A recent article from Advertising Age's blog looks at some key trends that are predicted for the mobile advertising market in 2010. The underlying theme is how mobile technology is rapidly changing lifestyle and business behaviour, with the future trends for the next decade being hard to predict as the market is developing quickly with new functionality and opportunities for advertisers.

The five main trends covered here are: the opportunities becoming available for local advertisers to target their market; the growth in mobile shopping applications and point-of-sale technology; the role of branded applications and display advertising opportunities; the linkage between mobiles and outdoor advertising for targeting; and the importance of social networking and crowdsourcing from mobiles to influence market activity.

Labels: mobile advertising

Extensive news coverage has been given to the launch of the new Google Nexus One phone (such as this BBC report). This is the company's first own-brand smartphone, although it has been providing the Google Android operating system through other phones to date. The new Nexus One phone is designed to compete with the Apple iPhone and has been developed with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC using the Android operating system.

The phone is initially available in the US and is being sold directly from Google's website. It can be purchased 'unlocked' so that any chosen mobile carrier can be used, but clearly Google wants to gain a bigger share of the mobile phone market to capture more mobile search activity and to provide another advertising platform as a revenue stream in this growing market. An article by ComputerWorld takes a make detailed look at Google's likely strategy to develop a greater foothold in this market.

The latest market share figures reported from Gartner indicate that the Android operating system has about a 3.5% share of the global smartphone market, in comparison to Nokia, which has a 39% share and Apple with 17%.

Labels: google, mobile advertising

As reported widely in the press, Google has acquired a US mobile display advertising company, AdMob, for US$750m. According to Search Engine Land, the acquisition gives Google access to AdMob's 15,000-plus mobile websites and applications which will complement Google's own platform for AdSense on Mobile devices.

This acquisition also puts Google in a stronger position within the mobile display advertising market, which is one that is clearly seen to have big growth potential over the coming years. It also gives Google access to a great deal of experience and sophistication in the sector that it didn't previously have.

Labels: google, mobile advertising