Mobile

EU opens public consultation on reducing the cost of broadband deployments

evos — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:46:26 +0000

High-speed Internet underpins all sectors of the economy and will be the backbone of the Digital Single Market. For every 10% increase in the broadband penetration the economy grows by 1 to 1.5%. In this context the European Commission is seeking views on how to cut the costs of setting up new networks for high speed internet in the EU. In particular, the Commission wants to explore how to reduce the costs associated with civil engineering, such as the digging up of roads to lay down fibre, and which can account for as much as 80% of the total cost. The Commission believes it could cut the cost of broadband investments by a quarter. Input is sought from all interested public and private parties including telecoms and utility companies for instance, investors, public authorities and consumers.

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: “We need to cut the engineering costs of rolling-out broadband networks if we want to spread faster broadband across Europe. We need to test practical ideas on how to cut costs and how to make it easier to access, re-use and share this infrastructure. There is nothing more annoying for citizens than road-digging, and nothing more annoying to businesses than pointless red tape.”

Up to 80% of the total broadband investment cost is related to civil infrastructure works. The cost is so high because of a lack of coordination of civil engineering projects, insufficient re-use of existing infrastructure and lack of cooperation between the various actors. For example, water, energy, and railway companies often have their own infrastructure, and dig up roads without coordinating with telecoms companies. Faster roll-out is then further impeded by lengthy, non-transparent and cumbersome procedures for clearing rights of way and obtaining all necessary permits at national or local level.

The Commission seeks views on:

obstacles to invest in broadband infrastructure,
ways of improving the use of current infrastructure,
coordination of civil engineering works,
measures increasing coordination between competent authorities and simplifying permit procedures,
‘readiness’ of new buildings for high speed internet infrastructure.

The public consultation runs until 20th July 2012. The results will contribute to reducing the costs of investments and ultimately the final retail price of broadband.

Background

The Digital Agenda of Europe (see IP/10/581, MEMO/10/199 and MEMO/10/200), sets broadband targets of 100% broadband coverage by 2013 for all Europeans and speeds of 30MBps for all with at least 50% of the European households subscribing to Internet connections above 100MBps by 2020.

At the Spring European Council, on 2nd March, Heads of State and Government concluded that efforts should continue at EU level in order to complete the Digital Single Market by 2015, by providing better broadband coverage, including by reducing the cost of high-speed broadband infrastructure. Without this investment, the EU risks losing out on this important potential for growth and jobs.

Useful links: The consultation document

Originally Posted on MuniWireless.

Android – the new growth platform for mobile advertising

jcoops — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:38:15 +0000

As android becomes the dominant mobile smartphone operating system it is also becoming the dominant platform for mobile advertising. This was the aim of android from the start – create a channel for Google’s advertising on mobile. There are a number of reasons why android is becoming the key platform for mobile ads, above and beyond the iphone:

android users are not paying for apps in the same way as iphone users – as a result, ad-funded apps are the dominant business model on android rather than paid-for apps
the android system is creating new types of advertising opportunities – for example, the mobile ad network Airpush is using the alerts channel within android to serve ads, generating a high CPM for app developers
the failure of iADs to transform the iphone ad ecosystem means that scale is becoming key – with more handsets than other OS android is therefore the default platform for advertisers seeking reach
as Apple has banned many practices on IOS such as incentivised app installs this is leading mobile ad players to move onto the android platform

So – look out for ad money flowing onto android in the future – if you’re an app developer look to new ad models and new types of ad networks to help monetise that inventory!

For more about android app advertising visit mobyaffiliates – a directory of mobile advertising networks

Mobile advertising predictions for 2012

jcoops — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:46:29 +0000

Happy New Year. It’s set to be an exciting one for the world of mobile and mobile advertising in particular. So here’s 7 predictions for the year ahead:

1. Mobile ads go rich media – whereas 2011 was all about mobile banner ads and mobile search taking off, 2012 will see mobile ads become increasing rich using video, interactives and other engaging techniques to grab attention

2. HTML 5 – this is the underlying technology driving the emergence of rich media ads. It’s also increasingly going to be the glue that allows new types of mobile services to be developed, across multiple platforms. Goodbye mobile apps, hello HTML5 mobile web

3. Mobile affiliate marketing – this could be the year that mobile CPA offers take off as inventory rises and more and more app developers and publishers need to find a way of monetising all that unfilled inventory. Players like mobpartner and offermobi are the ones to watch.

4. Consolidation – there are more and more mobile ad networks launching every day. However, the industry just can’t support this many, when even the biggest are only marginally profitable. Look for the big players like inmobi and millenial media to start buying up the smaller players.

