Study: Banner Ads on Mobile Devices See Higher CTR Than On PCs

There’s been a lot of debate regarding CTR for banner ads on mobile devices.  Many argue that mobile users click on banner ads by mistake and therefore can’t compete with traditional banner ads viewed on PCs.  A new study out by MediaMind, however, aims to debunk this myth.

                                         

The company analyzed 230 million impressions of the same banner ads on both mobile devices and traditional browsers and found that the average CTR for mobile ads was .61% compared to .07% for browsers.  MediaMind disagrees with the notion of errant clicks on mobile devices and instead says that mobile is simply “experiencing the same kind of new and fascinating curve that banner ads had when they first asked people to punch the monkey.”

Read more »

T-Mobile Executive Reportedly Cans iPhone 5 Rumor

The iPhone 5 is not coming to T-Mobile USA this fall, according to a provocative new report that casts doubt on a longstanding mobile rumor that has persisted for nearly ten months.

                                

TmoNews has obtained information suggesting that T-Mobile USA Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman has confirmed that the carrier will not debut the iPhone 5 on its mobile network – at least not for the remainder of 2011.

“Our business is working very hard to improve performance over the last couple of years and we’ve had some great success,” Brodman said, adding that “new products and value plans are fueling customer response.”

Read more »

Mobile Devices Claim 10% of All YouTube Downloads, Says Google

YouTube is a popular destination for mobile users. According to YouTube director of global platform partnerships Francisco Varela, mobile users are responsible for about 10% of all videos downloaded from Google’s ultra-popular video sharing platform.

                                               

Coverage from Mobile World Live at the Huawei Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2011, where Varela spoke, revealed that YouTube subscribers are using mobile devices to create content at a rapid pace..

More than two hours of video is uploaded from devices every minute, Google revealed, with Varela adding that Google and YouTube are “working to optimize use of the mobile network, for example offering different default quality depending on infrastructure type.”

Read more »

Intuit’s Mobile Efforts Look to Make Big Splash on The Small Screen

Intuit’s dominance in the realm of mobile solutions for business owners is growing at a rapid pace.

                                  

Late last week, the venerable name in business and financial management solutions, raised the curtain on its next generation of mobile products that will expand its portfolio of connected services.

According to Intuit, these range from innovations that will make it easier for the smallest of businesses to accept credit card payments, to others that will help doctors and patients communicate quickly, to a banking application that allows consumers to deposit a check from anywhere with just their mobile phone.

Read more »

Sprint Joins the iPhone 4S Club with AT&T, Verizon Next Week

In the world of smartphones, there’s an exclusive club of carriers in the US, much like the exclusive stable of actors who have played James Bond on the silver screen.

On Tuesday, Sprint earned its “license to thrill” by welcoming the iPhone into the Sprint family.

                                  

Beginning October 14th, when Apple’s iPhone 4S goes on sale, Sprint will join AT&T and Verizon as the only US carriers to offer the iPhone.

Despite what would otherwise seem to be positive news for both companies, shares of Apple and Sprint fell sharply after the announcement of the iPhone 4S.

Read more »

Goodbye to the Traditional Wallet, Enter the Mobile Wallet

The following is a guest post from Tope Abayomi, Founder of Emityme Apps.

Can your customers pay for product and/or services through a mobile phone?  If not, you should start thinking of implementing an option unless you’re comfortable  leaving money on the table.

                                                     

New forecasts from PayPal show that this year’s total mobile payments (TMP) volume is expected to reach $3 billion.  But PayPal only serves a small part of the mobile payment market.  For all mobile payments sent through all systems in the US, the total volume is set to hit the $6B mark, according to Forrester Research. PayPal’s number is double from what they expected at the start of the year, as the number of customers using their phones to pay has soared.

Read more »

RIM Rolls Out NFC-Based BlackBerry Tag

Delving ever deeper into mobile payments territory, Research In Motion has unveiled a new way for BlackBerry smartphone users to connect with one another and share multimedia content.

                                             

Meet BlackBerry Tag, which will be incorporated in the next BlackBerry 7 OS update. The new offering will allow users to share contact information, documents, URLs, photos and other multimedia content by – you guessed it – tapping their BlackBerry smartphones together.

According to a press release issued by RIM following the announcement Monday, BlackBerry Tag will also enable friends to instantly add one another as contacts on BlackBerry Messenger.

Read more »

Is Facebook’s Long Awaited iPad App a Flop?

