THE BUZZ: Where’s Olympics 2.0?; Will VCs Tune Into iPhone-Only Startups?; Do YouTube Mobile Ads Change The Rules?
Another blog that bodes well for content and media companies that “get it”. Too bad so few do… Dana Boyd, a renowned social media guru and doctoral candidate in the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley, is rightly peeved by the lack of 2.0 chutzpah in NBC’s Olympic coverage. As could be expected, the broadcaster is doing what it knows best – broadcasting the bits it deems suitable for public consumption. But that won’t do in our 2.0 world. Dana wants “the Olympics to be treated as a bunch of spliceable objects that I can remix live for my own viewing pleasure. And I want to be able to see it ALL.” And what’s more, Dana would be willing to pay for this or at the very least sit through numerous commercials.
My take: Advertisers sit up and listen and traditional broadcasters and media companies – adapt or die.
Andrew Scott – CEO of mobile local search specialists, Rummble – is another blogger who is refusing to drink the iPhone KoolAid. Sure, Apple delivers the user experience that industry evangelists have been trumpeting for some time, but he correctly points out that with a reach of only 10 million units, iPhone-only application developers are never going to whet the appetites of VCs. Sure, iPhone users do consume more mobile data, but it doesn’t herald the arrival of the mobile Internet as Apple-enthusiasts would like us to believe. Just look to Japan to see what can be achieved without the iPhone.
My take: Start-ups and application developers of course need to have presence on the iPhone, but, despite its success in western markets, iPhone users will always be a niche market. No big bucks here.
Hot on the heels of news that Rythym New Media are leaving their U.K. business to focus on the U.S. market is the announcement from Google that it is testing display ads on YouTube mobile in the U.S. and Japan. The move has been coming for some time and Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, isn’t exaggerating when he says getting the advertising right is the “Holy Grail.” Google walks the talk on its blog, and tells us that the right approach pays. Specifically, ads that ‘…contribute to the user experience while making the most sense for advertisers’ are the end-game here. But it’s quite a challenge, and kudos to WeLoveMobile, a creative mobile agency, for outlining this in detail in a recent blog post. It states: “…(U)ser experience and standard display ads can at times seem almost diametrically opposed. I find it hard to imagine how the mobile screen real-estate could accommodate worthwhile ‘framing’ ads, so I am kind of assuming that the mobile model must be pre and/or post-roll or maybe even just on-site rather than shoe-horned into the videos themselves.”
My take: The race for mobile video eyeballs is on. YouTube Google has thrown down the gauntlet and will no doubt find a way to monetise the content. Will it be a tough act to follow? I can only say watch this space.
Andrew Scott will speak at Location Based Services 2008 on 28th October. The industry conference , organised by IIR Ltd, takes place in Berlin from 27th – 30th October 2008. You can find more details here.
May 5th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Regular visitors and users of YouTube will see and realise just how many adverts and display adverts are now present on the site. Indeed it is only a matter of time before the mobile ads were present across the board. Although how frustrated users might be through display ads remain to be seen. But mobile ads and mobile advertising is definitely around for good, for YouTube and beyond.