The battle for mobile ad revenues picked up pace last week as Google and Apple both amended their pricing models ahead of Facebook’s imminent entry into the marketplace.
Google shifted its AdMob platform to an AdWords-style auction, where the winning price is determined by the quality of the ad and the other bids on that impression.
Facebook could generate $1.2bn from mobile advertising in its first year from just six markets, according to research firm MobileSquared.
This would put it second only to Google, which is expected to generate $2bn from mobile ads in 2012.
The six markets included in MobileSquared’s estimate are the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – which have a combined total of 185.3m Facebook users.
When Steve Jobs unveiled iAd to the world, he promised an offering that
would revolutionise mobile advertising.
But delivering on that promise
has proven difficult for the technology company that has revolutionised
so much in the past decade.
In fact, the offering’s future looks quite uncertain. So what’s Apple to
do? Turn to one of your most-despised enemies, apparently.
The prediction that ”mobile is going to be huge!“ has been over-egged for nearly a decade, but the past several years have erased all doubt that may have existed about the truth of this statement.
In 2011 however, mobile “turned a corner”, according to Google at least.
When Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s mobile advertising network, iAd, to
the world, he effectively said it would be a game-changer for mobile advertising. Although some of
us were skeptical, who would bet against him?
A year later, it appears that the skepticism was well-placed. iAd is, according to a new report by Bloomberg, floundering.
The iPad provides a much richer experience and real-estate than the standard mobile phone or even the iPhone. New iPad advertising formats, dubbed iPadvertising, might start to bear fruit not only for mobile advertising, but the advertising industry in general.
Will mobile advertising finally grow up and be taken seriously with the emergence of the tablet?