Digital viewing of traditional TV shows is rising. Video plays on tablets, mobile devices and connected TVs nearly doubled in the fourth quarter pf 2011 over the third quarter. At the same time, video plays on Google TV grew 91% in fourth-quarter 2011 over previous periods, per Ooyala, a digital video technology and analytics company. All this is good news for new video and TV-related businesses. New tablet users continue to eat into the share of those with desktop and laptop computers when it comes to video consumption -- with 45% more likely to complete at least 75% of videos played. Both iPhone and Android grew rapidly quarter-over-quarter in terms of videos played and hours watched. iPhone grew share by 156%; Android devices, up 61%. Bigger screens still mean more time for video to be watched. Ooyala says videos longer than 10 minutes account for more than half the hours watched on connected TV and game console devices. "The dramatically increased engagement with IP-delivered video creates opportunities on a massive scale for publishers and brand marketers,” stated Bismarck Lepe, co-founder and president of products for Ooyala.
Of interest to mobile marketers, Velti on Thursday plans to debut a new private exchange for premium publishers. A publicly traded provider of mobile ad technology, Velti faces intense competition from Google’s Admeld, along with smaller players like Nexage. However, Krishna Subramanian, chief marketing officer at Velti, says the exchange stands apart from rivals for several reasons. Subramanian says it is the only exchange built specifically for mobile that creates dynamic pricing models by setting floors and custom priorities. It also supports guaranteed buys. More broadly, Subramanian claims the exchange “opens up a valuable strategic channel for premium publishers and platforms to increase their ad sales inventory." Velti’s hope is that marketers can bid on ad space at scale without losing confidence in the quality of the inventory they buy. By using real-time bidding, marketers can also strategically advertise to specific audiences. Ad buys will be programmatically optimized across more than 20,000 publishers on the Velti mGage ad exchange. According to Velti, its mGage platform reaches more than 4.3 billion consumers, and serves nearly 20 billion impressions per month. In late 2010, Velti acquired Mobclix, a mobile supply-side platform that Subramanian co-founded. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the acquisition was rumored to be over $50 million. Even before its Mobclix buy, Velti acquired a number of companies, including mobile ad technology firms Media Cannon and AdInfuse. Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice approved Google's acquisition of Admeld, which now boasts an impressive client list, including USA Today, Conde Nast, NBCUniversal, Answers.com, Fox News, Discovery and The Weather Channel.
Faced with reports that app developers are scooping up iPhone users' address books without their permission, Apple said it intends to put a stop to the practice. "As we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release," spokesperson Tom Neumayr said in an email. Apple's statement comes the same day that Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) asked the company to explain how it ensures that app developers adhere to guidelines that prohibit them from downloading users' data without their permission. The congressional inquiry was sparked by recent reports that the mobile social network Path collected and stored users' address books without their knowledge. Path CEO Dave Morin apologized last week, and said the company would delete the data. But lawmakers say in their letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook that the incident "raises questions about whether Apple's iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts." The lawmakers also reference recent news reports alleging that downloading address books is a widespread practice. "Claims have been made that 'there's a quiet understanding among many iOS app developers that it is acceptable to send a user's entire address book, without their permission, to remote servers and then store it for future reference,' " the letter states. After news broke about Path, it emerged that other mobile app developers also were gathering and storing data about users' contacts. Twitter, for instance, asks mobile users if they want the company to "scan" their contacts to find friends, but doesn't explicitly tell people that it will also store some data -- including friends' emails and phone numbers -- for up to 18 months, the Los Angeles Timesreported on Wednesday. A Twitter spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the company intends to revise its language to ask users whether they want to "upload" or "import" their contacts. When app developers import users' address books, the developers aren't just gleaning sensitive data about users, but are also amassing databases of phone numbers of users' friends -- including public figures who typically keep that information confidential. The lawmakers say that one blogger recently reported that a popular app developer claims to have a contacts database that includes phone numbers for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. The lawmakers have asked Cook to answer a host of questions by Feb. 29, including how many iTunes apps that transmit address-book data first ask users for their permission.
