Content providers will soon pay mobile carriers to exempt their traffic from consumers’ mobile data plans, says AT&T’s Randall Stephenson. That may seem like a good deal for consumers but in the long-term it’s actually a raw deal. Read more »
From shopping and buying to owning and using products, consumers’ experiences largely determine the success of both retailers and brands. By voting with their feet, wallets, and social media, consumers reward companies that make their lives easy, risk-free, and pleasurable. As proof, you can witness the […] Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Twitter has further refined its advertising product allowing companies to target ads specifically to the words a user tweets, potentially making ads more relevant to users in real time. Read more »
After years of speculation about a “Facebook Phone,” Facebook finally rolled out its version of the deeply-integrated Facebook mobile experience. But aside from a slightly nicer messaging and greater ad opportunities for the company, it wasn’t terribly exciting for users. Read more »
A year ago, it seemed mobile was going to be Facebook’s achilles heel. Things seem to have turned around, though I am not entirely convinced that it means big dollars for the company. Read more »
A research firm has revised its 2014 revenue predictions for Twitter to nearly $1 billion. The upwards revision partly reflects Twitter’s ability to solve the mobile marketing puzzle. Read more »
The deal is mainly aimed at combining and enhancing the two companies’ operator offerings, with intended results ranging from new “ad-supported data” capabilities to more cell site capacity and better analytics. Read more »
Just when many people seemed to think it was dead, new ventures like Svbtle and Medium are trying to reinvent blogging by adding curation and other elements. How they plan to monetize their content, however, remains a mystery. Read more at paidContent »
The takeover will not stop Overlay’s hush-hush work with handset manufacturers, which should see exciting new context-awareness features added to smartphones soon. Meanwhile, the choice of new CEO at rival Madvertise also highlights the important of tech innovation in the mobile advertising arms race. Read more »
The “mobile first” philosophy is under way today. That means a new generation of mobile-centric data centers will arise over the next three years, with chips, servers, and power architectures customized for mobile workloads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Did you really mean to click that mobile web banner? Google is introducing a two-stage process to root out accidental clicks. Advertisers will have to brave a click-through dip for a quality hike. Read more »
AT&T is offering an SMS location-based offers service, while Verizon is delving deep into the handset to cull web and app usage information for its deal targeting purposes. Both programs are opt-in only in an attempt to head off the inevitable concerns over privacy. Read more »
To a lot of observers, mobile’s ascendence spells inevitable heartache. But Victor Malachard, of Adfonic, says it’s very early days, and, in fact, our best ones are still to come. Read more »
Why does one person’s timeline look totally different from another person’s, even if they share many of the same friends and like the same brands? Facebook responded to recent criticism over the surfacing of posts, saying it tries to reduce the number of posts users dislike. Read more »
Even as usage of mobile devices explodes, spending on mobile ads still lags spending on online ads by a huge margin. Will that gap narrow anytime soon? Here’s a look at some of the strategies that mobile marketers are using. Read more »
App analytics and advertising firm is raising $25 million from Crosslink Capital as it builds out internationally and looks at a possible IPO by the second half of 2013. The company is riding the boom in mobile as more consumers turn to smartphones and tablets. Read more »
Nokia is launching the Nokia Ad Exchange to help developers monetize their apps through in-app advertising. Using technology from Inneractive, developers can advertise easily on Nokia phones but also on iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Read more »
According to a report released Thursday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Internet ad revenue reached $17 billion in the first half of the year, but the rate of growth declined from 23 percent between 2010 to 2011 to 14 percent between 2011 and 2012. Read more »
Advertisers looking to drive more downloads of their apps are getting a new tool from TapSense. TapSense’s new ad units allows consumers to download a promoted app right from the ad without getting forced out to the App Store to complete the transaction. Read more »
Flite, an advertising technology company, is trying to help publishers make mobile lucrative with the launch of Touch Ad Studio. The mobile tools build off the work Flite has done to help publishers create premium ads that can be updated in real-time and incorporate outside apps. Read more »
