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Tablet Search Advertising: 3D Apps Vs. Browsers

Playbook

Research In Motion (RIM) and Sprint Thursday revealed plans to launch the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet this summer. It supports connectivity to the Sprint 4G network, becoming the first tablet to feature download speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G.

For all geeks who need to know, the tablet offers 1GB of RAM and 1 GHz dual-core processor, as well as Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe Mobile AIR. HTML-5 will let consumers dig into rich ads, apps, sites, games and other types of media. Ah, bliss. Think of the search, social and rich media ads and branding promotions served up on these machines through search browsers and apps.

Marketers unsure of the growth of the market may want to know Forrester Research Analyst Sara Rotman Epps estimates in a report that 82 million U.S. consumers will use a tablet by 2015, up from 10.3 million in 2010. She explains that puts the tablet market on par with sales of laptops. Not only will tablet sales explode, but women are adopting the devices faster than men. Just as I assume, Rotman Epps writes the "introduction of 7-inch tablets, which are easier to hold in one hand and fit easily into a purse, will also accelerate women's tablet adoption."

Google may have scaled down its presence at CES, but company execs and technologists know tablets will become as ubiquitous as mobile phones. This year smartphones will cement their line in marketing budgets, but tablets will follow shortly after, and look for platform providers to try to justify apps or browsers in tablet campaigns.

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Then think of the impact from 3D on tablets. At the last Consumer Electronics Show (CES), 3D TVs began to emerge, and shortly after the first real products reached the market. Timing, however, didn't go exactly as hardware manufactures planned. Global shipments in 2010 were expected to total 3.2 million worldwide, according to the DisplaySearch Quarterly TV Design and Features Report. Despite the trickle into consumers' hands, The NPD Group Co. forecasts nearly18 million 3D sets will ship in 2011, rising to more than 91 million in 2014.

The news released during CES this week should boggle the mind of anyone older than age 30. It's obvious the sleek, thin designs will become the next laptop for those not wanting to read the news or watch videos on a small smartphone screen, but they also must agree to pound away on a virtual touch keyboard. A variety of companies from Motorola to Samsung to Toshiba to Vizio released versions of the cellular and/or wireless tablet at CES. I mean, please, Comcast to stream live TV to subscribers on iPad and tablets running Google's Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb, operating system.

Marketers that budget campaigns to include Android apps need to know the options being built into Google's latest OS. Aside from the ability to access Concast support TV to subscribers, Honeycomb supports more than 3 million Google eBooks, interactive widgets, and face-to-face video and voice chat, Google's Android OS also enables 3D in Google Maps. How long do you think it will take before ads are 3D, too?

In a recent blog post, I mention my boredom with apps. Clix Marketing Founder David Szetela wrote a comment encouraging me to look at tablets through the eyes of a novice tech user. He predicts by the end of 2012, more ecommerce dollars will come from apps than through browser sessions. Both Google and Microsoft have revealed the use of apps and mobile Web rises in the evening and at night, whereas traditional communication services capture more attention in the day. While search engines and mobile marketing ad networks count on this trend to sell advertising space, a study from Zoken confirms it.

Google's mobile ad network AdMob has been working on tablet-specific experiences before the release of iAd for iPad. Today, AdMob receives more ad requests in one day on mobile devices, compared with December 2007, about 30 times more in about three years. In plain English: "AdMob receives 2 billion ad requests per day, more than quadrupling during the last twelve months."

So it seems, the next choice advertisers must make points to options for best targeting consumers through either a mobile Web app of browser at the perfect time. What will you use? I'm the first to admit that after 20 years in the tech industry I'm jaded. Develop an app that wows me.

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