Search results matching tag 'Android'

Invasion of the Androids - What the Arrival of Android Means for Mobile Advertising

2619528 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Much mobile advertising news in the last two years or so has been dominated by iPhone and understandably so. Probably more than any other single factor, it's been responsible for marketers and agencies understanding the potential power of the mobile channel for the first time, primarily because they have one themselves. At last, their own personal experience married up with what had been happening on the street for a while.

But iPhone's dominance in the hearts and minds of mobile advertisers might be about to be threatened by a new player in the market - Google's Android.

The iPhone has tight control over their product, from software and hardware design to manufacturing and negotiating distribution. Android has taken a very different approach of developing an Open Source operating system and letting it out into the wild. What that means in practical terms is that they need to persuade other branded phone manufacturers like Motorola or Samsung to integrate their software into a new generation of phones and then allow these partners to control manufacture and distribution. In theory, this approach will enable them to leverage these other giant companies' power and resources to potentially leapfrog other competitors, ranging from iPhone through to Nokia and their Open Source operating system, Symbian. The big disadvantage is that Google pretty much hand over control of the product hardware, meaning that even if their software is Rolls-Royce standard, it still might end up powering a 1975 Ford Cortina. In a market where looks are an important purchase consideration, this could be something of a problem.

What do we know about Android so far? Despite a pretty lacklustre handset range (perhaps we're talking a Mondeo to iPhone's BMW in terms of looks), it's clear that the software is powerful and once cool phones are in production, it's going to have some success. I'm not going to speculate if it's going to be as big as iPhone, but it's already clear that it's going to be an important channel for mobile advertising.

Every month, AdMob (my employer, just to be clear) produces a free Metrics report that we share with anyone who might be interested. You can see the latest copy here, but one of the trends we track is the type of operating systems that we serve our ads in. To be clear about our methodology, we serve about 10 billion ads every month to mobile web publishers and app developers globally. This means that we can't measure market share, but we can track handsets that are used more than they should be, to view mobile web pages and download and use apps. We noticed very early on that iPhone was getting a disproportionate amount of share when measured like this and history is being repeated with Android.

What's also great for mobile advertisers is that Android and iPhone both offer much more creative advertising formats and that their ease of use generally mean more interaction and higher click-through-rates. Consumers are engaging with marketers via the mobile channel in very large numbers and that trend is going to speed up with more Android handsets in the market.

Does the arrival of Andoid complicate things for mobile advertisers? Certainly not if you just want to run ads on the mobile web or in-apps - though inventory in apps might still be a little scarce compared to iPhone. In fact, you wouldn't even notice that Android had been included in your buy, from a purely operational standpoint. The main complication would be if you wish to transfer your iPhone App over the Android platform too - this will require a little adaption by the developer. The numbers of Andoid apps available are still relatively small, certainly compared to the 100,000 iPhone Apps, but then competition to attract downloads is also small, so now might be a good time to make the leap.

Like mobile advertising, Android is here to stay, is going to be growing quickly and will be dominating mobile marketing chatter for a while. Brands who pride themselves on being innovators should be taking a look at it right now.

Motorola picks a couple of horses

693284 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:18:00 GMT

The standardisation of mobile operating systems has truly begun as Motorola says all its future devices will have either Windows Mobile or Android as their base system.

It means the manufacturer has cancelled phones due for release this year that were not based on these two and is also a sign that Nokia’s full absorption of Symbian in the summer will most likely reduce that business to a Nokia-only solution. For the mobile industry this is all good.

What it means is that service providers (let’s say Google) and developers (e.g. games people) can begin to focus on building stuff for particular manufacturers rather than for particular operating systems that then need to be adapted for each manufacturer and each handset. The result should be mobile services that are much more usable.

Of course having Windows and Android in the same stable will produce some interesting conversations for Motorola, as well as insight into which system suits which phones. Google and Microsoft are now truly squaring up to each other in mobile. Who are you backing?

Here comes Google...

693284 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:47:00 GMT

A release date has been issued for the first mobile phone to use Android, the mobile operating system being driven by Google through a collective of partners it pulled together last year. It’s to be called the G1 and will be available on T-Mobile. So, the first ‘G-phone’ should be here by Christmas.

These days it’s impossible to examine anything ‘digikal’ without Google coming up. Even if you’re talking about the internet’s infrastructure - the physical pipes under our roads and oceans that carry all the data - you’ll come across the big G since it’s a major investor in the new super-fat pipes being laid to cope with its growth.

