This week was marked by an extraordinary series of high profile Mobile Web developments… which, when viewed in aggregate, were seen by many as evidence that the nascent channel has finally reached an inflection point.
All three major areas of the mobile web “ecosystem” (carriers, publishers and advertisers) announced significant site launches, partnerships and traffic milestones, including several blue-chip advertisers and content publishers such as American Airlines, YouTube, Yahoo!, NBC, ABC, A&E and the New York Times.
Despite these encouraging developments, several notable marketplace events served to point out the shortcomings of the emerging mobile web space, including a reminder of a glaring limitation of the mobile web from a metrics and reporting standpoint, as well as accounts of a public tirade involving nearly the entire mobile value chain – from one of the mobile industry’s more prominent (and animated) executives.
A busy week in the World of WAPcraft to be sure… here’s some of the major highlights:
Carriers. Last week’s most significant Mobile Web development came from AT&T Mobility, who announced a strategic alliance with Yahoo! whereby the internet giant will begin serving ads on the carrier’s “MEdia Net” mobile portal. Under the terms of the agreement, Yahoo! and AT&T will divide up the on-deck advertising inventory for sale and/or for internal use. Additionally, AT&T ’s yellowpages.com will now power local search on both AT&T’s Mobile and Wireline Web properties. AT&T has not yet announced when these changes will take affect.
AT&T Mobility’s move follows earlier moves by Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Collectively, the three carriers represent approximately 78% of the US mobile market. T-Mobile, the last of the “big four” US carriers without an on-deck mobile advertising play, has tied up with Yahoo! to serve ads on its UK “Web’n'Walk”mobile portal. Clearly the announcement from AT&T Mobility would inhibit T-Mobile’s ability to expand their Yahoo! relationship here in the US.
Publishers. This week witnessed an abundance of mobile website launches and/or relaunches from many of the larger content providers. YouTube announced the launch of its new Mobile Web site (m.youtube.com), as well as a new J2ME application (supported on Nokia 6110, 6120, E65, N73, N95 and Sony Ericsson k800 and w880). NBC announced the launch of 40 new WAP sites (as well as 3 new mobile video channels), including dedicated mobile web sites for NBC programs such as 30 Rock, ER, Friday Night Lights and Saturday Night Live. Not to be outdone, ABC News announced that its mobile site (m.abcnews.com) would be providing “real time” US presidential election results, although Mobile Marketer reports that ABC refreshes its mobile website content [only] on an hourly basis.
On the cable side, A&E Television announced the launch of mobile the A&E Network portal (mobile.aetv.com), as well as dedicated sites for The History Channel (mobile.history.com) and The Biography Channel (mobile.biography.com). The A&E mobile sites feature fairly standard mobile web fare, including “What’s on Tonight”, “Program Descriptions and Photos”, “Fan Polls and Trivia Games” and “Downloadable Wallpapers and Ring Tones.”
Finally, moconews.net reported that the New York Times mobile website is now generating an average of 10MM page impressions per month, a 600% year-over-year traffic increase.
Advertisers. American Airlines announced the launch an extravagant new mobile web site that is sure to raise the bar for mobile websites in the airline category. The site utilizes a common URL approach (www.aa.com), which automatically redirects mobile users to device-appropriate site versions (although mobile users have the option of reverting to the full HTML site, an option that hopefully will soon become a standard feature on most mobile websites). Currently the AA.com mobile site features include the ability for users to “check in for a flight, view their itinerary, check schedules, check the status of their flights, get information on destinations, weather or airports and contact American Airlines.”
Future AA.com mobile enhancements targeted for a Spring ‘08 launch include the ability for users to “book flights, change their reservations, view fare specials, request upgrades and enroll in” American’s AAdvantage loyalty program. Additionally, the carrier states that “many pages also will be viewable in Spanish.”
Criticism. UK SEO provider AccuraCast cast a spotlight on Google’s inability to effectively track conversions generated from AdWords Mobile. The challenge faced by Google is that its ability to track conversions relies on either Java script (embedded on a publisher’s page) or tracking cookies – technologies not supported by most (if not all, in the case of Java) mobile web browsers. To its credit, Google acknowledges its system’s shortcomings, noting that “conversion rate, cost-per-conversion, cost-per-transaction and value/click are adjusted to reflect only those sites from which we can track conversions.”
