for a September launch of Microsoft Windows Phone 7, according to leaked documents from the computing giant and smartphone manufacturer.
September (or ‘Q3′ if you work in marketing) is earlier than originally planned for a Windows Phone 7 launch.
Next after KIN. The news follows the recent killing off of Microsoft’s KIN phones in Europe, which might well have something to do with the rush to get a decent smartphone on the market to compete with Apple, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia’s Symbian phones later this year.

Microsoft has said that the the internal KIN development team would now be transferred to work on Windows Phone 7. Leaked documents from US phone network AT&T reveal that Windows Phone 7 promotions are set to appear in store as early as late July, according to Engadget, which published the leaked floorplan for retail stores.

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USA.gov Rolls Out New Mobile Initiative

Courtesy of Mobile Marketing July 06, 2010

Both Democrats and Republicans can agree on one aspect of “change” brought by the Obama Administration. The Commander-in-Chief is changing the way the White House and the Federal Government at large use digital media and social networking to connect with Americans.

And, for the most part, few object to the mobile outreach efforts put forward.

On the heels of the patriotic holiday weekend, the USA.gov website has been re-launched. And it’s more mobile-friendly than ever.

Along for the roll out are eighteen mobile applications (free of course) that are focused on a wide assortment of federal bureaus and government initiatives. For the first time ever, the mobile efforts and offerings from the federal government closely resemble the look and feel of apps and mobile websites common in the private sector.

According to an exclusive interview with CNN, “Across the past couple of decades, the private sector has made great gains in productivity and customer service,” says the White House’s Office of Management and Budget deputy director Jeffrey Zients.

“The Federal Government has largely missed out on these gains as it has failed to harness the power of new technologies. Closing this technology gap between the Federal Government and the private sector is key to saving taxpayer dollars and making government services faster, easier and more responsive.”

The array of cool news apps include the FBI’s Most Wanted, Alternative Fuel Locator, U.S. Postal Service Tools, UV Index, and even Product Recalls.

To browse the full assortment of apps from the USA.gov store, click here.

You've all Been Asking- iPhone 4 Review

By Joshua Topolsky posted Jun 22nd 2010 6:01PM Courtesy of Engadget.com

The iPhone 4 is no small thing to review. As most readers of Engadget are well aware, in the gadget world a new piece of Apple hardware is a major event, preceded by rumors, speculation, an over-the-top announcement, and finally days, weeks, or months of anticipation from an ever-widening fan base. The iPhone 4 is certainly no exception — in fact, it may be Apple’s most successful launch yet, despite some bumps on the road. We’ve already seen Apple and AT&T’s servers overloaded on the first day of pre-orders, the ship date for the next set of phones pushed back due to high demand, and die-hard fans in line outside of Apple locations a week before the phone is actually available. It’s a lot to live up to, and the iPhone 4 is doing its best — with features like a super-fast A4 CPU, a new front-facing camera and five megapixel shooter on the back, a completely new industrial design, and that outrageous Retina Display, no one would argue that Apple has been asleep at the wheel. So the question turns to whether or not the iPhone 4 can live up to the intense hype. Can it deliver on the promises Steve Jobs made at WWDC, and can it cement Apple’s position in the marketplace in the face of mounting competition from the likes of Google and Microsoft? We have the answers to those questions — and many more — in our full review, so read on to find out!

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1.7 Million iPhone 4 Sold!

Courtesy of Mobile Marketing Watch

The “Apple” doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Pun intended.

As with previous generations of Apple’s hugely popular smartphone, the iPhone 4 has similarly experienced huge initial sales success.

On Monday, the Cupertino-based tech giant announced that 1,700,000 iPhone 4s were sold in just the first three days of the device’s release.

That figure, however, takes into account hundreds of thousands of phones sold during the preorder process.

In the official statement from Apple, company chief Steve Jobs called the iPhone 4 launch “the most successful product launch in Apple’s history.”

The first generation iPhone (released in the summer of 2007) didn’t breach the one million sales level for nearly three months. In 2009, Apple only sold one million iPhone 3GSes after a full month. It even took 28 days for the iPad to reach seven-figures in units sold. Compared to other product roll-outs, Jobs certainly isn’t exaggerating when he points to the relatively astonishing early sales success of the iPhone 4.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, who predicted first weekend sales to total between 1 to 1.5 million, surveyed hundreds of iPhone 4 buyers and discovered that better than three-quarters were upgrading from previous iPhone models they owned.

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Follow the VC Funds…. Mobile Social Network WAP Sites

Booyah, the company behind the popular “MyTown” geolocation app has raised $20M in a third round of funding to take on fierce competition in the space.
Though it hasn’t seemed to garner as much press as its counterparts like Gowalla and Foursquare, MyTown has long been a hit with users. The company says its apps are gaining more than 100,000 new users a week and now has two million total users. To put it in perspective, that puts it ahead of Gowalla, which claims 250,000 users, and FourSquare, which has 1.1 million.
The company differs slightly from Foursquare and Gowalla in that while it allows users to “check-in,” it also allows users to “buy” venues and charge rent to other users when they visit. The concept is Booyah’s answer to mayorships, and does a good job engaging users with geolocation and the “gaming” aspect.
MyTown 3.1 was recently released that offers several enhancements such as a check-in limit, add-ons to customize your property and a revamped menu of nearby locations that shows your friends’ favorite destinations and trending places. MyTown definitely has a shot at becoming a leader in the space if it keeps up its current momentum.