5. The rise of new, focused ad networks. Whilst consolidation is one trend, expect specialisation to be another. Players like mobfox (focusing on the European market) are showing that with admob now owned by google, there’s plenty of room for new players to innovate.

So that’s five trends to look out for. What do you think is going to happen in 2012 in mobile?

James Coops blogs about mobile ad networks and other stuff for blognotions and over at mobyaffiliates.com

Cassandra Stand at MAX 2011

lrisuleo — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:43:44 +0000

This year I will have the honor and pleasure to represent Small Screen Design at MAX 2011 in Los Angeles and showcase our Cassandra Stand application. This will be my first MAX, so if you’ll be there too and if you like, just stop by and say Hi!

Originally Posted on Leonardo Risuleo.

Cassandra Stand at MAX 2011

lrisuleo — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:36:40 +0000

Read Original Post

Mobfox is the new admob

jcoops — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:54:48 +0000

When admob first launched it was an absolute revelation for mobile publishers. For the first time there was a way of monetising mobile web inventory that didn’t involve selling ringtones or other mobile content. Admob went on to totally dominate the first wave of mobile advertising, launching innovation after innovation.

However, since it was acquired by Google there is no doubt that things have slowed down. The key admob founders Omar Hamoui and Russel Buckley left a while ago and it seems that google has focused on integrating admob into their systems rather than developing new products. In fact admob has been shutting down services – first admob analytics went and now Google have announced that admob will no longer support mobile web ads, and will just focus on in-app advertising on iphone and android.

This is at a time when mobile web, powered by HTML5 has never had better growth prospects. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that admob is no longer the force it once was in the market. So where is innovation happening?

Enter Vienna-based mobfox. Whilst there are lots of mobile advertising networks out there in the market right now, no-one is moving as quickly or as rapidly as mobfox. They are doing the types of things that admob used to do – running way ahead of the market and out-innovating the competition. What’s even more amazing is that mobfox is very much an under-the-radar mobile ad network – they’ve not raised lots of VC funding but are quietly building a massive network with 5bn impressions a month already. The list of product development over the last year includes:

a mobile ad server that integrates mobfox and multiple other mobile ad networks in a single solution and allows direct selling of mobile ads by publishers or developers – this is the type of thing US players like Burstly have raised big rounds of funding to achieve
eCPM control – the ability for publishers to set floor limits to their inventory
Open-ads a mobile ad buying interface that provides direct access to their network
support for ipad and other tablets

Most recently mobfox just announced a bunch of new improvements to their mobile ad offering including demographic targeting, new ad units and conversion tracking.

Individually, these innovations may not be anything special and other networks like inmobi, jumptap, adfonic and so on are also launching new features all the time. But, the speed in which mobfox is innovating, the types of things they are doing and the way they can achieve this without millions in funding points to something much more exciting than these other networks. Time will tell but having analyzed mobile advertising for some years now, I really think these guys are the ones to watch.

James Coops blogs about mobile monetization over at mobyaffiliates

Flash Development for Android Cookbook is Out!

lrisuleo — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:29:54 +0000

Flash Development for Android Cookbook by Joseph Labrecque is now out for sale and I’m very proud to be among the book’s technical reviewers! The book contains 372 pages of useful information and solid recipes for developing killer Android applications using Flash Platform technology.

The Flash Development for Android Cookbook enables Flash developers to branch out into Android mobile applications through a set of essential, easily demonstrable recipes. It takes you through the entire development workflow: from setting up a local development environment, to developing and testing your application, to compiling for distribution to the ever-growing Android Market.

Read more information on Joseph’s blog here.

Originally Posted at Leonard Risuleo.

FlashCamp Italy!

lrisuleo — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:38:21 +0000

The FlashCamp Italy is back and will take place friday, September 23 in Rimini. The cool news is that this year the main track will be put side by side with two vertical “unconferences” about:

Mobile development with the Flash Platform
Open Source: from “forma mentis” to “de iure condendo“

Confirmed speakers so far: Michael Labriola, James Ward, Justin MCLean, Michelle Yaiser, Christian Ferranti, Marco Fusetti (aka jaco@pixeldump), Giorgio Natili. I have to say this is going to be an awesome event! You can find more information and updates here (italian).

Read Original Post

A completely new Android Market is on the way to our phones!

lrisuleo — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:22:58 +0000

This is looking seriously cool. The phone version of the Android Market is going to change for better:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

The new Market client is designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users with an improved UI, and provide a quicker path to downloading or purchasing your products. For developers, the new Android Market client means more opportunities for your products to be merchandised and purchased.