In lighter news, this week at the AlwaysOn Media event in New York City Cyriac Roeding, SVP of CBS mobile, unleashed a public rant against the complexity and inherent dysfunction of the mobile ecosystem. Apparently no one was spared from Teutonic executive’s assault on the mobile industry; From the carriers (there’s too many of them! lack of technology standards! too many pricing options! too many service packages! poor marketing!) to the publishers and handset manufacturers (poor usability! content poorly organized!) and even the advertisers themselves! (they don’t understand mobile or the value it brings!). While attendees reported that Mr. Reoding’s “marketplace observations” were greeted with wild applause, mobilestance finds it ironic that the current Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association Board of Directors would choose to publicly rebuke, ridicule and embarrass nearly all of the organization’s members.
Analysis: While development of the mobile web ecosystem seems to be accelerating, it remains to be seen if a critical mass has been achieved – both in terms of users – as well as content. Still, all the major players in the space (carriers, content publishers, and advertisers) are taking the necessary steps to advance the channel towards reaching the seemingly inevitable goal of mainstream use. That said, it is clear that several prominent hurdles (most notably usability issues such as UI and network speeds, as well as the inability to cookie most mobile devices) still stand in the way of large scale consumer adoption and commercial exploitation of the mobile web.
Last week was punctuated by a steady stream of mobile marketing-related announcements, studies, partnerships and launches – some interesting, some not so much… and none of which truly worthy of a dedicated post.
Nevertheless, taken in aggregate these moves represent an ever-advancing industry, charging forward on the backs of the innovators, the followers, and the “never say hype” over-enthusiastic forecasters.
We give you then, the first of mobilestance.com’s “This Week in Mobile Marketing”
TWIMM: We read the domestic Mobile Marketing trades, studies, announcements and insane market forecasts… so you don’t have to!
Mobile Search. Nielsen Mobile (formerly Telephia) announced that “46 Million [US] Mobile Data Users Used Mobile Search Functions in Q3 2007.” But before you get all excited, keep in mind that “The most popular form of mobile search among data users in Q3 2007 was 411 (18.1 million users), followed closely by SMS (text-message) -based searching, which was used by 14.1 million data users during the same period.” Yep… the “big news” is that folks are mostly using mobile search to look up local phone numbers – not exactly a headline generating statistic. Still, “while local listings were the leading search objective in terms of users, (27.1 million data users searched for local listings in Q3 2007), 14.8 million said they searched for information such as sports scores, news or weather, while nearly a quarter (11.3 million) said they searched for mobile content.” Good news for SMS Ad Networks such as 4INFO . Notably absent from the announcement was any mention of WAP-based search offerings such as those by Google, Yahoo, Jumptap and the like – other than a brief mention that “61% of 411 search users are female, while 60% of WAP (or mobile web) search users are male.”
Meanwhile in related news, Nokia’s head of search Jussi Pekka Partanen simultaneously hyped local search while taking shots at Google, as reported moconews.net. At the the Visiongain mobile search conference in London last week the handset giant contended that mobile search will be more context-focused than the existing page rank-driven engines currently dominating the desktop search market. Nokia’s current “Nokia Search” product seems more evolutionary than revolutionary, combining web search with local (meaning: on the device) content search.
The Mobile Web. 40% of web publishers have launched mobile sites, with another 25% planing to do so in the next year, this according to Jupiter Research in a report entitled “Mobile web sites: Designing for mobility.” The number is somewhat misleading, insomuch as “this number… likely reflects mobile versions that consist of frames and offer a kludgy user interface,” or so says Mediapost. The report states that only 3% of the above mobile sites are “mobile advertising enabled” – in that they have the ability to optimize ad delivery based on whether the user is viewing the page via a mobile device (versus a PC). Mediapost also notes that up to 1/3 of these pages enable mobile commerce of some sort, such as “instant transactions and the ability to drive shoppers into nearby stores” – a fairly vague definition of mobile commerce to be sure.
