Video ad network YuMe is expanding to mobile, launching software development tools for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch as well as a pair of new mobile ad units. By adopting its software, publishers and app developers will be able to use YuMe's ACE technology platform to tap into multiple video ad networks, including its own, to run video ads across iOS devices. The system also lets publishers bundle mobile video ad inventory with online inventory for direct ad sales and target specific devices for directly sold campaigns. The two new in-app ad units from YuMe are designed as high-impact, interactive formats. One dubbed Mobile Connect delivers a full-screen video ad overlaid with icons users can tap to further engage with the brand. Ads can include social icons connecting to their Facebook, Twitter or YouTube page, as well as the App Store, or others that link directly to their Web site, downloadable coupons, or contact information for sales or customer service help. The other unit -- Mobile Billboard -- is a full-screen banner or rich media ad that launches before a video or game and allows the user to watch video or link to social networking and e-commerce sites. YuMe says both formats provide interaction data such as percentage of video viewed or use of icons to optimize ad creative or media buys. With its move into mobile, YuMe will be competing with a host of vendors already offering rich media or video ad solutions in the space from Medialets and Crisp Wireless to mobile video ad networks like Transpera and Rhythm NewMedia to JumpTap, which added video to its mobile ad network in June. But YuMe can leverage the solid base it has built on the Web, where it boasts a network of more than 600 premium publishers including Microsoft, Viacom and NBC and a potential reach of 57% of the U.S. online audience, according to comScore. The company has raised $46 million in funding to date from investors including Accel Partners and Khosla Ventures. Mobile video, however, is still in its infancy. Research firm eMarketer predicts the U.S. mobile video audience will grow almost 30% this year to 23.9 million, or only 7.7% of the total population and less than 10% of mobile subscribers. That audience is expected to more than double to 56.7 million in four years, with revenue from direct downloads, subscriptions and ad-supported video projected to climb from $548 million this year to $1.34 billion by 2014. An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to Rhythm NewMedia as Rhythm NewNetworks. This has been corrected.
Wenner Media, which publishes Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, US Weekly and other magazines, has been hit with a potential class-action lawsuit for allegedly sending SMS-spam to potential subscribers. In a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Karen Schrock of Indiana alleges that Wenner Media and the subscription marketing firm Consumer Benefit Services violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending her unsolicited messages with the purpose of selling magazine subscriptions. That law prohibits companies from using automatic telephone dialing systems to make calls to cell phones unless the owners have consented. The messages themselves allegedly told recipients that they had won something -- like a $200 shopping voucher -- and provided a telephone number for them to call to claim their prize. When people called to claim their gift, they were allegedly given a sales pitch for publications like US Weekly. "Unlike more conventional advertisements, SMS calls, and particularly wireless spam, can actually cost their recipients money, because cell phone users must frequently pay their respective wireless service providers either for each text message call they receive or incur an usage allocation deduction to their text plan, regardless of whether or not the message is authorized," Schrock alleges in her complaint. She is asking for at least $500 per violation of the federal telephone-marketing law. Several other companies that have been sued for allegedly sending SMS spam have attempted to argue that the telephone law doesn't apply to text messages, but such arguments generally have not succeeded, says Internet law expert Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle. "Virtually every case that has looked at the issue has said the TCPA applies," he says. Last year, the influential 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that book publisher Simon & Schuster might have violated the telephone law by allegedly sending unsolicited text messages promoting Stephen King's "Cell." Wenner Media and Consumer Benefit Services have not yet responded to Online Media Daily's request for comment.
