I missed the mobile class because of a recruiting event in midtown, which made me sad – because I spent the last few years of my life working with mobile technology. So let me share some quick thoughts from my experiences in the industry.
The dirty truth about mobile advertising is that nobody wants it. When you look at the numbers from Nielsen (who acquired Telephia, the top mobile metrics firm around), it’s simply true. The vast majority of paid downloads come from games, but even they drive relatively little revenue because the per-unit prices are so low. What used to drive revenue was location-based services (which basically means mapping subscriptions), but revenue from this market has been decimated by Google Maps, which is free.
In terms of who is leading the race to unlock mobile marketing value, foursquare is in the lead simply because they are used so often and they have a way for advertisers to reach their audiences. But the market is still immature and there will be many more lead changes before things mature.
To me, the key is NFC (near field communications), which allows people to purchase items with their cell phones. These are already used in Japan and other countries to pay for subway trips, convenience store buying, and other purchases. Once people get comfortable with using their cell phones for commerce, I think they will be ready for mobile marketing.
1 comment:
I agree that NFC can be a great and valuable tool in the advancement of the the mobile web. It will not only make payments simpler but can enhance platforms like Foursquare that will allow you to tap on a reader inside a store to check-in to further increase the accuracy of the data that is collected. It will ensure that each user checks into the same place ( some locations on foursquare are duplicated) and keep the data consistent. This will further improve loyalty programs.
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