Notable Mobile Website launches included a dedicated mobile version of FIM’s Photobucket (m.photobucket.com), Discovery Mobile’s new mobile portal (discoverymobile.com, which houses the all of Discovery Communications’ mobile sites, such as Discovery Channel Mobile, Animal Planet Mobile, and TLC Mobile), and USA.gov Mobile (http://mobile.usa.gov – which seems to be a fairly straightforward RSS fed Gov’t info formatted for mobile).
Mobile Content. The NBA announced that they are partnering with Turner to handle all of its mobile-related content offerings, this according to Fierce Mobile Content. Fierce reported that “the cable network will assume operational control of the league’s digital efforts, including its mobile and broadband businesses. The partnership, effective for the 2008-09 NBA season and continuing through the 2015-16 campaign, also calls for TBS to take over programming, marketing and technical operations of NBA TV, the league’s 24-hour digital television network, and host and operate the NBA.com Network, which includes the NBA.com, WNBA.com and NBADLeague.com websites. In addition, TBS will operate NBA League Pass, the league’s out-of-market game package. TBS, Inc. and the NBA will jointly sell advertising for all of the league’s digital assets.”
QR Codes. In a rare break from our “US Bias,” mobilestance.com continues to cover The Sun’s “Babe-Infused” QR Code efforts (UK). This week the Sun announced the results of its experiment with the promising mobile marketing technology. According to the Sun, the “new mobile content service has achieved early success with around 11,000 users registered so far.” Buoyed by these numbers, the tabloid plans on publishing “another pull-out (supplement in The Sun) to further inform people on how to use QR codes.”
Research-Driven Market Hype. The results of two “hypefull” Mobile Marketing studies were announced last week. The first was on Monday from ABI Research, who announced that “mobile marketing is expected to grow to over $24 billion worldwide in 2013, jumping from just $1.8 billion in 2007,” this according to the research firm’s study/product entitled “Mobile Marketing and Advertising” (retail price: $4500). The second came from Advertiser Perceptions, who reported on Wednesday that “26% [of advertisers] said they were currently using mobile, 20% said they planned to use it in the next six months, and 54% said they are not currently using mobile,” as reported by Ad Age. These numbers were based on surveys of “2,000 brand marketers and agencies” as part of their “Wave Eight” study that seems to cover both “hot” hand held media channels, such mobile video and search -as well as “not so hot” channels such as podcasting.
Miscellaneous News. The FCC launched a probe to “determine whether mobile phone text messages and short codes are covered by non-discrimination provisions of the telecom act,” this according to RCR Wireless News. The FCC move comes in wake of Verizon’s recent high-profile decision to block text messages from NARAL Pro-Choice America – a decision it quickly reversed under pressure from from a successful grass-roots campaign the organization launched against the carrier. Finally, Steve Jobs announced an underwhelming firmware update to the iPhone at last week’s Macworld 2008. Among the updates included features that now allowing users to send group SMS messages (something I can do on my two year old RAZR) and the non-GPS-based “Blue Location BEacon” feature in Google Maps (something I’ve been able to do on my Blackberry since Google launched the service late last year). Baby steps, to be sure. Forget a 3G version… I’m still waiting for such standard “features” as Cut and Paste!
In a stunning announcement that is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows, ESPN reported that for three days during the 2007/8 NFL season traffic to its mobile portal exceeded that of its (PC-based) web counterpart, this according to AdAge.
ESPN is reporting that for one 24-hour period, traffic to its wireless NFL section exceeded visits to the PC NFL section, 4.9 million to 4.5 million visits. The network states that multitasking, fantasy-driven viewers frequently visit both sites on game days, and no doubt mobile’s rise to prominence is a boon for out-of-home fantasy-leaguers nationwide.
M:Metrics claims ESPN’s reach for its mobile properties is roughly 9MM, about 28% of the total US mobile web universe. Additionally, M:Metrics reports that 43.8% of those browsing sports content on their mobile devices visit ESPN, while Fox Sports draws 19.2%, followed by the NFL’s mobile website with 18.6% and CBS Sportsline at 11.4%.