Online Media Daily last week caught up with Patrick Moorhead, director of mobile platforms at Draftfcb Chicago, while he was in New York at the Digital Hollywood conference last week. Prior to joining the agency last December, he led R&D efforts for Razorfish's emerging media practice in the central U.S. Before working at Razorfish, Moorhead spent five years as assistant professor of design at Drexel University's College of Media Arts and Design. OMD: What's your role at Draftfcb and how does mobile fit into the agency structure?Moorhead: What Draft has allowed me to do is create a business around mobile. So I've got a staff of five, we signed a partnership agreement with Velti in July of this year, and Velti is supplying us with a full suite of tools that we've trained our digital production staff on, and now Draftfcb is actually building and operating all our mobile stuff in-house. What that's allowed us to do is kind of wean off our reliance on third-party vendors and capture more revenue as a result...because we're servicing the work ourselves. The way we talk about our model is we don't have a mobile department. Draft has an integrated model where all disciplines are dispersed throughout the organization. So every line of business has all the services embedded to it from broadcast television production to shopper marketing promotion to print advertising, event sponsorship, to digital and mobile. So we really look at mobile as a horizontal across the organization. OMD: What's changed in terms of Draft's mobile business in the last year?Moorhead: In 2009 the agency had done five or six mobile projects. In 2010, we're going to finish with over 20 projects, so really 5x growth in terms of projects we're doing. That runs the range from supporting traditional, above-the-line advertising with text-messaging opt-ins to mobilizing online properties for some of our clients to a handful of applications we're building for clients. One thing we really feel strongly about it is not just focusing on iPhone. An app strategy today really has to look across platforms seriously -- at least iPhone and Android, if not BlackBerry and Windows as well. And I think we're getting smarter about how we do those things -- it's not just putting something out there, you've got to put a media plan behind it and invest dollars to promote it. OMD: Speaking of the iPhone, you've been openly critical of Apple's iAd platform. Some of the initial sponsors have dropped out. How would you assess the iAd rollout to date?Moorhead: I think from a public relations standpoint it was really great, and I think it finally cemented the whole awareness question of: "Is mobile serious, should we do it?" Apple's entry, and the way they did it, really said "Yeah." But practically, I think it was a horrible fiasco. To be fair, we haven't done an iAd execution at Draftfcb. I'm a little glad about that, because from my conversations with executives from other agencies, it's been kind of a tragedy -- long lag times in production and Apple creative technicians dabbling in the creative execution and pushing back on creative choices the agency and client have made because they don't agree with them. For my money, if I'm going to spend a million bucks in mobile, which is a gigantic insertion order -- nobody should be telling me that my creative needs tweaking and I shouldn't be waiting from my creative product to be ready for review. And I think their metric story is kind of a mess. OMD: How so?Moorhead: [Apple] will tell you they have a level of device penetration between the iPhone, the iPad and iPod touches, but if you dig into that a little bit it falls apart really quickly. They can't tell you what kind of impression volume they can guarantee; they can't tell what their average CTR is. And for an ad platform that claims to be the next revolution in engagement, to not be able to tell an actual engagement story seems to me difficult to swallow. Google runs tons of ads on the Apple iPhone platform and they can tell me all of those metrics. OMD: So Draftfcb has ruled out doing any iAd campaigns?Moorhead: It's not that we've chosen not to do iAds. We had one client come forward and say: "Yes, we absolutely want to do it and we explored it with them and as we got into with them and looked at realities of what it was going to involve, they backed away from it. OMD: Besides iAd, What other developments have gotten your attention this year?Moorhead: One thing that's got me and the agency excited is the emergence of location services in all their forms from Foursquare and Facebook Places to light-speed advancements of ad networks in geotargeting for ad media in mobile. It's becoming a moment where for the first time ever we're able to deliver on this promise of right message, right person, right moment and right place. And that's a revolution in advertising and we're right at the beginning of it. OMD: What are the biggest hurdles to geotargeted advertising in mobile?Moorhead: There are some accuracy issues. The different ad networks have different levels of sophistication in targeting. It's a new space and nobody's figured out how to bring it to scale in a way that's going to be meaningful for some of these big brands. The opportunity is there, a lot of people are focused on it, but that's going to be something to look at closely in 2011 -- how does geolocation mature? One of my aspirations in 2011 would be to pursue better standardization for