As most of you who have been following the mobile ecosystem know, this week is the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. MWC is the premiere international conference for all things mobile. Think of it as the worldwide version of CTIA. Although attendance sounds like it is thinner than other years it seems that the general consensus is that mobile is here in a big way and its here to stay.

Maybe the most interesting of all the developments over the weekend was an announcement by 24 of the major mobile carriers – i.e. AT&T, Verizon, etc, to launch an open unified application platform. Application stores are a very important channel in the mobile world as we are increasingly seeing with Apples iTunes. This move by the carriers seems to put them toe to toe against Apple, but how will they compete?

Apple is already way ahead of the game and only has to deal with one or two devices. A unified app platform would be highly fragmented especially as the major players – i.e. RIM and Google have not stated that they are participating. Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering has already shared his skepticism, saying, “There is always a dream that you could write [a program] once and [have it] run anywhere and history has proven that that dream has not been fully realised and I am sceptical that it ever will be“. A Techcrunch article breaks down the real issues with this unified platform by outlining the following problems :

1.) Fragmentation – With so many devices to support you will always have to wait for your manufacturer to update the most recent version of the store. Even if they can solve this issue, developers will have to deal with so many different screen sizes and resolutions. This is already an issue for developers with Blackberry’s and Android phones, however the issue will get worse with a unified platform like this.

2.) Functionality – Overall we have seen that unified platforms like these work by trading off some of the functionality that the phones are capable of. This means that these apps will be fine for very basic tasks, but we already have a unified language for simple apps; HTML5.

I wont pass my final judgement until I see who decides to join the alliance. These are still early days for this group, however they will need more manufacturers than, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson in order to make this work and I doubt Google or RIM will join in given their focus on app distribution. I agree that it is scary to see a big player like Apple dominating the app distribution space and someone needs to get it ‘right’ for the other phones, but I do not think this unified approach will work.

On the note of interoperability, it is also prudent to note that Adobe has announced that it is bringing its Air platform to a number of mobile devices. If this is the case, Flash developers everywhere will be able to code applications in one unified language for all mobile phones. Once again only time will tell, but from an interoperability standpoint I would put my money on Adobe’s Air platform over this new Carrier Consortium.

What are your thoughts?

While watching the Charlie Rose show a week ago I saw this interesting interview about the iPad. It is definitely worth a watch for anyone in the media industry.

We recently reported that Apple acquired Quattro, a mobile advertising network. Shortly after the sale of Quattro Apple released a statement saying that apps that requested a users location for the primary purpose of location based advertising would be rejected by the app store.

At first sight this appears to be anti-competitive behavior. Apple recently filed for a patent around location based advertising and their purchase of Quattro makes it obvious that they plan on pursuing this highly engaging targeting method. Over the past week every has been yelling that Apple is the new Microsoft and that their actions are anti-competitive in nature. I do not think we should be so quick to judge.

By the sounds of it, Apple is not going to ban applications that use location information for advertising as long as they provide some other added value, location based service. Only time will tell, but it seems far fetched to think that they would allow apps that use Quattro’s platform to perform location based advertising without a valuable reason to grab the location and not others. What they are trying to do is ensure that people do not get slammed with location requests for no other reason than to be bombarded with advertising.

If this is what Apple is doing, I am behind them 100%. Location based advertising has always been considered the holy grail of the mobile platform, but there is a fine balance between adding value and being annoying. Apple is trying to ensure that their user experience is not compromised by annoyances to the user that don’t actually give them anything useful in return.

For media publishers adding valuable location based content should not be a problem. For example, in order to gain the users location all the publisher needs to do is provide local news, local weather, or local reviews. If you add this type of functionality then you have every reason to grab the users location as you are giving them something in return for their coordinates and can therefore also use that location data for ad targeting.

If this is the case then good on Apple for trying to maintain a high level of user satisfaction. Here at Spreed we will be keeping our eyes on this issue as we currently allow publishers to target users with local advertising, but only do so if we have a good reason to request their location. Only time will tell.

Update:

Here is the official statement from Apple:

If you build your application with features based on a user’s location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.

A Comscore study on the state of the US mobile market was just released and shows that the iPhone’s popularity still continues to grow. The iPhone has increased its market share from 24.1% in September 2009 to 25.3% in December 2009. The Blackberry which has always held a dominant position has declined from 42.6% to 41.6% of the market between September and December. The fact that both Apple and Android were able to increase their share of the market while all other smart phones decreased gives us good reason to believe that in the next few years these platforms will be the two dominant players. Mix the high market share numbers of Apple with their strong click through rates for advertising and you have a very attractive medium to engage consumers on. These are all signs that having a mobile strategy whether you are a publisher or an advertisers is a must in 2009, even if it is just part of your trial budget.

Happy Monday morning everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend. I know everyone is busy getting ready for the week ahead, so instead of giving you a few long posts I have decided to share some of my weekend reading with you.

Mobile ad campaigns 5 times more effective than online: InsightExpress study

“Far from being a one-trick pony, mobile is effective in rich environments like mobile video, minimal environments like SMS and the area in between covered by mobile display,” she said. “Add to this the findings that all verticals are seeing mobile impacts greater than online campaigns and the arguments for not adding mobile to a media plan fall away.”

NBC details aggressive mobile initiatives for 2010 Olympics

Through partnerships with several carrier networks and brands such as Coca-Cola, NBC Universal is bringing its 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games to the mobile medium.

NBC has launched several new mobile initiatives and rebranded its other wireless properties to promote the sporting event. The entertainment giant’s coverage of the Olympic Games spans its various television networks and content channels to bring as much programming and interaction to consumers.

Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Outlook 2010

It is quite clear from recent market activity – Google buying AdMob and Apple absorbing Quattro Wireless, Apple iPad and Google Nexus One launches, eBay’s record $500 million in mobile commerce last year – that mobile is no longer considered a niche medium.