At a New York ad event, Google executives explained how ad buyers should invest in small screens. The presentation contained hype and nonsense but very few practical suggestions. Read more »
Chartboost has released some comparative data on cost-per-installs and cost-per-clicks in 18 markets around the world. It’s helpful in seeing where developers might want to look to expand as they go global. Read more »
To help advertisers figure out when consumers actually intend to purchase a product and when they’re just making a wish list of fantasy items, mobile ad network Jumptap’s new ad targeting approach links mobile behavior, web behavior and offline data. Read more »
Although mobile apps have become increasingly mainstream, no one has figured out how to successfully monetize them yet. What’s the problem here? Inneractive’s Hillel Fuld says mobile technology has evolved faster than the Web, and it’s time for advertisers to match mobile’s pace. Read more »
Flurry said its mobile video ads have topped 100 million completed views in August are proving to be effective ways for publishers to monetize and for advertisers to engage consumers. Now it’s bringing the video ads to Android. Read more »
A study by mobile app marketing platform Trademob found that 40 percent of mobile clicks on ads are essentially useless, the result of accidental presses or fraud. That’s one of the challenges facing mobile advertising, which is still lagging online advertising. Read more »
Twitter seems to be at a crossroads, and according to a recent GigaOM survey, its prospects for the next five years are promising. Key challenges in the near future will be establishing a revenue model and survive the backlash from developers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Smartphones can enable an amazing level of connectivity, but they can also allow that activity to be monitored and used in controversial ways. But for mobile marketing to realize its full potential, consumers may need to sacrifice their privacy to one degree or another. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Location-based advertising holds a lot of potential to boost mobile monetization by offering more relevant and contextual ads. JiWire is trying boost location-based ads with Location Graph, which combines place data with the travel patterns of consumers. Read more »
Facebook is turning on mobile ads for apps, allowing developers to target users in their news feed with ads about their software. This will likely generate new revenue for Facebook and help developers. But it remains to be seen how users will react. Read more »
Inneractive, which runs a mobile ad exchange, has just raised $3.5 million to help developers make money from their apps. The company helps developers by connecting their apps to its exchange, which includes more than 120 ad providers working in more than 200 countries. Read more »
For the first time, the U.S. will surpass Japan as the world’s biggest market for mobile advertising, according to research firm eMarketer. In 2012, advertisers are expected to spend more than $6.43 billion globally in 2012, with the U.S. contributing $2.3 billion. Read more »
Remember when Friendster was the hot social network, publishers doubted that ebooks would ever sell, and Netflix thought DVDs in red envelopes was the future? We do — that was that state of digital media when paidContent launched in 2002. Read more »
Location-based social network Foursquare is rolling out its long awaited promoted updates, an advertising product that allows local and national businesses to push out specials, news and pictures to Foursquare’s more than 20 million users. It’s the start of Foursquare’s big monetization push. Read more »
Pontiflex, which offers small businesses a way to run their own mobile sign-up ads, is now following that up with Social FollowUp, a free tool that enables merchants to automatically send out emails that are algorithmically built from their social media updates and content. Read more »
Three weeks after raising $27.5 million in new funds, mobile ad network Jumptap, which has said it could go public within a year, has added a chief operating officer and a new board member. Read more »
Kiip, a mobile reward network, announced it has raised $11 million as it looks to become more of a consumer-facing company. The startup will release a wallet app called Kiipsake that will let users organize and manage their rewards. Read more »
Amid debates over Do Not Track and increased activity in ad tech, a report released Monday from privacy management firm TRUSTe signals that consumers are increasingly taking actions to protect their online privacy. Read more »
Under the gun to show that it can make big money in mobile, Facebook is reportedly planning to unveil a new product that will target ads based on the apps a consumer has on his phone. Read more »
The true impact of the launch of the iPhone probably has as much to do with the software that was eventually created on Apple smartphone as much as that smartphone itself, thanks to developers who saw an opportunity and a revolutionary approach to mobile software. Read more »