geotargeting. OMD: Have you had any dealings with Foursquare?Moorhead: Foursquare doesn't have advertising opportunities -- they have a self-service model where you can go and set up a special for your business. But if I'm Kentucky Fried Chicken and I've got 4,000 locations in the U.S., I don't have time to go through and set up a special on a location-by-location basis. Foursquare has been a little awkward, in that sense, to work with. We're talking to them, I've talked with Tristan [Walker] and Dennis [Crowley]. Again, it's a new space and a startup company. OMD: Where can mobile take ad dollars from in local?Moorhead: I hear things from clients like, "Well, my local advertising strategy right now is radio. And I'm spending X dollars in radio a year, and I'm really not clear on how it's working. But if what you're saying is true, that I can spend money on local-targeted mobile advertising and it's trackable and performance-based...I'll shift my radio budget over for that." That money is real, and opportunity is real, so I think you'll see all the ad networks dive into perfecting how to service that need. OMD: What change in attitude, if any, toward mobile have you seen from clients in the last year?Moorhead: At the senior level at brands now, the light bulb is starting to go on of: "Wow, this mobile thing is happening -- it's real, the consumer wants it, and we've got to figure it out." So I've been saying things to clients like: "It's okay if you don't have it figured out today, but you've got to get started." [Draftfcb Group manager, director, Digital] Chris Miller and I spoke at a CMO forum in Chicago a few months back and had about 100 CMO, or SVP marketing-level executives from Fortune 500 companies attending the session. We got the attendee list afterwards and looked site by site at the companies, and what we found was less than 15% had a mobile site. That 85% of that collection of brands is essentially closed on mobile today seems totally out of whack with consumer behavior. OMD: How have spending levels changed for clients that have been doing mobile marketing?Moorhead: A lot of the work we did in 2009 in mobile was at the $50,000-and-below level, so very much test and learn. In 2010 we're seeing a lot more $100,000, $200,000 investments, where clients are saying: "Let's build a real mobile site, let's amp up text-messaging support. And then looking forward to 2011, seeing companies who are starting to say: "What should my yearly allocation be to support mobile? And that's starting to head north of $250,000 in some cases. And in some cases, even north of $1 million, depending on what the client need is. OMD: We talked about social location services. What other segments do you see growing next year?Moorhead: I'm predicting that code scanning is going to blow up in 2011, of all varieties, whether Microsoft Tag or QR or services like Stickybits or ScanLife that are using the UPC codes on products. The momentum I've been getting out of the business is that everybody wants this and with the flood of smartphones coming to the market next year where we're going to hit 50% penetration, I think you're going to see a gigantic explosion in code-scanning behavior in consumers and hit that mythical Japan level that everyone has talked about.
Nearly four in ten mobile users are disappointed with applications from their favorite brands, according to a new study by Harris Interactive commissioned by design agency EffectiveUI. The survey of 781 online adults who download and use mobile apps found that 38% are dissatisfied with branded apps. Nearly 70% agreed that a mobile app that isn't useful or easy to use contributes to a negative perception about a brand. Almost a third (32%) have told other people about a bad experience with a mobile app, and 13% said they have avoided downloading apps from a brand or company because of a previous negative experience with an app from the same provider. Conversely, two-thirds of those surveyed have gotten an app based on a recommendation, and 57% have recommended an app they like. Dissatisfaction with apps stems in part from users' high expectations. About three-quarters (73%) believe a company's mobile app should be easier to use than its Web site. But the study also found that only 18% considered a brand name in deciding whether to download an app. Ease of use was a more important factor than brand name alone. EffectiveUI said the results showed that brands must do a better job of focusing on consumer needs as well as business objectives in creating apps. "It's time for organizations to understand how to fully leverage the mobile channel and optimize a user-centered approach to drive adoption, as well as reinforce and drive brand loyalty," said Rebecca Flavin, CEO of EffectiveUI, which specializes in app development. A recent survey of app developers by mobile ad network Millennial Media found that about a third expect to more than double their revenue in 2011 and only 10% expect sales to be flat. And with the rollout of the Windows Phone 7 platform, the spread of Android phones, and a host of new tablets competing with the iPad, the app universe will expand further next year. A third (33.1%) of U.S. wireless subscribers downloaded an app in the third quarter -- up from 30.6% in the prior three months, according to the latest mobile usage report from comScore. That puts app downloading almost on par with the 35% who browsed the mobile Web in the third quarter.
