Are You Ready for the Mobile Migration?

by John White, Business Development, Mocean Mobile

Having worked in digital media for almost 15 years I find it hard to focus too long on any one topic so for my first blog I’d like to highlight a few topics of interest based on some compelling research presented by Mary Meeker, famous in our industry and once proclaimed the “Queen of the Internet” by Barron’s and now a partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins et al.

If you haven’t already, check out the “Top Mobile Internet Trends”  presentation given by Ms. Meeker and Matt Murphy this past February, then consider the implications for your business, and the opportunities for your business in the mobile space. Here are a few choice morsels…

The Tablet Market is Exploding

“iPods Changed the Media Industry…iPhones Ramped Even Faster…iPad Leaves its “Siblings” in the Dust”

We all likely thought the ipod and iphone were game changers in their categories - right?   Well when comparing them to mobile devices – which include feature phones, smart phones and “connected devices” – the ipod and iphone are nothing compared to the iPad. 15MM units shipped in 2010. Projections for 2012 are for 45MM!  And 60MM for the tablet market in general.

I finally got an ipad 2 a few months ago and have been using it pretty much daily since.  I’m a big fan of several publisher apps including the NYPost, The Weather Channel Max+, and several others. To me, most compelling is the opportunity for newspapers to re-invent themselves leveraging their local content possibilities to an app format -  I know the business models are being worked on but here I think content is in fact king, so it’ll be all about execution. No doubt a lot of trees will be spared as they get it right.  BTW the ads look great, usually have interactive elements as well (and I’m not saying this cause this is a Mocean Mobile ad serving web site blog, just tellin it like it is…) Oh, and I’m a fan of The Daily too…very cool mix of newspaper, tv and magazine elements in one. $40 for a year’s subscription is worth it.

There’s fantastic potential for the magazine industry as well.  For example, take a look at Vanity Fair. They have started to dabble with video features, and their photography exhibits are expansive and fantastic. Imagine any magazine of interest to you and you can likely think of the possibilities beyond printed words or pictures on a page.  Yes, they have tried things online but a tablet allows for mobility and a similar “magazine like” portability reading experience so magazine publishers should be energized by the possibilities.

There’s an App for That

“iTunes Changed the Media (Music) Industry…App Store Growth Leaves it in the Dust”

Yes,  the ubiquitous app explosion continues. The projected total # of downloaded app’s this year is estimated at 18.1 Billion and to reach over 30 Billion+ by 2014” (check out – Apple Dominates as Paid Apps are Moving on Up)

We all have our favorite apps. I’ve mentioned a few media apps already, but some others I’m fond of include Trulia, Groupon, Trip Advisor, Bank of America, Nightly News (Brian Williams, he’s a Jersey guy, like me, sooo…), Photogene, Woodstock, CNBC RT many many others.  Check out appshopper.com – great site to find all kinds of apps, and yes of course they have an app too.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention cablevision’s app – Optimum for iPad – it ties into my home cable system via wifi and I get HDTV to my ipad with every cable channel, combo’d with video on demand too - very cool.

Ramping up for Mobile

-          Time Shift – Murphy / Meeker have a slide in their deck that says “Global Mobile Data Traffic Should Grow 26x Over Next 5 Years. 26X!” 

That’s a big prognostication – huge.  There’s a slide in the presentation for a Japanese social media company called Mixi “Japan’s leading social network”. What’s amazing is that in just four years the site’s ratio of online traffic to mobile traffic went from 85% and 15% respectively to the exact opposite 15% and 85% by Q4 of last year.  Interestingly we’ve seen similar trends for some US sites depending on the type of content they have.

My impression is that, for some companies, this shift (which may or may not be coming at the expense of their online traffic) has taken them by surprise. A welcome surprise in many cases.  Particularly for us at Mocean Mobile, because now they need to figure out how to best monetize their revenue on the new inventory they have and are calling us for help on how to do that.

No doubt if you have a smart phone or a tablet you’ve found yourself spending more time looking at some sites on your tablet that you normally would look at on your desktop.  So it’s likely that those sites are seeing spikes in their mobile traffic as well, and are starting to ramp efforts to monetize.  Since the mobile ad market is projected to be $3B+ this year vs $55B for the online market it will grow exponentially as marketers follow the eyeballs, and if those sites which are experiencing a surge in mobile traffic aren’t ramping efforts, they likely will be. 


The mobile marketplace in all respects is a bit like a hurricane - Category 3 or 4 (or would Meeker/Murphy argue Cat 5?) forcing people to take notice and adjust accordingly.  (Apologies for the Hurricane analogy but couldn’t resist given that I am going on Day 6 without power at home – thank you Irene.)