TruEffect Blog

The Mobile Web is closer than you think.

Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far

Michael Fitzgerald’s piece on the mobile phone revolution has a very interesting and moderately concealed challenge for all the practitioners of the current web models for content and advertising. – “Don’t assume it’s business as usual”. . . as if we ever would! He rightly points to the false starts and many users of current web browsers on their traditional handsets can readily attest to this.

It seems like we are at the tipping point of the next surge. Already trueffect is seeing and serving ever increasing users of mobile devices. Interestingly we have seen a monthly doubling of ads to iPhones as users surf away using relatively traditional techniques. Fitzgerald also calls out Nokia’s investments in the space though he misses the N800 product as the potential standard bearer. Unlike the iPhone the N800 runs on Linux and supports things like Skype, Flash and soon all the content that was on the Palm OS. Given Nokia’s expertise in “voice” the ability to use verbal not text commands would not be a stretch.

It will then come down to who will pay for it. At that point we are back to the three-legged stool of publishing; 1) Great content attracts 2) A great audience 3) Which attracts great advertisers. Maybe this time we can come up with a little more imaginative advertising vehicle than a banner!

-Martin

   

Predictions over dinner.

Last week we hosted an invitation-only dinner in New York City attended by members of the media, publishers, analysts and technology partners. The purpose was to get some smart people in a room and pick their brains about the changes happening all around us. Here is some of what we heard:

1. You can throw out the ground rules established almost 10 years ago about who does what.

The comfortable notion that Company A does this, Company B does that, and Company C does what no else wants to do is dissolving. Search engines are buying a footprint in display. Publishers are acquiring technology. Analytics companies are buying targeting companies. Agencies used to just buy other agencies, but now anything tangentially related to advertising is fair game. There is a perception that control will beget success, and whoever has the most toys wins. History undeniably proves that some of this consolidation will prove genius and some will fail miserably.

2. The chaos is going to get worse before it gets better.

The media industry has been notoriously resistant to change. Until smart, hungry entrepreneurs brought to market viable alternatives to print, direct and broadcast, no one had any incentive to upset the apple cart. Now that the Internet is undeniably here to stay, and the pole position has been taken by companies like Google and Microsoft, the big guns are coming out and the fun is only just beginning.

3. Spectators are becoming combatants.

There is a new horse in the race that isn’t there because they’re losing ad revenue to Google or Facebook. Until now, many companies involved in the delivery of the Internet experience have stood on the sidelines and watched, quietly content to sell hardware, software or even bandwidth. Since the recovery from 2001, however, there has been phenomenal growth among content providers, ad networks and search engines just to name a few. This has not been lost on these passive players, and they’re not going to take it anymore. Getting a piece of the action in the bits and bytes has become a strategic imperative for them. All of us can expect some interesting and novel entries during 2008.

Perhaps you have already come to some or all of these conclusions. I take stock in the fact these were not the comments of observers, but from those people working every day on the issues being discussed. We would like to hear what you think…

                                    

-Scott

   

FTC Townhall

Last week I was able to participate in the Federal Trade Commission’s Town Hall on behavioral advertising. There was a great deal of interest and animated discussion on the future of interactive advertising.  We’ve been at this a little over a decade and it seems we’re on the cusp of some rather dramatic changes. I’ll be writing about these changes as I understand them and asking for you to chime in as well.  For now, please take a second to read my article on the impact of a “do not track” registry and how we need advertisers at the table.

                                    

You can view it here.  Take a few seconds and let me know what you think.

                                    

-Scott