Rupert Murdoch may be bullish on tablet computers like iPads, but his son James isn't so sure they're good for the family business, which includes some of the world's best-known newspapers. According to Reuters, the younger Murdoch told the Monaco Media Forum: "The problem with the apps is that they are much more directly cannibalistic of the print products than the Web site," simply because "people interact with it much more like they do with the traditional product." While Murdoch didn't give any specific figures for the impact of tablet computers on newspapers owned by News Corp., it's not hard to imagine iPads and similar devices taking a bite out of print circulation. That's especially true among target audiences considered most desirable by advertisers -- for example young, well-heeled business professionals who read print newspapers while commuting. Nonetheless, James Murdoch was enthusiastic about selling products through Apple's iTunes store, according to Reuters, noting that Apple has a better merchandising platform than the average neighborhood newsstand. And there are plenty of reasons for publishers and advertisers to be optimistic about the iPad: * A recent survey of people who owned iPads or other mobile devices by Nielsen found that 63% of iPad owners were under the age of 35 and 39% make $80,000 or more per year. *iPad owners are more likely to be receptive to advertising, according to Nielsen, with 35% saying they "enjoy viewing ads" on their iPads, compared to just 17% for all other devices. Fifty-seven percent say they don't mind advertising if it means they get content for free, and 52% said they preferred ads that delivered custom information based on their current location. A separate survey of 1,816 U.S. adults by the Harrison Group on behalf of Zinio, the digital magazine publisher, found that consumers who own tablet computers (including the iPad) or e-readers spend 50% more time reading magazines, on average, than people who don't own such a device.
At a time when digital interactivity should be inspiring widespread innovation and out-of-box thinking, too many media companies continue to respond with blanket denial and complacency that will shatter their bottom line. Tacit dismissals about pay TV cord cutting by consumers favoring cheaper, mobile on-demand streaming video have a familiar ring -- like broadcasters' early denials about the threat of cable, or content producers and distributors blowing off the economic impact of time-shifting devices, such as DVRs. Playing catch-up rather than moving proactively leaves millions on the table. The more than half a million subscribers recently reported to have abandon pay TV subscriptions -- in response to lingering economic pressures or enticement to use less expensive over the top streaming services -- is just the beginning of a trend sure to gain momentum even in an improving economy. Consumers' newly minted frugality and mobile behaviors are not going away. Their expectations and the perceived value proposition of goods and services are being radically reshaped. Embrace those new economics -- or forfeit the opportunity to participate in new revenue creation. Why, then, do major media executives continue to defend their status quo? The risk is in how long it takes before accelerating disconnections and other digital impact play havoc with retrans and content fees. "There has been much ado about very little in terms of all the talk about cost-cutting," said Viacom chairman Philippe Dauman during the company's recent third-quarter earnings call. Like so many of his peers, Dauman refers to anything other than television as "incremental," as if digital interactivity isn't forcing a convergence play across all screens and platforms. He refers to tight consumer spending merely as a product of the recession. Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes also referred to his company's domain in terms of "television" rather than as universal "video." TV Everywhere, its big digital play, denotes transporting the television viewing experience to mobile interactive devices on which video is viewed and managed differently. The popularity of the content is its ultimate protection. "It's probably going to not lead to any cord-cutting -- not in the long run ... if you have to reach [viewers] through some other distribution than the one that we currently have, then that's how the content industry will evolve," Bewkes said. Even Comcast, the dominant cable provider, is pursuing digital from their dug-in vantage point. Poised to become one of the largest global content producer/distributor by buying a majority managing owner of NBC Universal by early next year, Comcast should be more engaged in creating new content formats and features that begin with iPads and other mobile devices rather than simple transferring static TV and film from their set top box. Cable MSOs lack the operating connection to mobile devices enjoyed by their Telco competitors. "There will be set