On Monday, Columbus Day, Facebook finally “discovered” a new world of its own – the iPad.

                                       

Following months of speculation and suspicions, Facebook finally raised the curtain on its iPad-optimized mobile app, which is available now as a free download in the App Store.

Leon Dubinsky, a software engineer at Facebook, says the app had been designed to create an immersive and “fun” experience for iPad users.

Read more »

Today’s mHealth Industry Gets a Boost From ‘Tomorrow’

Tuesday marked the launch of the first mobile network for healthcare – Tomorrow Networks.

                                           

According to a press release issued by the network’s founders, Physicians Interactive Holdings – a provider of health care information and mobile clinical decision tools for medical professionals – and Remedy Systems – a mobile app company focused on healthcare – have announced the creation and availability of their mHealth platform, Tomorrow Networks.

The platform lets developers market and distribute their applications to the growing population of medical professionals who are searching for well-built mobile applications as a tool to improve both the quality and efficiency of care. Through the platform, advertisers can also deliver targeted marketing messages.

Read more »

Mobile advertising networkGreystripe has announced some innovative new mobile ad units focused on making the experience more relevant, targeted, and “app-like” for mobile users.

                           

The new ad units, or “Ad Boosters” as they’re called, allow for both industry-focused and social ad units.  The industry-focused units drill down to a specific, targeted vertical for things like retail, CPG, automotive, etc., and can be customized to allow advertisers to direct users to specific actions.  The retail booster, for example, includes a “Find Store button,” a “Coupon button” and a “Buy Now button.”  The social units add integration for services like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube.

Read more »

Fiksu: Android Users 2X More Likely Than iOS Users to Open an App Ten Times or More

Mobile app monetization provider Fiksuhas published new data comparing mobile app loyalty on both Android and iOS devices, finding user loyalty to be much higher on Android.

                                      

The company analyzed more than four billion “app actions” through its platform and applied a metric defining a loyal user based on the number of times he or she opens an app.  The data shows that on average, Android users are two times more likely than iOS users to open an app ten times or more.  iOS still dominates among premium brands but what this means is that there’s plenty of inventory available on the Android platform, where global traffic can cost much less than iOS traffic based on standard supply and demand principles.

Read more »

SMB Market for Mobile SaaS to Reach $3.3B This Year, Growing to $16.6B in 2016

According to a new survey out recently from Strategy Analytics, the market for mobile Software-as-a-Service solutions is expected to reach $3B by the end of the year, growing to an impressive $16.6B by 2016 — representing a 5-year CAGR of 29.5%.

                                            

According to the data, North America and Western Europe represent the greatest SMB spending opportunity for mobile SaaS, with SMBs in North America spending twice as much than those in Western Europe.  Smartphones and wireless devices form the basis of mobility and pave the way for mobile applications including access to company e-mail, calendars, CRM systems and databases.

Read more »

Social Media Highlights AT&T Servers Sputtering Under Enormous Weight of iPhone 4S Activations

AT&T servers are working overtime this Friday. The activation demands incumbent on AT&T this morning (the first day of availability for the iPhone 4S) are overpowering the carrier, causing innumerable subscribers difficulty in activating their new iPhone.

                                      

Angry customers have now taken to the social media realm to vent their frustration.

Across Twitter and Facebook, unhappy AT&T subscribers say they’ve been getting error messages for hours as they’ve attempted to get their freshly un-boxed iPhone 4S up and running.

Read more »

Washington Hospital Using Mobile Apps in Care of Critical Patients

Mobile applications are playing an increasingly larger role in the way doctors and hospitals care for patients.

                                             

The hospital at the center of today’s mHealth buzz is Washington Hospital Center, the facility behind “CodeHeart,” the highly secure mobile application solution developed and customized in collaboration with AT&T that provides a real-time video and audio stream that can be used in critical care situations, such as ambulances in transit.

According to an example presented in a press release issued by the medical facility, the solution can be used by hospital cardiologists to view, in real-time, a patient’s condition while simultaneously speaking with the patient’s first responder or the attending Emergency Department (ED) physician. Importantly, the solution also provides physicians the ability to view vital signs and test results–like electrocardiograms (ECG)–captured through the real-time video feed.

Read more »

comScore Highlights Growth Spurt in Mobile Social Media Audience

According to the findings of an insightful new report from comScore, 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011.

