Mobile is a rapidly developing sector. According to some projections, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop usage before 2015. In preparation, companies are developing new mobile commerce platforms, strategies, and marketing efforts. Microsoft Tag recently attempted to sum up this constantly changing space with a single infographic. Here’s the summary: The mobile market is large; local searches, games, and YouTube are all doing well on Mobile; and socializing is the most prominent use of the mobile Internet. See the full infographic below.

via: http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/mobile-by-the-numbers-infogrpahic/

 

 

Ad-Providers on Facebook Platform

 In order to better serve your monetization needs while developing your application, below is a list of companies that provide advertising services on Facebook Platform. Advertising Providers displayed on this list have all signed the Platform Terms for Advertising Providers and are bound by all Facebook policies. Developers must only use services from companies that appear on this list. Any other provider is prohibited until they agree to the terms above. These providers are not approved by nor affiliated with Facebook and, therefore, it is your responsibility as the developer to ensure compliance with Facebook's Advertising Guidelines even though the companies on this list have agreed to the policies as well. We hope that by providing this list of companies that have acknowledged their commitment to advertising quality that we can all foster a better user experience.

Ad4Game

AdJug

Adknowledge - (Cubics and Super Rewards)
ADTELLIGENCE
Applifier
APP Prizes
appssavvy
Bizmey
Casale Media
CPX Interactive
DoubleDing
Fox Networks
Httpool
Lifestreet Media
MATOMY
Mediastay
One iota
Paymentwall
Peanut Labs
PubMatic
RadiumOne
RockYou
Rubicon Project
Smowtion
Sometrics
SponsorPay
SupersonicAds
SVnetwork
Tapjoy
tmpSocial
TokenAds
TrialPay
Underdog Media
WildTangent
XTEND

Facebook © 2011

Based on current download rates, the crossover could come before the end of the year

The chart at right, drawn by Asymco's Horace Dediu, compares two of Apple's (AAPL) signal developments: the growth of legal digital music downloads and the growth of downloadable mobile apps. Graphed on top of each other, by months since launch, the chart shows traffic on the App Store reaching in 2.2 years the same total -- nearly 7 billion downloads -- that the iTunes Music Store reached in five. "The two curves," Dediu writes, "are likely to be the same height (around 13 billion each) before the year is over."

Commenting on Dediu's post, AppsFire's Ouriel Ohayon says we shouldn't be surprised, even though there are 12 million songs on iTunes and only about a quarter million apps. "Apps are the new ringtones and wallpapers," he writes, "the new way (and the best way)" to personalize your phone." Moveover, he adds, many of them are free. He focuses on a second Dediu chart, copied below, that shows that the two download rates are not nearly as smooth as the first suggests. In fact, this fever chart shows a sharp falloff in daily download rate for songs starting about a year ago. Ohayon doesn't offer an explanation. Any theories?

Ohayon's chart:

The New York Times is offering a platform that other publishers can use to produce their own apps for devices starting with the iPad and iPhone.

The first publishers to sign up to use the platform, which The Times is calling Press Engine, are the Telegraph Media Group and three A.H. Belo newspapers: Dallas Morning News, Providence Journal and Press-Enterprise in Southern California. The publishers keep any advertising and circulation revenue the apps bring in; they pay the Times a one-time license fee for the platform and then a monthly maintenance fee.

New revenue
The platform is the latest bid by a media company to derive revenue from sources beyond the traditional core streams of ad sales and circulation. Most often the recent attempts along those lines have involved providing agency-like services -- whether built up internally or acquired, as Meredith and Hearst have done -- but this platform is a new way for a media company to provide services to other media companies. And it's a new way for a media company to make money from the booming app economy beyond making its own apps. The Times decided to offer the product after inquiries started coming from other publishers, said Christine Topalian, a director of the News Services division at the Times. "Over the last year there's been a particular amount of interest from different clients asking whether we would be willing to license the code of our own New York Times application," Ms. Topalian said. The Times is not exactly replicating its apps for others, however, Ms. Topalian said. "We're taking, for lack of a better word, the DNA of them and the functionality of them."

Decisions about paid content
The Dallas Morning News was one of the papers that sought out the Times to see if it could help with an iPad app, said James Moroney, CEO and publisher at the Dallas Morning News. "When a company like ours, that doesn't have the resources and scale of The New York Times, went looking for a partner, the first place we looked was to The New York Times because of their track record and because they are in the same business we are in." The Dallas Morning News plans to introduce its iPad app, built using the Press Engine platform, near the beginning of next year, Mr. Moroney said. First it has to decide how to reconcile charging for the iPad app, as it plans to do, with posting all its content free on the web, as it currently does. Consumers aren't likely to pay for an iPad app to access the same content they can get free on the iPad's web browser. "We are looking at how and what we might do about taking some of our content and making it available only to people who have either paid for a print subscription or who are paying for some kind of digital access," Mr. Moroney said.