top boxes for a long time, but the world is beginning to see technologies that can in some cases do away with the set top boxes," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said during a recent earnings call. "The most exciting products we are working on allow you to have tremendous functionality right on the TV ... some customers will not want all that and will want a different model, so we are working on all." That schism between the lowly home television and trending mobile connected devices will begin translating into balance sheet gaps sooner than media moguls think. Just imagine the response if these same media moguls demonstrated their seriousness about digital by addressing it from outside the box -- be it television or set-top box. Here is three ways to make it happen: *Create social, commerce and content features from the mobile connected vantage point and never look back. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took his company from the mailbox to every device streaming video in less than two years, skipping right over television to add 6 million new subscribers to its 17 million base, more than 66% of whom stream content. *Align with major social, cloud and mobile players moving from the fringe to the center. This could include leading companies such as Facebook, Netflix and Google to small-to-medium players such as GroupOn and Zynga whose niches can be used to springboard into mobile. The holiday fight between Google and Apple into the TV space is all about using interactive out-of-home functionality to intensify the convergence cycle. Facebook's foray into casual gaming and mobile access and check-ins facilitated by apps has driven partnership with blue-chip advertisers. More than 500 million Facebook users were once devoted TV fans. *Innovation must begin outside the norm. The only way to generate new perspective and mind-set it to tear down the silo walls, bring together professionals from every discipline of your business; empower your best thinkers to collaborate without restraints. The ultimate goal is to layer interactivity into every level of your media business to heighten engagement and revenues. One of my favorite visual guides to turning disruptive trends into revenue generators is the roll-up-your-sleeves workbook, "Business Model Generation" by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. It provides visual tools and techniques that give flight to the classic "Blue Ocean Strategy" by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne to enable a new competitive mind-set. It's a little like digital revolution unbound.
I have T-Mobile. I dislike T-Mobile In many situations, I can't get good service worth a darn. Wine cellars, mountain lodges, and even certain areas of my house have been deemed dead zones. But why is that the case? T-Mobile has been good to our family by providing us with a reasonably priced plan, and there's even perks when communicating with other T-Mobile users, but I can't stand it when my connection dies in the middle of a conversation while sitting at home. So, why do you have T-Mobile? Get Sprint! Well, I would like to try a new service, but only for fun. Seems my family is content with the plan, and I don't have to means to divert from that, however many of my friends have told me it's worth it to change. Being a big supporter of new things, I loved the idea, but haven't the faintest idea of what service to go for. Everyday I'm swamped by ads saying, "We have the biggest 3G network," while displaying a holy map of the United States in red or blue, and that's misleading alone. Now I know T-Mobile isn't the biggest leader here, and someone once told me they'll be out of business within the next four years, but I don't know what to do. Get a job... Post graduation I'll consider the change, unless T-Mobile is not as affordable as it is now, but I have a feeling that everyone is going to be paying more for their phone services in the next four years. T-Mobile has recently declared that they will have a 4G network soon with their myTouch4G, which in my opinion is a game of catch-up. Seems they're bringing the tail end of this technology like its Eminem's latest album, but really that technology is about to be old school. Pretty soon, we won't all just be paying for good service anywhere in the country, but also internet accessibility with all its capabilities, and I don't know how I feel about that. Sure it's good to have the internet anywhere you want, but I'm a poor college student and can't afford an i-pad, i-phone, android phone, or whatever else is $300 plus monthly service fees. When that day comes I'll be rolling in the cash. I may stick with T-Mobile, but there's a good chance I'll throw down some extra bills to pay for better coverage. Really, that's what matters most to me. As long as I can speak clearly, or text/skype/i.m. someone without interference, I'm happy, but I'd prefer actually hearing someone's voice over their textual interpretations.