Analysis: This type of headline really raises the profile of the mobile channel (with specific emphasis on mobile advertising on the mobile web) to all those media planners and buyers out there… A great day for us all!
Today at CES Yahoo! is planning on announcing that they are opening up their “Yahoo! Go” mobile application to third party developers, this according to the New York Times. The Times is reporting that MTV, eBay and MySpace have already created Yahoo! Go widgets that consumers can download either online or directly via the mobile application. Yahoo! Go has been ported to roughly 250 mobile devices, and comes preloaded on some phones made by Motorola, LG, Samsung and Nokia outside the US (domestic carriers force users to manually download and install the application prior to use, although this might change once device manufacturers start selling handsets directly to consumers).
Analysis: Yahoo!’s work on developing Go to a more mature platform is commendable. While the move does serve to further fragment the development environment for mobile (What, another new platform to write for? Better hire another developer!), the platform’s large (for mobile) install base of 250MM users worldwide will be attractive to major publishers and content brands (although some estimates confirm less than half of this base are actively using the application).
A no-brainer for Yahoo!, the move costs them little in oversight, while serving as a short-term defensive move against Google’s open Android platform. Ultimately the long term success of the play will hinge on the ease of developing third party widgets for Yahoo! Go, as well as any advantages that the development environment might afford (access to the address book? GPS data feed?). More on this as it develops.
UpSNAP, a provider of SMS / VoIP-based mobile search and streaming mobile audio products, has announced a deal with mobile advertising firm Millennial Media. Under the terms of the deal Millennial Media (along with nine other partners) will have access to UpSNAP’s mobile search and streaming audio inventory for resale to advertisers and/or their media buying agencies.
The back half of 2007 was a busy one for UpSNAP, merging with animated greeting card provider Mobile Greetings in September and announcing a partnership with mobile search pioneer Go2 in November. With all this activity it’s difficult to get a sense of where UpSNAP is headed, but it appears the firm is rapidly moving towards an ad-supported content aggregation play (with the advertising sales function outsourced to third parties). By providing Go2 with time-sensitive mobile audio content (think audio news clips, like what you’d get from a syndicated news radio program), UpSNAP is essentially acting as a content provider to Go2’s local-focused, mobile search engine. Similarly, providing tying up with Ad Networks such as Millennial reinforces this position, as UpSNAP attempts to outsource the ad sales function of their search and streaming audio products so that they can focus more clearly on content aggregation (in this case, the content is mobile search queries and audio streams). The Mobile Greetings merger only further reinforces this position, as the deal wraps up UpSnap with a high-quality, ad/sponsorship-based mobile content provider.
Analysis: It remains to be seen what (if anything) will ultimately become of such agreements. As stated in reactions to similar announcements, the real challenge in the mobile advertising value chain isn’t in the aggregation of mobile inventory, it’s the actual sales of said inventory… and it would appear if UpSNAP’s inventory were truly valuable they would be able to achieve sell out with their existing nine mobile advertising partners (and therefore wouldn’t be looking to additional mobile ad firms – such as Millennial – to partner up with). That said, in all fairness to UpSNAP… their need for (yet another) mobile ad sales partner likely speaks more to the nascent state of the mobile advertising market than does to the quality of UpSNAP’s inventory.
The slow news week after Christmas is notorious for the oft-derided “year in X” reports, but rather than take time exploring the value of such “Remembrance(s) of Things (less than a year) Past,” mobilestance.com would like to take the time to indulge in our own year end recap of the most notable US Mobile Marketing developments in 2007 (and yes, the illustration on the left depicts “Old Man 2007″ knowingly handing an iPhone to “Baby New Year 2008″).
And what a year 2007 has been. Between the flurry of VC and M&A activity, the reality of a declining global ringtone market and the re-orgs that followed, the explosion of ad supported business models, growth in consumer use of key mobile data services, notable marketplace exits, divestitures and bankruptcies, new entrants in the wireless space (yes, I’m talking about Apple here), and the aggressive moves on the part of the internet portals (most notably Google, but also Yahoo and even AOL and IAC), 2007 may yet be remembered as the year mobile finally “happened” -much to the delight of the Business 2.0 crowd.