Read more on the Android developers blog.

Read Original Post

Innovation in the mobile ad network market

jcoops — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:38:46 +0000

Here’s a post recently written over at mobyaffiliates. For any blog notions readers interested in mobile monetisation and mobile advertising this provides a review of some of the new innovative players in the market. Hope all the mobile notions readers find it useful.

When google acquired admob for $750m it looked like the mobile advertising industry had been sewn up. Admob was by far the largest mobile ad network, and combined with google would have huge power in the market. At the same time, Apple, having acquired Quattro, another big mobile ad network, was rolling out its own iAds format, picking off the high end of mobile advertising. The only question was how quickly the remaining independent ad networks (Millenial Media, Inmobi etc) would be snapped up.

Fast forward to today and the market looks very different. There are a load of new exciting players operating in the mobile ad market, some of them making admob / Google look very much like a slow incumbent. New models such as affiliate/ CPA, incentivised downloads and direct sales are being used to bring much needed innovation into the mobile ad space.

Here’s a quick run down of some of the more interesting new mobile advertising networks:

Mobfox has been making a lot of waves recently – it was founded by a 17 year old high school student but has achieved some great traction of the back of some innovative features. The network promises to achieve much higher CPM than other networks such as admob, and it appears that they frequently manage to deliver this, according to app developers and publishers that have trailed them, at least in the portion of inventory that they can fill. The user interface is very clean and similar to admob. The added features mobfox offers include:

- eCPM manager – this allows publishers to set a minimum floor price for ads

- direct sales – publishers can use Mobfox as an ad server to sell ads directly and get to keep 100% of the revenue

- App Boost – offers a ‘guarantee’ of a top 25 place in the appstore by driving downloads through ads on their network

Features like these show that it’s the smaller, newer competitors that could be driving innovation in the market, not the big guys like Google/ Admob.

Mobpartner was launched only a couple of years after admob in 2008 however it’s only relatively recently that it has started to really take off. Mobpartner operates on a CPA/ affiliate model paying publishers for specific actions such as completion of a form or download of an application. The network recently raised a round of funding and is rapidly expanding. The advantage mobpartner provides is the ability to offer a 100% fill rate to publishers and monetise any inventory across virtually any country. As mobile commerce takes off and higher value affiliate offers come online (travel, retail, finance) mobpartner is well place to open up huge new revenue opportunities in the mobile sector with massive earnings potential for the rights apps and sites. Again, for publishers and developers looking to make serious money, it’s new players like mobpartner, not the increasingly commóditised admob that provide the most promise.

Tapjoy is another really interesting player in the mobile monetisation space and again offers a totally different model to the incumbent mobile ad networks. Tapjoy’s model is based on providing incentives for users to download apps via a virtual currency. So, for example, a user playing an iphone game and wanting to buy an extra level or unlock new features can download an app as an alternative way of payment. Whilst these so called “incentivised downloads” or “offer walls” have recently been banned by Apple, they are still very much growing and operating on Android. Tapjoy has also taken steps to ensure that they can run their ads on apple by changing some of the policies and approaches.

Tapjoy have just raised a big round of funding so we can expect a lot more innovation and new models linking mobile advertising and virtual goods from them going forward.

Burstly is another ad network launching some innovative features. Similar to mobfox it allows publishers and developers to use its platform to sell directly to advertisers. Burstly then aggregates this inventory and makes it available on an individual, named site basis. This is the sort of targeting that had previously been confined to the premium CPM based networks such as Microsoft Mobile Ads and Fourth Screen Media. This is great for advertisers who want to be able to target certain types of users or inventory rather than use the ‘blind’ networks of the likes of admob.

Liquid Wireless focuses on offers based on a cost per lead (CPL) model. For example, satellite TV, consumer panels, educational institutions and so on will all pay for leads (typically a name and number/ address). Liquid Wireless has also developed a pay per call lead generation model. Again this is totally different from the way admob or most of the other mobile ad networks currently work. Liquid Wireless also work very closely with their advertisers to optimize landing pages and so on for data capture. They are rapidly gaining traction and another network to watch for the future.

So there’s five examples of different approaches to the mobile ad network model. Clearly, just as in the PC/ online ad market there is going to be room for lots of different approaches and many different players in the mobile advertising ecosystem.

So that’s it for now – see you soon with another post here at mobile notions.

As well as blogging at the no.1 mobile network mobile notions, James Coops writes about how to make money on mobile over at the Mobyaffiliates blog and splashback ideas over at the splashback blog

Related articles

New mobile advertising networks taking on admob (mobyaffiliates.com)