Producers of mobile apps can now market them across Apple’s iAd Network

Apple is extending its burgeoning new iAd mobile advertising platform to app developers themselves.Via the new iAd for Developers initiative, companies and individuals that produce mobile apps can now market them across Apple’s iAd Network. Earlier this month, Apple introduced its iAd advertising platform, which helps mobile developers monetize their apps by delivering ads which run within the applications themselves -- without diverting mobile users to the Internet. Participants in that program are able to retain 60 percent of the associated ad revenue while also tracking basic metrics, such as click-through rates. Now, Apple wants to help these same developers promote their own wares via the new network to “millions of users,” according to a company statement. While Apple doesn’t report how many apps or exactly how many users are reached by the iAd network, it reported last month that brands such as AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup, Chanel, Nissan and Target had signed aboard. Overall, the network has received over $60 million in ad commitments for 2010. Like those advertisers, developers will receive access to campaign data such as revenue and click-through rates as part of purchasing inventory on the network. Apple also provides developers with information on how to best incorporate ads within their apps, including tips on design, ad size and consumer experience.

The iPhone has been slowly losing its dominance in the minds of marketers as Google’s Android operating system gained share over the past year or so. While the complication of creating apps for multiple operation systems has been an issue for marketers for some time, but as Android becomes a major player in the app world marketers may also have to start thinking about the way those apps are monetized and how that fits in with the norms of different user groups.

There is evidence across several studies that Android users are less willing to pay for apps than their iPhone-loving counterparts. AdMob found in February that while 50% of iPhone owners worldwide purchased at least one paid app each month, just 21% of Android users did the same. Credit Suisse reports that Android is the only smartphone operating system where users have downloaded a majority of free apps. Just 43% of apps downloaded by Android users in the US were paid, compared with 75% of apps downloaded by owners of Apple devices.

According to a May 2010 report from Distimo, an analytics tool for mobile developers, those percentages track closely with how many apps overall are offered for free—or for a fee—in each app store. Again, the Android Market is the only store with a majority of free apps.

The rise of an operating system whose owners rely on free apps could mean a user base that is more open than average to receiving the advertising support necessary to support those apps. In-app advertising and app sponsorships tend to be especially effective forms of mobile marketing, and are also found less annoying or intrusive by mobile users. An expanding base of Android users may mean not only a larger audience of smartphone owners, but also a growing share of that audience receptive to marketing messages that support their app habit.

Posted By: Nicole Perrin

The decision basically bets that advertisers will put up with the continued fragmentation of ad sizes and requirements

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has decided the ad market for mobile applications is too new for standards. The decision basically bets that advertisers will put up with the continued fragmentation of ad sizes and requirements in return for the ability to experiment in a still nascent medium. "Any effort to promote simplification of ad formats must make it easier or cheaper to produce creative for the medium, without stifling creativity of those designing content or advertising for that medium," the IAB wrote in a report released today. "At this stage, the in-app ad landscape is too new and dynamic to be ready for creative standards." The IAB based its decision to take a pass on standardization on a marketplace study that gathered feedback from app platforms and publishers. It found a fractured market that is inching in the direction of consistency.
 
Standard display sizes are emerging. For example, the 300-by-50 pixel display ad is accepted at a majority of the 14 publishers surveyed. There are also many publishers offering wider ads that display better on iPhone screens. Yet, other areas are more unsettled. Expandable formats vary, the IAB noted. File weight limits differ wildly from publisher to publisher, ranging from 5 KB to 15 KB in the IAB survey. Newer opportunities like the iPad increase the variables. The IAB found a mix of standard sizes from the Web with common mobile sizes -- and even a couple publishers offering super-sized ads that take advantage of the Apple tablet's larger screen.
The process becomes even more complex when taking into account various devices, and the IAB found one publisher offering formats targeted to specific BlackBerry models. The IAB traditionally has served as the Internet industry's clearinghouse for standards and guidelines. It's a role that could come into question as digital advertising moves from the desktop into wireless, TV and other areas. The mobile industry, for instance, already has standards set by the Mobile Marketing Association. The MMA said it modeled the guidelines on what the IAB devised for Web display advertising. (The MMA endorsed four graphical sizes and one text unit at the 6:1 and 4:1 aspect ratios.) An IAB rep said the two organizations would work together and "were we to issue official guidelines around formats, we would involve them in every step of the process." For now, the IAB is encouraging basic best practices, including building mobile-specific landing pages for campaigns, keeping creative file sizes low, and building specifically for different devices. The final best practice should ensure the mobile ad market remain fractured for some time to come.