But it’s obvious why the company would put some of its [endless supply of] cash behind such a project: the bigger the internet’s capacity, the more people can use the web more often, the more search traffic it generates, the more money it makes.

Less obvious is an apparent move into mobile phone manufacture. The answer tells us just how clever Google really is. It identified the mobile market as the most serious opportunity for growth for the web (and particularly search) years ago. But, after seeking to chivvy along the sector, it saw that advanced mobile services were being let down in the most fundamental area of all: usable devices.

It also saw that the key to this was the lack of a standard operating system, one that could allow handset manufacturers and software developers to build their own products and services from the same starting point, just as Windows has done for PCs for the past twenty years. So, it decided to take action. It asked a load of disparate partners to join hands to build a standard operating system around which the mobile market could then develop.

Its problem is that, in the meantime, Apple came along and – as is its wont – did entirely its own thing. The iPhone was possible because Apple owns and houses device manufacture, operating system and software development in one place. The G1 will struggle to compete in terms of design and usability because it is, literally, built by committee.

But, it also has its advantages. Android – as a project - has the support of many incumbent players in the mobile space and it’s hard to overstate just how tricky life can be in the mobile sector without it. And it has Google, the de facto operating system of the web. If it can translate its model successfully for mobile, then the G1 and all the other G-phones that follow will become the most useful devices by virtue of their synergy with that model.

Google’s strategic mission is clear: to build the dominant traction of the new, mobile desktop over which, in the ‘immobile’ world, it still has to fight Microsoft. But, the joyful thing is that, if at the end of it all G-Phones turn out to be dogs, none of that strategic insight will mean a jot. Rarely has so much rested on favourable electronics reviews but then maybe that’s why Google thought it best to share the responsibility.

Android and T-Mobile G1's Five Most Obnoxious Flaws

Video of the T-Mobile G1 Google Android Phone

Google enters the mobile market with iPhone rival

Has Google's new mobile phone got the 'wow' factor?

2308643 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:51:08 GMT

Google unveiled its much-anticipated mobile phone in New York yesterday, marking its first foray into the mobile phone market.

The new phone, which will use Google's Android operating system, will be available on the T-Mobile network and is expected to hit UK stores in early November. It remains to be seen if Google can have the same impact in the mobile market that it has made in search and whether the new phone will be as coveted as Apple's iPhone.

However, Google is in this for the long-haul and has a strong track record where new product launches are concernced. Price plans will start at £40.

Are you excited by Google's latest technology? Will you be buying the T-Mobile G1? Does the new phone look as attractive as the iPhone?

[Poll]

iPhone Killer ?

1649191 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Google launched their brand spanking new G1 mobile phone in New York earlier today and immediately it has been heralded as the iPhone killer... but in my opinion, it's hasn't got a hope in hell.

Why ? Well frankly the name is a bit crap (G1 isn't exactly as funky as iPhone), it really doesn't move the game on enough and it simply doesn't look as good (and in these image obsessed times that we live in, looks are everything... well at least when it comes to choosing a mobile phone).

I'm not saying it's a bad phone. Apparently it's pretty good according to most reviews. Physically it isn't that different to the iPhone. It has many similar features (touch sensitive screen, GPS capability, mobile internet access, built in camera which is 1 megapixel more than the iPhone... woo hoo... ).

Indeed the G1 has some additional features that the iPhone doesn't have. For example it has a Blackberry style thumb ball. And a slideout qwerty keyboard. Nice, but hardly revolutionary.

Actually the one area it genuinely excels over the iPhone, is in terms of browsing. Using Googles new Android 'Open Source" platform it allows browsers to quickly access the web but (more importantly) it allows anyone to write software / applications for the platform for free.

Actually, that's pretty cool. But seriously, how many people out there are going to choose that functionality over the way the G1 looks by comparison to an iPhone ?

The G1, using a HTC unit, will be available for free in the UK just before Xmas exclusively through T-Mobile on tariff plans staring at about 40 quid. And it may cause an initial wave of interest but nothing to that of the tsunami of hype created by the iPhone.

Maybe when LG and Samsung launch their more design focused units supporting the G1 platform next year will it have a chance to compete... but by then we will inevitably have yet another new version of the iPhone which will have moved things on even further...