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Millennial Media releases data for August mobile engagement

Millennial Media released its monthly SMART report about the engagement of mobile users with advertising supplied by the company.

Just like last month, there was a bunch of interesting data, but again the standout had to be the drop of the average session time while the number of pages per session again increased.  Who are these speed reading fiends?  The average session time dropped from five minutes, 10 seconds in July (which was a decrease from June's  five minutes, thirty-eight seconds) to a mere four minutes, fifty-nine seconds; average monthly page views increased from 106 to 111.  Again, people seem to be spending less time, but increasing the number of pages they view.  Makes you wonder how much they are really registering as they fly by it on their small screen.

U.S. Mobile Internet Reach (Nielsen):

• The U.S. mobile Web grew 3.12% to 63M users.
• Millennial Media’s U.S. unique audience reach increased to 49.6M users, to an industry-leading reach of 79% of the U.S. mobile Web.

Engagement & Targeting:

• On 4 out of 5 activities, smartphones ranked anywhere from 4% to 9% higher than computers on engagement satisfaction (per Insight Express).
• Browsing the internet on a computer ranked 2% higher than on a smartphone.
• Summer trends continued as advertisers leveraged targeting methods with the broadest reach. Run of Network grew 18% and R.O.N., Channel, and Custom Subnet represented 82% of the campaign targeting mix.
• Established mobile advertisers dominated the landscape this month, as Tra c to Site represented 57% of campaign destinations actions.
• Average session time dropped from 5 min 10 secs to 4 min 59 secs; average monthly page views increased to 111.
• 54% of campaigns utilized frequency capping.

Device Highlights:

• Apple’s iPhone continued its lead with 12.51% impression share, and Apple continued to pull closer to Samsung as the top device manufacturer.
• iPhone/iPod Touch impressions increased 15% (iPhone/iPod Touch impressions grew 68% in June and 29% in July).
• Blackberry and Samsung continued to compete for the top five mobile phone spots as Blackberry Curve and Pearl grabbed #2 and #4.
• Wi-Fi aided mobile content consumption, increasing 1.26% month over month, and dominating the U.S. Carrier Mix with 26.15% impression share.

Google sends cease & desist order to CyanogenMod

The Android developers got a bit of a shock this week when Google sent a cease & desist order to Cyanogen, one of the best known developers in the space.

It seems the problem with Google stems from the fact that Cyanogen was releasing modified versions of some of the Google native apps for Android like Gmail, YouTube and so on.  Google did take to the official Android Developers blog to explain why it was they felt this had to be done:

With a high-quality open platform in hand, we then returned to our goal of making our services available on users' phones. That's why we developed Android apps for many of our services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Voice, and so on. These apps are Google's way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals. Either way, these apps aren't open source, and that's why they aren't included in the Android source code repository. Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it's done with the best of intentions.

It is easy to see how Cyanogen, or any developer, would have thought those apps were part of the open source software, but now that we know they aren't, the cease & desist makes a lot of sense.  Just make sure you always know what is actually open source and what isn't.

Rumors circulate of Verizon passing on the Palm Pre

It was a never-ending battle this week of whether or not Verizon would eventually offer the Palm Pre or not, and if they passed, what would this mean to the future of the webOS platform?

The report seems to have started with The Street saying that they had spoken with people close to the situation that said the Palm Pre was not going to make the cut with the carrier due to its sales being more sluggish than first forecast.  Verizon declined to make any comments on the story, and Palm said that they had never announced additional carriers.

This was followed up by a report from Bloomberg that Palm had decided to make additional comments about its plans to add additional characters in the second half of fiscal 2010.  Which carriers those might be was not made clear, but it was obvious this was a damage control situation on the part of the formerly troubled cellular company.

Just in case this wasn't all confusing enough already, The Boy Genius Report is now stating that they have spoken with sources that say the deal for Verizon to carry the Palm Pre next year are still on, but of course those sources can not be named either.

Well, I have spoken with some sources who happen to be my four Cocker Spaniels, and they all agree that they like treats, and that no one knows for sure what the heck is going on with Verizon and the Palm Pre.

GetJar discovers young men really like mobile apps; no one shocked

GetJar, a company dedicated to distributing free mobile applications, had conducted a study that has revealed a lot of telling information about who exactly is using mobile applications these days.

During August, GetJar conducted a survey of 13,518 of its users to discover just who exactly was downloading applications, and to find out what it was they are looking for from them.  While the study is filled with interesting information, one of the most fascinating tidbits was about the willingness of users to download applications that include advertising:

While brands are already creating campaigns for mobile as a channel, the findings indicate that users are not only receptive to promotions via mobile apps, but also actively embrace them. Eight-out-of-ten have recommended a mobile app to a friend and a further eight-out of-ten continue to consciously download apps that contain advertising, highlighting the power of peer-to-peer advocacy among mobile app users.

While this doesn't necessarily mean they are paying attention to the adds, at least we now know they aren't immediately turned off by the concept.

Some of the interesting tidbits from the study include:

• 65 percent of GeJar`s respondents were in the 18-34 year old category
• 81 percent of respondents were male
• 61 percent of consumers we`re downloading content at least 3-4 times a week
• Mobile apps users are more likely to access the internet from their mobile handsets than from their computers, with 72 percent of respondents saying that this is the case. Across established and developing markets, this figure remains high (62 percent in the UK and 69 percent in the US)
• In terms of the types of content downloaded, 57 percent of users downloaded mobile applications/software, above mobile games (22 percent), music (10 percent), wallpapers (8 percent) and ringtones (3 percent)
• 67 percent would be willing to pay for a mobile app, showing not only the popularity of brand sponsored apps but also the revenue generating potential

In short, it looks like there is still a lot of growth left in the mobile app space, and it seems like people won't mind if there is advertising involved with them.

Rumors circulate that RIM is working on its own Twitter app

For the final piece this week, there is a bit of scary news for app developers that Research in Motion (RIM) is working on its own native Twitter application.

According to CrackBerry, RIM is applying the lessons it has learned from building other social networking applications to a Twitter app, meaning it will be a fairly slick piece of work with all of the functionality you would expect from a full Twitter app including things such as trending topics, replies and so on.

The question is, once RIM releases an official application for something, what is the likelihood of the unofficial app maintaining its popularity?  TwitterBerry and UberTwitter have been the top of the heap on the BlackBerry for some time now, but will they just go away?  Think i'm overstating this?  Name other Facebook apps besides the official one from RIM.  Yeah ... thought so.

So what are app developers to do?  Do you pour time, energy and money into an app just to have the phone manufacturer come along and usurp you?  This could be a scary precedent for some developers out there.

[Editor’s Note and Disclosure: Millennial Media is a sponsor of SiliconANGLE. –spa]

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