Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer believes his company’s plan to release a revamped operating system (OS) for smartphones, Windows Phone 7, will propel them into the race for smartphone OS market share and the advertising treasure the leader will enjoy. Apple and Google have seen their OS and the devices running on them rapidly erode long time cell phone leader Nokia’s dominate position. Nokia has finally taken their blinders off and has recently released a new version, Sybian 3, of their OS. One would have to go all the way back to 2006 to find Nokia’s last smartphone success, the N95, since that time, Apple’s iPhone, released in 2007, has been gaining ground as has Google’s Android released in 2008.
In my previous blog on this topic, Mobile Search and Mobile Advertising, I provided charts outlining the leader board for the smartphone OS and mobile advertising spending with projections. I noted the absence of Mircrosoft and that they would act quickly to get into the race. Microsoft has taken a two prong approach to gaining on the leaders. The first is with their innovating new OS, the second is with their legal muscle as exhibited by their patent lawsuit against Motorola. The stakes are extremely high for all the players in this space, as is the reward. Will a rash of legal maneuvering and the negative press of a patent lawsuit against an open source backed OS be effective in product promotion for Microsoft? I’m not sure the legal approach is going to help Microsoft’s image or convince the public to purchase a device, nor is it going to assimilate developers and we all know that the applications which run on top of the OS are the steroid for these entrants in the race.
In the graph below take a quick look at how the OS race has been playing out during the first three quarters of this year; it clearly shows a steady player, one that rewards developers via low cost of entry due to being open source and few restrictions, Android and Google.
I like the fact that “Do no evil” is the corporate motto and have trusted the search engine giant for years. They continue to innovate and refine their services, an important attribute an application developer considers when picking a development platform, since they rely on a steady stream of income from their applications. Google’s AdWords is the dominate search engine marketing vehicle, and I believe they will continue to refine it to allow all size businesses equal access to the mobile advertising market. Keep your eye out for more articles on this dynamic, fast growth industry news. We will.
Not only is the mobile advertising network booming, it continues to find new ways to move forward and prosper. Current efforts have proven that mobile advertising and marketing are continuing to morph and develop into one of the largest advertising platforms. Apple recently made a change, which was one of many, that will heavily impact the mobile advertising arena moving forward.
Apple kicked off 2010 strong with the purchase of the cellular phone advertising company Quattro Wireless. Nearly eight months later, Apple decided to pull the plug on Quattro network and focus their energy into their own mobile advertising platform, also known as iAd. The termination of Quattro now allows Apple to focus its resources and efforts into improving the iAd Network, and hopefully converting Quattro’s existing customers into iAd users.
Apple’s relationship with Quattro is not the only recent change made by Apple; Apple has also announced that they are loosening up their iAd terms and agreements. Apple’s recent revisions to their agreement terms will now allow their competitor, Google, to sell and serve mobile advertising on their devices. This recent update has lifted the verbiage which previously specified that developers were not permitted to make use of any third-party advertising companies owned by or even affiliated with a distributor of mobile devices, which included Google’s AdMob. This change will open up the flood gates to a number of mobile advertising companies, who are now understandably thrilled by this new opportunity.
Users will benefit from an increase in inexpensive or even free applications that can more easily be supported by advertising. Prior to Apple lifting its regulations, there was a concern that Apple would be closed off to all ad networks that weren’t independent. Apple’s revised agreement will now allow both Google and AdMob to continue to serve advertisements to Apple devices. This newly enabled competitiveness in the mobile community is great news for everyone involved. This not only will facilitate lower costs for users, but also help to increase innovation and growth.
The increasing use of mobile browsing has spurred the creation of applications and improvements for browsers that allow users to have a friendly and more customized search experience. There is one application that has taken a lot of notice this year and whose company has been recently bought by Apple. This Application is called Siri.
Siri allows you to have a “personal assistant” with you at all times. It learns from your requests and questions and provides real time services to fulfill requests. Siri performs searches to accomplish the tasks at hand and this is why it can be considered a very important part of SEO for the future. Even though it became available at the beginning of this year, it has shown great potential and was even named the most innovative company at BizSpark conference provided by Microsoft.
All that is required to set up this assistant is an email address and a password. You can customize the settings and get a friendly reply informing you of any changes made. Siri can also manage your Twitter account and as the application grows many other accounts might be available to add in the future.
Siri provides two main ways to communicate with it, by typing your request or simply by saying your request. It also gives you the option to save addresses and credit card information to be a more efficient assistant. Location based search allows this assistant to book restaurants, call a cab, find events and many other things available in your area, which can come in really handy.
975 South Federal Highway, 2nd Floor
Boca Raton, FL 33432
800.787.0497
ph: 561.620.9682
fx: 561.620.9684
info@morevisibility.com