After reviewing the list please take a second and weigh in on what you feel was the most important Mobile Marketing event of ’07 by participating in the poll at the end of the piece. Also, since 2007 was such a busy year no doubt there’s plenty more that could be added to this list… that said feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to add some additional insight or if you feel something crucial has been overlooked.
Thanks much… and now without further delay, mobilestance.com proudly presents “The 2007 US Mobile Marketing Game Changers.”
Google Steps it up.Not content to merely sit on the sidelines and play by the rules set forth by the US carriers, the search giant spent much of 2007 re-writing the rules of the US wireless industry.With their conspicuous “open access” lobbying effort, leadership in the Open Handset Alliance, the launch of their open Android platform, and their plans to enter the upcoming 700 MHz US wireless spectrum auction has a legitimate player, Google has stirred the 2007 US wireless pot like no other single corporate entity. While it remains to be seen as what will ultimately come of its aggressive moves in the space (although it seems Google has single-handily forced the biggest hole to date in Verizon’s vaunted walled garden) , it is clear that Google is determined to usher in a far more flexible (read: marketer-friendly) US wireless marketplace… a market that will likely be a boon to innovative third party mobile application developers, hybridized business models, and – most importantly – accelerate consumer adoption of “beyond voice” mobile services.
The Rise of MMS. 2007 was the year that US consumers finally got behind MMS in large numbers, exiting news for marketers not satisfied with the simple Joys of Text. In November of 2007 the MMA reported 33% of all US mobile phone users reporting monthly use of “Picture and/or Video Messaging” – that’s up dramatically from a paltry 16% in 2006. In the younger demographic segments the numbers are even more attractive, with monthly usage peaking in the 18-24 year old group at an astounding 55%. So what does this mean? Bottom line, now that MMS has reached critical mass in the US marketers are free to (finally) capitalize on the expanded interactive and multimedia prowess of the enhanced messaging channel. The possibilities are endless… everything from moblogging, MMS-based couponing, photo contests, video alerts, pattern recognition, html email-type CRM communications and so much more. Sure, there’s nothing actually new with all of these tactics… but now we’re talking about the difference between MMS-based marketing campaigns with real ROI back to the brands, versus the eternally frustrating”test campaigns” of earlier years.
Enter the iPhone. So much has has already been written on the sleek Apple device that it’s become extremely difficult to assess its actual impact. Never mind the recent eye-popping stats released on the iPhone’s disproportionate share of the overall browsing universe, or recent efforts (while fascinating and seemingly quite worthwhile) by marketers to leverage the device to deliver hypertargeted messaging to the forward-leaning, early-adopting, free-with-the-dollars demographic. No, the real impact of the device lies in it serving as a “showroom model” for the full potential of the mobile marketing channel. An independently sold (from the carriers, mind you) Wi-Fi/GSM hybrid with a beautiful touch screen, snappy web browser (snail-like AT&T EDGE network speeds notwithstanding), usable video, music and photo management options… and coming in February, a public SDK for the development of third party applications and a (rumored) flash plug-in for the device’s browser – a first for the “mobile” web (and hey just because it’s the holidays let’s not get into a debate on what is or is not actually the “mobile” web – for now let’s just go with it). It’s amazing how quickly the standard for what is “possible” in mobile has been raised since the release of the iPhone less than six months ago – and how what once passed for cutting edge has so rapidly become not simply dated, but altogether irrelevant. More than any other event in the mobile marketing industry’s short history, the entrance of the iPhone has fueled a frenzy of interest in the space – both from brands and agencies alike. The motivational equivalent of the ‘69 moon landing… with all the junior rocket scientists that followed.
