“CEO Steve Jobs is reported to have said, ‘Mobile ads suck,’ and in the wake of its purchase of mobile ad network Quattro, all signs point to Apple exerting its considerable clout on the mobile web to make the ads, well, better. ‘Static banners aren’t very Apple,’ said Krishna Subramanian, co-founder of mobile ad exchange Mobclix,” Patel reports. “But one question is reverberating around the industry: Will Apple use its dominance to squeeze out other so-called premium ad providers?”
“Last week Apple showed it won’t be shy about setting new standards. In a blog post, the company warned developers that it will reject apps that serve users location-targeted ads… Apple claims the controversial post was only intended to protect user experience. Regardless, to some, this move looks like a preview of what Apple has planned for its new ad network,” Patel report. “It has been building out a global sales team, and Quattro CEO Andy Miller is Apple’s first VP-mobile advertising, reporting directly to Mr. Jobs. It’s the first time Apple has been in the ad business, and this move indicates how seriously the Cupertino, Calif.-based company takes it.”
Patel reports, “‘Clearly, Apple is going to do everything it can to redefine mobile advertising,’ said Eric Litman, chairman-CEO of ad network Medialets, who also said he sees merit in Apple’s defense of users in its location-based ad restriction. ‘Obviously they’re going to want to leverage unique capabilities of their device as an advantage to them and not their competitors.'”
Patel reports, “Developers could also stand to benefit from Apple meddling in mobile ad formats — better ads could mean better results, happier clients and, eventually, more money. With Apple’s characteristic design and usability expertise, it could reinvigorate the ad category so mobile doesn’t get stuck in the same banner doldrums as its interactive predecessor, online advertising.”
Read more in the full article here.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Check out Apple’s recent patent on user selective advertising levels
Placebase + Quattro Wireless + Steve = New mobile advertising business model and functionality.
Bring it on!
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
There goes most Apple fanboy’s best reason to not buy Android.
The iPhone is now Adware.
Dallasm,
What are you, about twelve years old? If you’re older than that, you’re a fool who doesn’t understand advertising’s role in a capitalistic society.
I lost 30 pounds in a week!! Click here by accident to look at something you don’t want!!
The whole thing has turned into a Myspace sh!t storm.
Ok… as my username implies, I’m crazy about Apple… because they do things right. I’ve only been “switched” for 2 years, but it’s been the most pleasant and most productive computing years of my long computing career.
Now that I have that out of the way, I have to smirk whenever I read an article painting Apple as “redefining mobile advertising”. Apple does lead the way in delivering a quality experience for the user and they do make significant contributions in the technology arena… but what really gets me if you substituted Microsoft or Google for the word Apple in the above article, all the fanboys would cry out how M$ or G make all their money by copying other peoples ideas… but if Apple buys up another company and tries to improve it, they are “reinventing”.
Come on now… Advertising has been around since the first Caveman scrawled on cave walls to convince others to help him chase after that whooly mammoth. This isn’t a step function people… it’s a gradual evolution and I doubt seriously they will be “reinventing” anything. In the end, Apple might come up with some new creative ways to separate you from your money and deliver a product on the other end. That’s what all advertising does.
The universal business equation for content is: free with ads, paid without ads.
Apple is likely to take this all-or-nothing level to a somewhat higher plane, providing points in-between, while giving advertisers access to meaningful eyeballs.
The main reason we all universally hate ads is because they were, throughout the history, for the most part irrelevant. When ads are more relevant, they are necessarily less prevalent (precision strike, rather than carpet-bombing). I’m sure we’d all be interested in ad reduction in general.
The blog post Apple made didn’t say developers couldn’t serve location-based ads in their apps. They just said that wasn’t *all* they could do. So, I would assume that an app like Yelp, which is all about location services, would be able to serve location-based ads. But a game, for example, would not be able to serve location-based ads.
Let’s not forget one other thing: without any advertising (being the bane of society), how would any of us know there exists a Macintosh computer, or an iPod, or an iPhone, or a (yet to be released) iPad? While the fundamental purpose of advertising is to “separate us from our money” (to quote our Macanatic here), its important role is also to inform consumers about the existence of products on the market.
Apple’s recurring theme throughout its existence was to deliver the best consumer experience possible. Again, as Macanatic said, it is unlikely they can “revolutionise” advertising, but I have no doubt that if they put their mind to the current application of advertising in mobile space, they will make it much more pleasant to the users, as well as more effective to the advertisers. We should not forget; the more effective advertising gets (in other words, the more people buy products based on an ad), the less frequent advertising needs to be. We all win in the process.
@Macanatic
Well Said. I couldn’t agree more.
I agree with Predrag to an extent. There are many problems with ads for me.
1 they add a serious noise factor to my enjoyment of anything – esp tv, with its endless ‘don’t go away’ and we’ll be back after this’ etc etc.
2 they add very significantly to the price you pay for the goods being advertised.
3 they rarely inform except on quality items- usually the opposite as they misinform in order to persuade you to buy dreck, presenting the dreck as pearls.
4 in England there still is an effort to entertain in ads, usually very funny but not when repeated ad nauseam.
5 one day there might be a biz model of low ad volumes and lower prices on goods and services. Now there’s an idea….
I have two questions for everyone:
1. If it wasn’t for adverts how would our favorite website, MacDailyNews, make any money and keep going?? If there were no advert impressions and clicks why would SteveJack et al bother writing anything and coming up with their amusing “Takes”?
2. Out of curiosity, I just tried out the AdBlock extension on Chrome amazingly it removes ALL the ads from this page. I wasn’t expecting it to be THAT effective. I believe in compensating people for their hard work so I’m gonna remove AdBlock. But what about all the millions of people using it (especially on Firefox) who are basically “freeloading” content from websites that there are already free?
Regards.