Future of Mobile Advertising

Mobile devices are everywhere today from smart phones to tablets. The media is full of success stories of how different mobile devices break sales records every time a new one arrives, latest case in point is the Apple iPhone 4S with 1 million phones pre-ordered in first couple of days. According to Gartner, worldwide mobile advertising revenue is forecast to reach $3.3 billion in 2011, more than double the $1.6 billion generated in 2010. By 2015 it will reach $20.6 billion with search and maps delivering the highest revenue, while video/audio ads seeing the fastest growth.

What makes advertising on mobile special? Mobile devices seem to be much closer and personalized to the users so mobile ad targeting can be made very effective. In addition these devices can tell the exact location and movement of the user. User searches for product and services using mobile devices tend to be more focused and immediate thereby success rate of actually making a sale would be higher.

Traditionally the most common form of ads have been simple text, images and banners. This is hardly engaging but is changing rapidly. With mobile users spending more and more time on social networking, games and other interactive apps advertisers are getting more creative in getting their attention. Applications like Shopkick use user's location to provide them with real time incentives in terms of virtual cash, offers and promotions for visiting nearby stores. Augmented reality apps like Layar using the mobile phone's camera, GPS and compass feed are delivering the technology that can be used to provide more targeted ads based on what you are viewing. Wayin uses a clever gaming platform to allow the advertisers to gauge customer behavior by pushing entertaining real time polls, again rewarding the users by virtual points to vote. These are just few of the examples.

In next 5 years it is estimated that the online searches through mobile devices will trump those through the desktop. This indicates that mobile marketing space is crucial for companies in the coming years and we will see lot more innovations in how we engage the consumers.

How green is iPhone 4S?

Apple iPhone 4S is official and the pre-orders seem to point to a blockbuster launch. I was curious to see how eco friendly is the new iPhone 4S.

We know that in terms of outward appearance Apple iPhone 4S shares the same form factor as the iPhone 4 so packaging should be the same as iPhone 4. According to the iPhone 4 product environmental report, the packaging of the current iPhone 4 is 14% lighter and consumes 14% less volume that iPhone 3GS. This means that more units now fit in a shipping container thereby resulting in fewer CO₂ emissions. However there are some differences as compared to iPhone 4, the most alarming is the estimated greenhouse gas emissions for iPhone 4S over its life cycle. According to the iPhone 4S product environmental report, the estimated greenhouse gas emissions over the product life cycle for iPhone 4S is 70kg CO₂ which is considerably higher to 45kg CO₂ for iPhone 4.

So what changed? The two biggest components that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions are production and customer use. In case of iPhone 4, the production accounted for 57% or roughly 26kg CO₂ whereas customer use accounted for 34% or roughly 15kg of CO₂. In case of iPhone 4S, the production accounted for 69% or roughly 48kg CO₂ whereas customer use accounted for 23% or roughly 16kg of CO₂. That means the production of an iPhone 4S is generating more emissions single handedly than those generated by all activities combined for iPhone 4. Apple being so secretive about its product development and manufacturing, it will be hard to understand the exact reasons.

In terms of restricted substances, Apple boasts of arsenic-free display glass, mercury free LED-backlit display, BFR free, PVC free and use of packaging material made of post-consumer recycled and bio materials. The power adapter outperforms the ENERGY STAR specifications. Apple offers free recycling at 95% of locations where its sold.

Energy efficiency will get a get a boost with the introduction of dual core processor A5 chip which will be able to do more with less as compared to A4 in iPhone 4. The new chip can dynamically adjust its frequency to save battery life thereby providing more talk time.

Although not directly but with the introduction of a sharper 8 megapixel camera with 1080p video Apple may reduce the consumption of the point and shoot cameras which sure will help in reducing some of the CO₂ emissions. The argument is similar to downloading a song to the device than buying a CD from a store or having one shipped by mail. The cloud-based services through iCloud may additionally consolidate some personal storage thereby reducing the energy footprint further.

Measuring the environmental impact of iPhone 4S features may be difficult but in terms of measurable features like the greenhouse gas emissions Apple definitely seems to have taken a step back.

Apple iPhone Rumor Mill

On September 27 Apple announced iPhone event on October 4 which read "Let’s talk iPhone". Whether we will see a new iPhone 5 or an iPhone 4GS remains to be seen. The rumor mill is grinding like previous iPhone releases. Lets take a look at the how the iPhone 4 rumors turned out.

	Rumor	Actual
Release Date	April 2010	June 2010
Network	4G LTE	3G
CPU Speed	> 2 GHz	1 GHz
Graphics chip	PowerVR SGX545 GPU	PowerVR SGX535 GPU
Maximum Storage	64 GB model	32 GB model
Camera	5 megapixel with LED flash	5 megapixel with LED flash
Screen Resolution	higher than 320x480	640x960 @ 326ppi
Applications	Video chat	Video chat - Facetime

In addition to the above list there were various other rumors including stylus, push antenna, bumpy screen fueled by patents that Apple filed over the years.

Here is a list of rumors for next iPhone release (a.k.a iPhone 5).

• Hardware improvements - Faster CPU with dual core A5 chip, 1 GB memory, improved graphics chip PowerVR SGX543, fully HD 8MP camera, bigger 4 inch display, slide out keyboard.
• Applications - Voice navigation, iCloud, iOS 5.
• Carriers - Sprint in addition to existing AT&T and Verizon.

The good part is that we don't have to wait much longer to find out.