I’m back from vacation, and it’s time for another Mobile Monday. I don’t normally write a lot of personal commentary in these Mobile Monday posts, but I wanted to take a moment and thank Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins for pinch-hitting for me last week. As he mentioned, that was my first vacation in 13 years, and while I had intended to write this column even with that in mind, I ended up having computer problems. So, long story short, thanks, Mark!
As for covering for me again in 2022… I’m hoping to increase the frequency of vacations just a TINY bit, but I think you still have a year or two to wait.
Millennial Media releases data for July mobile engagement
Millennial Media released its monthly SMART report about the engagement of mobile users with advertising supplied by the company.
While the report was filled with useful data, one of the most intriguing tidbits was that the average session time per user dropped from five minutes, thirty-eight seconds in June to five minutes, ten seconds in July. The odd aspect was that while the amount of time per session dropped, the number of pages loaded per session increased from 99 to 106 per session meaning that users were still engaging, but a much faster rate. (i.e. good luck on any one catching their eyes as they surf by at those types of speeds)
Here are the points that Millennial Media felt was the most pertinent:
July 2009 SMART Highlights
- U.S. Mobile Internet Reach (Nielsen):
- The U.S. mobile Web grew 2.17% month over month to 61.1M users.
- Millennial Media’s U.S. unique audience reach increased to 45.6M users, to an industry-leading reach of ~75% of the U.S. mobile Web.
Engagement & Targeting:
- Campaigns sending traffic to their persistent mobile sites, as a campaign destination in July, increased 12.44%.
- During July, the only full month of summer, advertisers ran broader-targeted campaigns, which decreased Cost Per Engaged User (CPEU) rates.
- July’s broader reaching mobile ad strategies closed the gap between the top two targeting mixes (Channel up 6% and Custom Subnet down 11%).
- 57% of campaigns utilized Frequency Capping in July, 9% more campaigns than June. This dramatic increase showed that as advertisers opted for broader reach, they also wanted to avoid brand burn-out with their targeted consumers.
- Mobile users clicked through more pages (106 from 99) in shorter sessions (5 minutes: 10 seconds average user session versus 5 minutes: 38 seconds in June).
Device Highlights:
- iPhone continued to dominate the top devices category with a 12.21% share, a 3.62% increase over June.
- iPhone/iPod Touch impressions increased 29% across the network in July.
- Apple continued to close the gap; however, Samsung remained the top device manufacturer in July.
- Two new mobile devices entered the top 20 in July –the LG enV2 and the Samsung SCH-U410.
China getting a new handset that dual boots both WinMo and Android
Well, this may be an app developers dream come true! A handset that lets you double-dip!
Details of the new Sunno S880 are still trickling out of China, but the biggest aspect that every one is talking about is that the handset will allow you to dual boot both the Windows Mobile and Google Android operating systems at the same time. The memory is a bit under whelming in that it only comes in 128 MB and 256 MB flavors, meaning there won’t be a ton of space for applications. Add in that the phone is sporting an 8 megapixel camera and there is going to be a lot of fighting for that space going on. The phone is also scheduled to include Wi-Fi and GPS, so app developers of all types should find something on this phone to work with.
This is certainly not something I ever saw coming, and it certainly an interesting concept, and if successful, who knows where else we will see it go. This initial handset is scheduled for release in October, but no price has been announced as of yet.
China prepares for the launch of the iPhone
At long last, it has been made official that the iPhone is going to launch in the People’s Republic of China.
It is estimated that five to seven million iPhones will be sold in China in 2010, accounting for 15 – 20 percent of all iPhone sold in the world next year. While those numbers might set some app developers tongues to wagging, one has to wonder what sort of applications the government will ultimately allow their citizens to purchase.
Seeing as China shuts down Internet access on whims, and sometimes without any rhyme or reason, I personally wouldn’t count any currently existing application as safe for being included in the Chinese app store until it officially launches and you know for sure you made it. Even if you make it to that stage you might see yourself get cut as the Chinese government seems to make decisions on whims, so I’m not sure I would ever feel one hundred percent safe in my app surviving for long in China.
All that being said, I wouldn’t say that some developers who position themselves well with Chinese specific applications won’t be seeing some major influxes of income pretty soon.
AdMob purchases AdWhirl
AdMob, the first or fifth biggest mobile network depending on who you talk to, got cornered this week into admitting that it had signed a term sheet to purchase AdWhirl.
John Furrier and Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins talked a bit about their perspectives on the story on the editorial backchannel.
AdWhirl is an advertisement aggregator that allows application developers to switch up which companies they are running at any time depending on who is paying the most for their spaces at a time. While speculation at this point, it seems that AdWhirl was becoming a bit too much of a threat to some of the networks ads were being served by, and by buying up the technology, AdMob was essentially eliminating competition.
According to VentureBeat, AdMob has promised not to mess around with the core business of AdWhirl, and will even release the technology as open source within the next few weeks. With that in mind, it appears this really was more of a move to disperse the potential competition from such a service in to multiple hands, effectively fracturing the strength of the service, as opposed to having it all focused in to one company. Whatever the case may be, it looks like the deal is done and will be closed over the next few weeks.
[Editor’s Note and Disclosure: Millennial Media is a sponsor of SiliconANGLE –spa]
[...] Mobile Monday: Mobile App News for Week of August 24th [...]
[...] else that has been reported about mobile advertising. If you just go back and look at Millennial Media’s engagement report for July, which was collected by Nielsen, the numbers are so radically different that you question if the [...]