A new report from Juniper Networks underscores the downside of the Android Market’s hands-off approach to approving apps. In its annual Mobile Threats Report, it reported a record number of mobile malware attacks, especially to the Android platform. While there was a 155% rise in mobile malware across all mobile operating systems last year, attacks targeting Android jumped 3,325% in just the last seven months of 2011. The rise of Android as the dominant mobile operating system has made it an inviting target for scammers. The Google mobile platform now runs on just over half the world’s smartphones, according to data released today by Gartner. Android Market, which offers more than 300,000 apps, suffered a series of much-publicized malware attacks last year, leading Google in some instances to disable infected apps remotely. When it comes to Apple’s iOS system, Juniper said its research remains limited because of the closed nature of the platform. But it noted that security researchers were successful in getting an unapproved app into the App Store last year. Apple is generally known for having a much more rigorous vetting process for apps than Google. But the company ran into trouble this week when it became clear the App Store has permitted apps such as Path that transmit a user's full address book to remote servers for later reference without permission. Apple on Wednesday said grabbing contact data without user consent violates its app guidelines, and as a result it will require apps seeking such data get explicit permission beforehand in future releases. The same policy applies to apps using location information. The Juniper study found that spyware made up the majority (63%) of mobile malware in 2011, followed by SMS Trojans (36%), which send text messages to premium rate numbers owned by the attacker in the background of a legitimate app without the mobile user’s knowledge. A new attack method dubbed "Fake Installers," which trick victims into unknowingly paying for pirated versions of popular free apps, was the fastest-growing type of malware in 2011. Overall, the report found malware is getting smarter as cyber criminals find new ways to exploit vulnerabilities and consumer behavior across all mobile platforms and devices. And as more people download more apps than ever before, the opportunity for hackers to pilfer data or money continues to grow.
With Apple CEO Tim Cook predicting tablets will outsell PCs in the near future, and others agreeing, Web developers are taking the platform very seriously. While many media sites have become more tablet-friendly in recent months, very few have crafted tablet-specific designs. People.com says that with 2.1 million of its monthly unique users already coming from the iPad, it has the scale to support a dedicated Web destination for tablets. The new site employs a larger interface with scaled-down top-line options -- all the better for fat fingers to navigate. In fact, the entire landing page is swipeable. The user can swipe from the main news hub through the photos, fashions, style and other major sections of the site. Photo galleries are enlarged to fill much of the tablet screen. Videos are embedded in pages. And the drop-down menus are larger, with bolder headlines that are easier to tap. Images have been rendered in higher resolution as well. Also optimized for the tablet browser is a Unilever ad campaign for "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter." The PointRoll-developed rich media unit is pulled from the bottom of the browser to fill the screen. Within the unit, a swipeable slide show and embedded video deliver deeper messaging. The ad even clicks through to a tablet-friendly ICBINB landing page with recipes. Coincidentally, AOL.com also relaunches its portal home today with a tablet-specific version. Virtually all of the oversized tile elements on the new page can be swiped to reveal more content. AOL’s Trent Herren, who leads mobile monetization, tells Mobile Marketing Daily that AOL.com is where the company still sees most of its mobile traffic -- and this new site is a first step towards rethinking Web properties in the AOL stable for mobile. “In the near term this is more evolutionary than revolutionary. There are about seven or eight different new things we put first and foremost.” Herren says that at some of the core tech properties like Engadget and TechCrunch, AOL has at times seen more traffic coming from mobile and tablet browsers than from the desktop.
Publishers are seeing more of their mobile content being consumed on a massive scale by audiences. Those that want to capitalize on this trend are exploring various options for advertising. Mobile banner ads are one, but it can also be helpful for publishers to consider carving out rich media advertising inventory for their sites. Here are some points to remember when making that decision: What: Rich media in mobile advertising allows a range of creative high impact, immersive ad units to run on mobile Web sites or mobile apps. This typically includes interactive elements that offer some kind of engagement on the ad. These include: expand the unit, tap-to-call, tap-to-coupon, shake to open, play a video, play a game, find a location or even tap to buy. Rich media offers interactive experiences to users that go beyond viewing text, pictures or animations. Anything done in a mobile site or app, is in the ad unit via a rich media execution. Publishers utilizing rich media for mobile ad inventory need to ensure their site is tested to accept rich media from all providers. This means running test tags within your site to ensure the creative works correctly. Why: The format uses sophisticated graphics, animation, games or streaming video to provide an immersive user experience, enabling advertisers to reach consumers and inspire interaction with the brand. Plus, these interactions can be finely measured to gauge how deep a consumer wants to be immersed with a brand. Are creative concepts resonating more with specific sites or audiences? Are audiences in a particular Zip code active during a certain time of the day? By having this type of data available in real-time, marketers have the power to adjust quickly to optimize their campaigns. It’s every marketer’s dream to be able to split test in such a granular way and still offer an engaging experience to users. Rich media units also allow users to interact with the ad without leaving the app or page. With limited real estate in mobile, a marketer, publisher or app developer won’t want to interrupt users and take them away from the primary page or app they are accessing. In general, rich media campaigns tend to be sold at a higher CPM than banners, simply because it is a far more premium placement, with more resources required to ensure the best experience is rendered. Costs: There are a few important cost factors to consider when serving mobile rich media ads. The amount of resources you have to run rich media testing, ongoing resources to manage new rich media campaigns, and who will manage the rich media vendor relationships. Standardization enacted by the IAB and MMA is making interoperability on rich media ads easier, allowing almost any publisher to run them with minimum adjustments to their ad server settings. Who: Agencies and brand marketers view rich media as a way to deliver emotion mobile ads. Rich media ads typically result in a 2.5% higher interaction rate than standard mobile banners. Also, user-initiated ads, such as expandable banners, are effective in collecting consumer responses and measuring engagement. This is essential for proving the ROI with advertising partners. Publishers can also gain insight into user behavior for tailoring future campaigns. based on preferences such as keywords, daypart or carrier. The rising popularity of tablets represents an even bigger opportunity for rich media, given the larger screens and ability to interact more easily with ads.