Mobile Advertising Comes of Age. After a few years of luring in the shadows of the mobile marketing industry, the mobile advertising market became incredibly hot in 2007, punctuated by major acquisitions by leading interactive and mobile firms, as well as a dizzying array of venture-fueled deals in the space. The two leaders in the nascent mobile advertising industry, Third Screen Media and Enpocket were promptly acquired by AOL and Nokia, respectively – while Microsoft, once again outmaneuvered in the interactive ad firm acquisitions game, was forced to settle on European Mobile Ad Firm Screen Tonic. The remaining independent mobile ad firms were also firing on all cylinders, with Amobee, Millennial Media, AdMob, Greystripe, and Quattro Wireless all expanding on the heels of fresh investment capital raised in ‘07. Newspaper giant Gannett made a major investment in SMS-based ad firm 4INFO, while Google and Yahoo played a bit of small ball (we can gut Google a little slack here… they’ve been busy rewriting the rulebook for much of the rest of the mobile industry after all). The former taking the much anticipated step of expanding AdSense into the “mobile web,” while Yahoo! announced mobile publisher services and plans to integrate mobile inventory into their Panama ad platform. As for the internet display advertising giants, DoubleClick (soon to be Google) launched their publisher platform, while aQuantitative’s Accipiter Unit (now owned by Microsoft) tied up with NYC-based MoPhap to bring mobile capabilities to their publisher-side interactive ad serving platform. Add daily press releases by major web publishers bringing mobile inventory online, and I think you get this picture: 2007 was the year that nearly everybody in the space simply had to have a mobile adverting play. Sure, there was a bit of herd mentality going on, and no doubt we’re in for… shall we say, a bit of a “correction” in the coming years (this kind of activity surely cannot be sustained indefinitely) – but regardless, the business and technological systems are now in place for brands to reach out and communicate directly with consumers via the mobile handset. Keep in mind this is very different than previous (primarily SMS-based) mobile marketing activity that simply leveraged mobile as a direct response channel activating other forms of media such as television, print and radio (as so eloquently described by Jeff Minsky of OMD in a then accurate but increasingly outdated assessment of the channel – sorry Jeff, but I couldn’t take that one lying down!). Using mobile as a broadcast-type media may be a bit controversial to some, but as long as there remains checks and balances with regard to consumer privacy (yes, the carriers seem to be pulling their weight here, although some needed to be prodded a bit on the subject) an effective system of reaching consumers via their mobile devices should flourish in the months, years and decades to come.
Zumobi’s (formerly Zenzui) much anticipated launch of their widget-based mobile content application was announced yesterday (beta version). The then Zenzui was spun off of from Microsoft in March of this year, and has been busy attracting third party content developers, such as Flickr and MTVN to provide content to its application ever since.
The application features a unique user interface, with content widgets are arranged in “tiles” so that users can “zoom” in and out of content areas by using the familiar “9 up” arrangement. Reviews of the application have been mixed, in that the interface has been viewed by many as slick, but ultimately overly complex. The company anticipates a hybrid pay-for-distribution (a la cable television) / ad supported business model, although I have my doubts that the application will reach the critical mass needed to attract major advertising dollars.
A few months ago I was asked to draft a POV on the business prospects on the application. Below are some excerpts from this report that (should be) OK to share publicly:
While on its face the ZenZui application seems to offer an elegant mobile browsing-like experience, it is faces many severe challenges from both a product and business-model perspective that would seriously put into question the firm’s prospects for success (both in the short and long term).
ZenZui’s decision to target “Heavy (mobile) Users” is likely born out of necessity, and one should not assume that the ZenZui product will follow the usual technology-adoption curves. Several key factors render ZenZui exclusively a “Heavy User”-only product in both the short and mid term. Optimistically, one would need to look out beyond 2010 before the product’s scale would appeal to even the least risk-averse national brands.
As of today the application is only available on Windows Mobile devices (<2% of current handset market). Unspecified plans to expand to J2ME devices (roughly 60% of handset market) and BREW (roughly 25% of handset market) would do much to alleviate this, but lack of any (even approximated) release dates in either of theses two environments leads one to assume they are very far from even an alpha launch (update: the J2ME version has been slated for release in “2Q 2008.” Not exactly a hard release date).
Also somewhat surprising was that fact that Palm was specifically identified as an unsupported format (with no development plans), despite the popularity of the platform among Zenzui’s identified “heavy (mobile)-using” consumer target.