"The Sexy Porn Star Name Generator? What the hell is this doing on the phone?" Oops. Perhaps I should have erased all of those adult-content apps I downloaded to the Droid the other day before passing it off to my fiancée. I was hoping to have her test some new person-to-person apps with me, but her first text message from the field got us side-tracked. SMS is a tough medium for rationalizing. Consider this post evidence in my defense. See, honey, I really was researching porn apps for a column. Android is where you have to go for app-based porn, of course, and among the pornsters in that marketplace it has become a mark of pride. One app, simply called "Sorry Steve," is just an open letter to Jobs about the restrictive content policies in the App Store. It even takes a jab at Jobs' anti-Flash fetish: "Please stop focusing that much in Android and start worrying more about your Safari: people are using it to laugh at you while watching naked women all day long. Good luck with your tyranny." I am not sure whether the writer of this app was just not a native English speaker or, ya know, 12 years old. But I actually like the idea that an app can be a one-page illiterate rant now. The notion of watching porn on a three-to-five-inch screen still strikes me as pathetic. How desperate for a peek of skin do you have to be? And to get there you have to paw through so much crap and false starts. Just like the porn wave on the Web in its first five years, most of these apps come off as scams, teases, and come-ons to draw ridiculously high monthly subscription rates out of you. There are loads of app/portals that bring you into the porn mobile Web, which is filled with all the usual $10-a-month fetish sites found on the general Web. The apps follow suit. "High Class Sexy Dancing Girls" anyone? "MyBooty Unlimited" (20,000 butt shots). There are the porn-star apps. Many of these starlets are really just using the branded app model -- free wallpapers of the non-naked girl in provocative outfits like a leather nurse uniform (new to me... honest to God, honey). Porn starletry is all about brand building and getting yourself top of mind -- just as with credit cards. Ultimately, the laws of mobile still apply even to porn: Be of use, provide value, leverage the medium and the use case. To wit: the only porn worth playing with on a phone seems to be the weird and the wacky stuff. At its best, porn on Android can be like the adult joke section at Spencer's Gifts. There is a Paris Hilton sex tape sound board with audio clips from the celeb's career-making sex tape. There is a "Woody Measurements" app that is a very task-specific version of the smartphone measuring tape -- but with special audio, of course. What is interesting about the adult apps in the Market is that the successful ones follow all the same principles that make for a good mainstream app. The Sexy Porn Star Name Generator is a party toy. Tap in your gender and you will not only get a name like ShoGun Buck, but also a small profile, including the number of films you made and adult video awards you received. By the way, this app is ad-supported by AdMob with banners clicking to Match.com's app. These apps are using the ad network economy. Leveraging the unique technology of the mobile phone, Dildroid has you stretch the familiar Android logo to increase the pace of the phone's vibration. Now that is called mapping an app against mobile technology. To hell with GPS. It is the vibration technology that is being underused. But there are even some polished mobile utility apps here. Tera Patrick's Fit4Sex app is a video-powered sexual exercise app. Tera demonstrates exercises and ties them to sexual positions, in a video with strong production qualities throughout. Adult content on Android might get a better name for itself if more publishers followed Tera's lead. Mobile media is mobile media, regardless the category. Utility, usability, or entertainment quality are all applicable, even in porn. "Ooh, look, 'The Forbidden Swing'?" My fiancée has discovered one of Tera's moves. Suddenly, she's interested. "Maybe I should look at this." "I am not sure that is legal in Delaware." "But this app seems helpful. Let me see that." Doomed, I say. If you don't see me back here next Tuesday, someone send in the medics.