                                  

Not only does that figure represent a whole lot of people, it also reveals an audience size increase of 37 percent over the past year alone. The study similarly showed that more than half read a post from an organization, brand or event while on their mobile device.

“Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users,” says Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. “This behavior is even more prevalent among smartphone owners with three in five accessing social media each month, highlighting the importance of apps and the enhanced functionality of smartphones to social media usage on mobile devices.”

Read more »

Millennial Media Shows iPhone, iPad Now Major Players in Mobile Ad Impressions

According to the latest data released from independent mobile advertising and data company Millennial Media, the iPhone and its tablet sibling, the iPad, have earned some fairly lofty placements across a broad variety of mobile advertising statistics.

                                                           
The Mobile Mix Q3 Report reveals that iOS impressions grew 60% year-over-year, from Q3 2010-Q3 2011. In particular, iPad impressions grew 456%, and iPod Touch impressions grew 30% year-over-year.
Not to be outdone, the iPhone accounted for 54% of the iOS impressions on Millennial Media’s platform, while iPod Touch and iPad combined to make up the other 46%.

Read more »

BlackBerry Gets Nod from MasterCard as PayPass-Approved Devices

This week, Research In Motion announced the BlackBerry BoldTM 9900 and BlackBerry CurveTM 9360 smartphones are the first SIM-based NFC smartphones to be certified by MasterCard Worldwide as PayPass-approved devices.

                               

According to a press release from RIM, the certification “was granted on the basis of the BlackBerry smartphones meeting the functionality, interoperability and security requirements of MasterCard.”

What does it all mean? With this certification, any MasterCard PayPass-issuing bank globally will be able to deploy MasterCard PayPass-enabled accounts to the SIM card of these smartphones.

Read more »

Millennial Media Details Successful RIch Media Mobile Campaign for Green Lantern Debut Across Europe

To gear up for the pan-European release of the movie Green Lantern this summer, mobile advertising powerhouse Millennial Media teamed up with Warner Bros. and their agency, Odyssey Mobile Interaction, tocreate a unique rich media mobile campaign to drive engagement and mobile views of the film’s trailer.

                                              

It was determined that Millennial wanted to give consumers a visual experience that was reflective of a superhero film like Green Lantern, and decided to deliver an expandable rich media banner that let consumers “imprint their fingerprint” on the ad to bring up an HD trailer for the film.  Since the film was released across Europe at different times during the summer, it required staggered and localized campaigns to support the unique release schedule.  As such, the initial campaign launched in the UK in mid-June, and crossed Germany, France and Spain before ending in Italy at the end of August.

Read more »

Square Rolls Out Sophisticated Mobile Payment Solution for iPhone

Square has unveiled a new app for iPhone users called Card Case. Acting like a digital wallet, the new app enables users to complete purchases at participating stores without even having to retrieve the device from their purse, pocket, or coat.

“This is truly the simplest way to pay,” said Megan Quinn, director of products for Square.

The app opens a tab with the merchant for payments to be made automatically when the user is in close proximity to a store that uses this particular service.

                                      

This is made possible by Apple’s new iOS 5, which delivers a state of the art location-based mobile technology.

When a user is ready to make a purchase, the customer simply states their name. The store employee at the point of sale or cash register can then verify the user’s face on their side of the app. Subsequently, the charges are issued and the money is automatically withdrawn from the debit card or credit card associated with that individual user’s app.

According to the folks at Square, the service is available at some 20,000 outlets nationwide that have already signed up to accept Card Case payments.

Read more »

eBay Sees $5 Billion in Mobile Sales in 2011 via Mobile Apps, Smartphones

It is shaping up to be a banner year in mobile sales for eBay. This week, the online marketplace’s CEO, John Donahoe, revealed that eBay will have done $5 billion in business this year via mobile phones. eBay owned PayPal isn’t far behind with $3.5 billion in mobile payments for the calendar year.

                                      

The smartphone boom and corresponding popularity of eBay’s mobile applications have made this impressive feat possible. Donahoe admits that that eBay’s applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone have been downloaded in excess of 56 million times.

“We are seeing profound change in how consumers are behaving and will behave. We believe we are at an inflection point,” Donahoe reportedly said this week at the Open Mobile Summit. Our perspective on mobile is that it’s not incremental, it is another screen in the shopping experience. It’s a consumer that is coming back more frequently and shopping more because now it can be done at any time of the day. We know it is driving consumer engagement and customer value.”

Read more »