Without regard to specific memory requirements, the main challenge from a handset resource allocation perspective is that in order to function properly the ZenZui application would need to be “always on” (running in the background) on the end user’s device. It is well-known among mobile developers that multithreading on a mobile device is fraught with challenges, and that other than the most expensive Windows Mobile, Apple and Blackberry handsets, other (more common) handsets would likely suffer severe performance issues if the ZenZui application were “always on.” In the short term this issue would seem to reinforce ZenZui’s decision to target “heavy (mobile) users,” as they would likely be the only ones with handsets that could support the application, regardless of development environment (Windows mobile, J2ME or BREW). This limitation could be overcome over the long term once handsets “caught up” to this requirement (an unlikely scenario in the next few years due to the 18-24 month handset replacement cycle).
ZenZui’s non-standard coding environment assumes that developers will be willing to learn a new programming language in both a new / untested medium (mobile) and an application space that has yet to reach any legitimate level of consumer acceptance (ZenZui). As it is, brands and digital publishers are just beginning to embrace the need for “mobile-dedicated” sites in general, and when they do so are overwhelmingly choosing to code in resource-saving standard XML, or parse their standard web pages through a web-to-mobile “auto rendering engines,” which essentially remove page images and parse the (online) page into a standard mobile style sheets on the fly.
Numerous high-profile research studies relating to consumer adoption of mobile data products and services identify price sensitivity as the top barrier to adoption. Other than the severe handset requirements detailed above, Zenzui’s other major price-related barrier to consumer adoption is the requirement that, due to the Zenzui application’s need to refresh its (local) content over-the-air via the carrier data networks, the user must subscribe to an unlimited (“all you can eat”) mobile data plan. As of 3Q 2007 the majority of wireless subscribers have balked at unlimited data plans, which (notable AT&T iPhone bundled voice/data rate aside) can cost consumers a hefty $15 to $30 per month.
By pursuing a pay-for-distribution / advertising revenue-share hybrid business model, ZenZui seems to be following a model highly similar to that employed by the Cable Television Industry (Cable System Operator model). While clearly brands are comfortable “paying for placement” (even in the advertainment space), most digital content providers are not. High profile digital publishers will likely balk at paying a CPM and/or CPC on use of their content (on the contrary, many content brands would insist on payment for allowing Zenzui to gain distribution on the back of their content and brand equity). In the short term ZenZui has circumvented this issue by giving their product away to their content providers, but over the long term this will likely become a barrier for many premium content brands.
You can watch the Zumobi youtube promo video here:
The IAB (UK), in conjunction with the MMA, has published a fairly informative guide to mobile advertising in the British Isles, inclusive of a background information, marketplace learnings, case studies, and a survey of 41 agencies, advertisers and publishers on the subject of “if the internet advertising industry is ready to step into mobile.”
The section on background and marketplace learnings covers most of the basics but overall is fairly standard fare. The report points out the similarities and differences between traditional internet advertising and its mobile cousin, noting that the differences are mainly tactical (less screen real estate for advertising and smaller file sizes for mobile) before dropping a few choice nuggets of info on the reader:
Pricing. “The majority of on-portal ads sell for a £10 – £20 [CPM, ROS]… or 5p – 25p [CPC].”
Campaign Performance. “Click through rates range from 0.5% (off-portal site) up to 4% (on portal), considerably higher (sometimes 15 times) than the equivalent for traditional internet sites.”
Inventory. “The total UK inventory of page impressions is estimated at one billion page impressions per month (October 2007) but is growing at 9% month-on-month and is expected to reach over five billion by the end of 2008.”
The industry survey positioned near the end of the report reveals little of note, other than (as expected) opinions range wildly depending on one’s occupation (i.e. agency, publisher or advertiser, etc).
Myspace launched a free, ad-supported mobile website today (mobile.myspace.com), this according to both moconews and MobiAd. From what I understand the site soft-launched a few months ago, so this new announcement must be the official “hard” launch, although the site still says “beta” in masthead (the Google affect, no doubt). The move comes after the launch of the subscription-based myspace mobile J2ME client on AT&T and Helio about a year ago.