Getting “beyond the banner” appears to be a growing refrain these days among the mobilistas with whom I speak, especially on the publishing side. Frustration over the mobile ad inventory glut seems rife. I also hear promises not to let the same commoditization of premium properties occur on mobile the way it did on the Web. We’ll see. That is pretty much the story I was writing about the Web in 2001, too -- and we are still seeing content providers wrestling with the same issues of banner and network effectiveness. AOL says it is trying to take some of the same principles it has been espousing of late on the desktop onto its mobile ad creative and sales strategy. Tim Armstrong has been touting the importance of the high-impact ad unit, and the company’s head of mobile monetization, Trent Herren, tells me the same idea informs the mobile plan. In addition to rolling out mobile- and tablet-optimized versions of the key AOL properties in the next year, the company has been seeing heavy usage on devices to big destinations like Huffington Post, Engadget and TechCrunch. The news digest/magazine for iPad it introduced last year, Editions, hosted a BMW 3D ad unit late last year that Herren holds up as a model of tablet advertising moving forward. In partnership with CoolIris, the unit allowed for a full 360 view of a car model that even zooms to expose layers of the construction. “We have high-quality 3D ads and full-page interstitials,” he says. One of the interesting lessons here is that a sparing but high-impact use of ads could work because of the high levels of engagement within this curated app format. The return rate is encouraging –- up to three or four times a week. “On tablets our thing is to do interstitials -– serve fewer and higher-quality ads. That is the way to go.” But Herren says AOL is also seeing an interesting effect in the curated weekly Distro app from Engadget. Here the tech news and review blog formats about a dozen of its best recent stories into something closer to a magazine-like experience. AOL finds that while traffic to the Engadget site from mobile and tablet browsers is extremely high (sometimes higher than the traffic from the desktop), the time spent with the same brand in this different app design is much higher. “We are seeing this as a lean-back/lean-in platform,” Herren says. “This is a great place for advertisers.” In fact, he says that in tablet iterations of core properties like Engadget, HuffPo, and Moviefone, advertisers appear to be very eager to enter the tablet medium. In tablets, rich-media interstitials can feel like content. In fact, one executive at a major magazine publisher told me recently that his company's studies showed readers actually liked the digital editions with more ads. On smartphones, however, the context and user mode may be different. Herren says AOL recognizes this and is “going slow” in implementing an ad strategy into mobile Web and apps. “In some ways rich media can be great, and in some ways it can be too much. We are in an experimental stage. We don’t want to put a lot of ads in that make our users unhappy.” But the rich-media explosion on mobile is adding a new challenge to publishers: reorienting their staffs to manage it. “We have been working on the desktop for 20 years, but in short order we need rich-media specialists for mobile so that we can create a seamless experience for sales tams and the advertiser,” Herren says. “On the desktop we had 20 certified rich media vendors –- on tablets, about five or six.” Tablet advertising is creating cross-media challenges and raising concerns over things like download sizes. “When you add a 10-MB ad, it has to be a seamless download size. It is a bigger deal here,” he says. No kidding. Have you waited for that weekly issue of The New Yorker on a tablet? This was a problem I had in early versions of AOL’s Editions, too. The latest builds seem to have alleviated some of this lag by letting the user drop into the experience as the content downloads in the background. But there is good reason to invest time and effort in tablet-optimized experiences. Herren tells me the combined traffic from mobile and tablet devices to Engadget and TechCrunch sites is often outstripping the traffic AOL sees from desktop browsers. Prime time is fast becoming tablet-time. Today AOL has launched its news and much improved tablet-optimized version of the main portal home page. Among the big three old-school portals -- AOL, Yahoo and MSN -- it is far and away the most fully realized retooling of a major Web site for the tablet I have seen. Converted to a series of swipeable windows into categories of content, it integrates touch engagement fully. Check it out tonight during "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart won’t mind.