Millennial Media study shows mobile ad spending to increase in 2010

Millennial Media and DM2PRO.com, a knowledge base for digital media and marketing professionals, collaborated to explore of attitudes and spending plans of leading agencies and brands in 2010.

There is no denying that mobile advertising is on the increase, and according to this new study it is set to do nothing but jump next year.  The largest spenders in the space replied they are spending under $100,000 this year, but the overall amount of money pushed into the industry will increase next year as 60 percent of companies that currently spend nothing in the mobile space will be entering into it in 2010.

Other highlights of the study include:

Mobile spending is expected to increase next year, with 31% of agency respondents stating that they will invest between $100K and $249K.

• More than 15% plan to invest more than $1M and 2.6% projected spending of greater than $5M.
• More than ½ of Q4 mobile campaigns will represent between 1% and 10% of their clients’ total spending, but, for a few, that number will be 40%-50%.
• Nearly 75% of the 100 leading agency respondents stated that they have developed mobile campaigns for themselves or a client.
• As an average value, brand respondents forecasted at least a 15 percent increase in spend in 2010.

Mobile advertising performance meets expectations and remains valuable. Among those who have executed mobile campaigns:

• 78% of respondents said the medium met their campaign goals, and an additional 9% said mobile performed “beyond our wildest expectations.”
• For 89% of agencies, the mobile facet of a campaign is just one portion of a multi-platform buy.
• Nearly a third (30%) of agency respondents said mobile has become an “indispensable” part of the media mix. Another 67% ranked mobile as “somewhat valuable” and only 2% said it was not valuable in their overall media mix.

iPhone App Store passes 100,000 applications

Apparently Apple thinks it should be proud of the fact that the App Store has passed the 100,000 applications mark.

Apple announced this week that it has passed the 100,000 applications mark in the iPhone and iPod Touch App Store.  While this is terrific news for Apple, this can’t be warming the hearts of too many app developers.

The ability for customers to find apps is getting more difficult with the lack of organization in the store beyond over arching categories such as “Music” that holds over 3,600 apps.  With Apple’s focus on just adding more and more apps, and not actually cleaning up the store, it is only going to get more difficult for developers to get noticed, and eventually they may end up turning to other platforms which have dedicated, albeit smaller, fan bases.

It doesn’t matter how good an app might be, if no one can find it, it will never be successful.

iPhone app developer target of lawsuit over cell number harvesting

It isn’t a good week for iPhone developer Storm8.

According to MediaPost, Lynwood, Wash. resident Michael Turner has filed a lawsuit against the company over the discovery that the companies popular apps like “Vampires”, “Zombies” and “Ninjas Live” were transmitting user’s phone numbers back to the company upon app installation.  This fact was not disclosed by the applications, and Storm8 is claiming it was a bug that has now been fixed.

Mr. Turner’s lawsuit claims that the harvesting of the cell numbers violates the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but legal experts say that you have to prove that damage was done to the computer in question.  Turner’s lawyer, Michael Aschenbrener of Kamber Edelson says damage was done because it “impaired the integrity of the data stored on a protected computer.”

Bug or intentional, this is not a good thing for Storm8 or the iTunes App Store.  You also wonder how it got past the app approval process seeing as how they have denied access to the store for a host of other reasons. Perhaps they don’t check the coding at all? And if it was a bug, how did it infect multiple applications?

It shall be interesting to see how this all plays out in the court.

Verizon launches newest Android-powered phone, the Droid

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Verizon has launched the new Droid phone line has launched.

Considering the reviews from the Motorla handset, and the ad campaign behind this launch, this could be the deepest market penetration that the Google mobile OS has seen yet.  Will it translate into customers?  That remains to be seen, but seeing as there were actual lines (not iPhone-sized, but lines none the less) outside some Verizon stores for the release, this seems like a good sign that Android is about about to pick up a lot of new users.

Of course, the more users that join up, the more developers will be tempted to start producing applications for the platform.  While this is a good thing in the overall picture, lets just hope it never turns into the iTunes App Store situation we are currently facing with 100,000 apps.  Somehow I doubt it will, but it would be unfortunate to see to see the situation popping up time and time again with each system as it gains popularity.

T-Mobile pledges to continue invest in Android

T-Mobile is completely sold on the Android OS, and they plan to continue to invest in it.

At this week’s Open Mobile Summit, T-Mobile USA Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Cole Brodman listed off a lot of statistics about the success the company is having with Android.  According to The Inquisitr, these points included:

* About half myTouch users visit the Android Market at least once per day.
* 80% of myTouch users browse the web at least once per day, and 2/3 say several times per day.
* Nearly half of myTouch users say they have “completely customized” their myTouch.
* More than 40% of myTouch users access social networking sites multiple times per day.

Mr. Brodman also went on to mention that the Android Market has now reached 12,000 applications, and biggest focus seems to be on the T-Mobile AppPack.

One of the most exciting thing for developers will be the ability to pitch your app to become a featured application.  Those that are interested just need to visit developer.t-mobile.com and from there they will be able t pitch their apps to the company.  This could be a great way for smaller companies and individuals to get their time in the spotlight.

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