From a user experience perspective, the site works well and is quite snappy in my testing on a Verizon Blackberry 8830. That said, the Ford Focus ad displayed was not optimized for my handset. It could be that the 8830 was not recognized by the ad server and therefore defaulted to the 215 x 34 ad size (instead of the 305 x 64 that should have been served), although it’s far more likely that myspace’s mobile ad server is simply not optimizing ad delivery based on the device, as the 8830 is a highly popular handset and would therefore be included in any decent device library, including WURFL. Additionally, after many page refreshes the Ford ad is the only unit shown, indicating that either the site doesn’t permit advertiser session / frequency capping, or that this campaign simply isn’t using it (perhaps Ford is the only advertiser on myspace mobile at this time?).
Fox Interactive Media’s mobile partner on the advertising-side is Boston Baltimore-based Millennial Media, who is handling both the ad serving for myspace mobile (as well as most other FIM mobile sites) via their MYDAS server, as well as repping the inventory directly to advertisers and agencies. Currently they are serving banners basically an ROS basis, although I am told plans are in the works to bring advanced demographic, geographic and psychographic targeting online “in the coming year” – all based on user registration data. While advanced targeting is attractive from a planning / efficiency standpoint, in my view ad targeting becomes less relevant that overall reach (at least until the mobile web’s scale reaches critical mass)… and in myspace’s case, what I’d really like to see from them is a targeting option that can restrict an ad rotation to pages that do not contain user generated content, for obvious reasons.
Starting December 20th, print ads for Wine Enthusiast running in the WSJ will incorporate SnapTell’s “Snap.Send.Get” technology, reports Mobile Marketer.
The promotional mechanic is very simple and works as follows: Readers “snapping a picture” with their mobile phone and sending it to SnapTell (presumably via email or MMS) will “receive 15 percent off of any purchase on www.wineenthusiast.com.” It is not clear how the discount offer will be returned to consumers, but it is likely to be delivered via SMS in the form of a promo code to be redeemed on the Wine Enthusiast website.
If all of this is sounding at all familiar, it should. Boston-based Mobot, one of the first companies to activate the mobile pattern recognition space in the US, has been powering similar campaigns for Jane Magazine, Vibe and Elle Girl since 2005. What makes the WSJ SnapTell campaign significant is that (to my knowledge) this is the first MMS-based campaign to launch in the US targeted to an audience over 35 years of age. Could it be that recent studies indicating the rising popularity of MMS in the US are to be believed?
One of the reasons that SnapTell’s solution is attractive to marketers is that consumers can engage with these campaigns without first having to download a separate mobile application to transcode and/or identify the pattern to be recognized. The idea behind both Mobot and SnapTell is that all a consumer has to do is send an MMS or email an image to their servers to engage with a campaign; all images / patterns are identified on the server-side. The upside to this approach is that most handsets now have cameras integrated into the device, greatly increasing the potental reach of the tactic.
On the flipside, decoding the image on the server inherently builds lag time into the experience, and response times can be further impacted by message delays on the carrier side. The QR code mechanic, where the image (in this case a one or two dimensional barcode) is decoded on the handset rather than on the server, has been shown to greatly reduce these latencies, providing a much better user experience. However, since most handsets do not (yet) come with reloaded barcode readers (and trying to get consumers to download applications on their own is a fairly challenging task to say the least), the impact of domestic QR campaigns remains limited to an extremely small install-base.
This week was marked by an extraordinary series of high profile Mobile Web developments… which, when viewed in aggregate, were seen by many as evidence that the nascent channel has finally reached an inflection point.
Last week was punctuated by a steady stream of mobile marketing-related announcements, studies, partnerships and launches – some interesting, some not so much… and none of which truly worthy of a dedicated post.
In a stunning announcement that is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows, 
Today at CES Yahoo! is planning on announcing that they are opening up their “Yahoo! Go” mobile application to third party developers, this according to the 
The slow news week after Christmas is notorious for the oft-derided “year in X” reports, but rather than take time exploring the value of such “Remembrance(s) of Things (less than a year) Past,” mobilestance.com would like to take the time to indulge in our own year end recap of the most notable US Mobile Marketing developments in 2007 (and yes, the illustration on the left depicts “Old Man 2007″ knowingly handing an iPhone to “Baby New Year 2008″).
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