Colin's Corner

Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace

The Federal Trade Commission on May 6 and 7 held a Town Hall meeting, entitled "Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace,” to explore issues surrounding the evolving area of mobile commerce (m-commerce) and the implications for consumer protection policy. The document is worth reading for insights into mobile trends from some of the leading players.

Online video advertising - a growth opportunity

eMarketer estimates that while online video ad spending in the US represents less than 4% of all Internet advertising, spending will more than triple to $4.3 billion by 2011 - especially as more viewers embrace full-length TV episodes and other video online.

The recently released numbers from the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) for FT 2007 are more conservative, identifying video advertising revenues at $324 MM for FY 2007 out of the total US online revenues of $21 billion but the expected growth of video advertising has prompted the IAB to release of format guidelines especially covering pre-roll ads which are limited to 30 seconds.

Echoing these sentiments, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has just released a report “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites.” that discusses the increase of online video (11.5 billion videos were viewed in the US March, according Comscore).

Additionally, to help identify the revenue opportunity around online video advertising, the NAA has issued a detailed report Making Money: Pre-Roll, Post-Roll and the Ads In Between

The main conclusion: everyone needs to jump on online video. “While still a small percentage of total and local online advertising, online video represents an enormous opportunity for newspapers to grow revenue and audience,”

For the sites that monetize their online video pre-roll and banner ads are the most frequently sold advertising formats.

To date, although there is huge pressure from advertisers to run pre-rolls, Google has decided to go for the much less intrusive in-video advertising recently releasing the AdSense for video program

The relevancy of the video advertisement and its duration obviously are major factors in user satisfaction. Some publishers are finding that while users dislike the initial pre-roll video, they are willing to watch a "post" pre-roll that links the first video with subsequent ones.

Some other interesting video advertising technologies include those from VideoClix and Asterpix.These technologies allow objects in the video to become hyperlinks. Viewers can click on these in video hotspots and either additional information can be displayed in the viewer or they can link off to receive additional information or to buy a product.

To date, hot-spot objects require a mouse roll-over or click but with the success of Apple's iPhone, it's not hard to image that the user interface will be adapted to accommodate touch screen technology.

Online video ads are quickly becoming the medium of choice to drive both brand awareness and direct sales and rapid growth is expected over the next couple years as marketers start to see the ROI returns. Publishers need to be ready.

2D barcodes and ViPR

One of the most interesting aspects of mobile devices is their ability to link the physical and the digital world. 2D barcoding has been extremely popular in Japan and Korea for the last few years and is starting at last to penetrate the more mobile challenged regions of the world such as the US.

In the US, the uptake on 2D barcodes and other technologies linking the analogue and the digital world has been slower- largely due to lack of agreement among the five major carriers as to which technology to adopt but even more importantly, the expensive data plans that still exist around MMS in the US and other Western countries.

One major test around 2D bar-coding and mobile discovery has been conduced at Case Western Reserve University to mixed results with a fairly negative article in the NY Times covering the experiment.

ViPR (Visual Pattern Recognition) allows the camera phone to take a photograph of an object or image - the user sends this photo to an email address after which the user receives additional information such as an invite to buy, a coupon or free gift - whatever action the marketer wants to take place.

There are various companies experimenting with ViPR technologies including MobiGlyphs.com a subsidiatry of Compex Inc. and Snap Tell which recently conduced a fun contest around the movie "Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden" and received coverage in the NYTimes for their technology.

For ViPR and 2D technologies to become more prevalent over the next years the carriers will need to more aggressively push the technologies and include them with new mobile devices - with the imminent release of the iPhone 2.0 there will be several applications released over the next month or so using these technologies which will spur adoption. While adoption has been slow to date, it's likely to pick up very rapidly over the next couple of years. One to watch !

IDG's move to "the third screen"

Just over a year ago I wrote about IDG's transition from being a print centric to web centric company.

It's often too easy to theorize and be visionary but the real proof comes when you have to execute.

Today's story in the NYTimes talks about IDG's execution over the last year, with particular reference to the team at Infoworld who successfully closed the print publication and focused entirely on online, event and mobile opportunities.

There's a lot to this story but one of the most important issues is that by being unburdened by print allowed the team at Infoworld the opportunity to focus on the changing needs of their customers and to develop online , event and mobile products. It's changed the culture of that brand.

The philosophy of listening to customers and really understanding your marketplace has been installed in the organization over the last four decades by Pat McGovern and is well summarized in a recent FT interview.

Last week in Boston, I had the opportunity to attend an internal training course of our senior managers (training is also viewed as a key competitive advantage by the company). I've experienced similar events over my fifteen years at IDG, but watching Pat McGovern work the room during dinner with those nineteen, potential future IDG executives, making them feel so special by recognizing their contributions to the company underscored the very special fabric of this organization.

In 1993 I attended such a training boot camp, having arrived in the US from the UK after being Managing Director of Dennis Publishing, Ltd. my team mate on the case study project was Bob Carrigan, now the CEO of IDG Communications Inc. I guess IDG's investment in us has paid off !

So what's next ?

Of course there is more to be done on the transition to online. In particular building on the peer to peer knowledge of our communities. Today marketers want not only eyeballs, they want truly engaged and participatory audiences and through programs such as IDG's Market Fusion initiative we demonstrate the deep engagement of our IT and Tech audiences.

Next is mobile.

While, mobile marketing initiatives are still modest and the consumption of mobile content is still in its infancy, things are going to change rapidly over the next several years. I subscribe to the belief that we're seeing the dawn of a new mass media

The mobile opportunities and the move to the 7th Mass Media are well articulated by Tomi Ahonen and Alan Moore.

While the monoculture of South Korea is much different to Western cultures, they are at the epicenter of the convergence of the Internet, Telecommunications and Broadcast TV. Not everything that works within the South Korean culture will necessarily translate but publishers around the world ignore the rapid developments in this country at their peril.

To get a glimpse of the digital culture of South Korea read Digital Korea I handed out a copy to all the students at our internal training course last week. Over at the Industry Standard there is a discussion about the merger of the mobile phone and the web.

Obviously I'm not going to give away all our plans and initiatives but as the NYTimes article showed, IDG has successfully managed the transition from print to online, now I'm thinking about the transition from online to mobile.