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.)

The Mobile Diamond in the Rough

by John Katsos, Senior Sales Engineer, Mocean Mobile

Near Field Communications (NFC) isn’t the only way to make money from mobile devices. Even though it is currently one of the hottest topics in the mobile industry, there are other ways to leverage the ever increasing number of smartphones out there. So where else can people invest? What is the next can't miss industry? How can I get a step ahead of the competition? Mobile advertising.

According to Gartner, the mobile ad revenues are expected to double this year from last from $1.6 Bn to $3.3 Bn. They are forecasting growth to $20.6 Bn by 2015. Clearly there is money to be made and holes to fill.  If you can develop, or if  you have a site which draws traffic online, why not create a mobile version and find a white label, self serve advertising solution? 

The key to white labeling is that it's your company that customers see. You can “create” your own secure ad network out of the box, white label it and suddenly you have your own customized ad server. You don't need to create this functionality yourself and staff a product support team. You can allow advertisers and publisher to manage their own mobile ad campaigns. You can take payments by credit card, or even paypal. The rest is up to you.

Some of these white label solutions even have different ad networks already integrated in their platform so that you can seamlessly populate unsold ad slots from other ad networks, no one will ever know, and your fill rate will be higher than the rest. All they see is your name and brand across the site. NFC may be the hot topic, but white labeling your mobile optimized site is the hidden diamond in the rough.

Geo-Location: The Key to Unlocking Mobile Value

by Grahm Mosley, VP Platform Solutions, Mocean Mobile

Mobile smartphones have changed our lives.  Texting, social, weather, news and games at your fingertips when you are “on the go”.  Last year a Pew Research Center study found that 83% of Millennials (18-29 yr old) like to keep their phone within reach while sleeping.  A stat that I don’t find surprising at all, partially because it’s also my alarm clock.  Our phones are with us at all times, which means that the content and ads that we consume are also “on the go”.

For the first time a unique users’ hyperlocal geolocation is available for one-to-one marketing.  This is the holy grail of impulse marketing.  A city street corner targeted “buy now” coupon banner ad for coffee or some targeted item is the classic example.  Are marketers doing this now?  Is your business being left behind?  Can a store target every person that walks down their storefront street?

The quick answer is “no”, at least not at scale.  There are a couple of challenges that have staved off the adoption of this hyper-local advertising, namely that not all mobile ad calls are created equal. Normally, ad requests that come from standard mobile web browsing only contain the same level of targeting as a home desktop computer, gateway IP address.

Application based requests from platforms such as iOS and Android will contain city corner level GPS data only if the user allows the application.  This significantly reduces the scale that a marketer can leverage this hyper local targeting.  It’s also possible for a publisher to collect profile information such as address or zip code, but this won’t give you location of a user at a given moment. 

Even with this access to hyper-local, it’s difficult for marketers to effectively craft campaigns to leverage this at reasonable scale.  Most marketers are still buying on DMA basis and targeting platforms (iOS, Android, RIM, etc) and carriers.  Some publishers that have access to granular geo information are using mobile based ad servers to offer agencies very targeted campaigns, but this has not become accessible across the entire ecosystem.

Geo targeting is intrinsic to mobile advertising and will be a cornerstone to maximizing the value in this medium.  There will likely be a number of changes during the next year that will affect what publishers and marketers are allowed to do.  It is important that the partners and technology vendors that you choose to work with, allow you to leverage this information and provide you with the proper guidance on best practices.

“Monetization” – The Most Important Word in Digital Media

by Steve Anson, Director of Business Development, Mocean Mobile

In its simplest form, the word monetization is defined as the process of converting or establishing something into currency. Defined in a digital context, the term refers to the generation of revenue streams from an owned property through the means of advertising or a method of e-commerce. Sounds powerful, doesn’t it? Toss a couple of those words in a deck with a few green numbers and you’ll cruise through the monthly review meeting like a hero in a parade.

New revenue streams are always positive, but what needs to be considered are the measures of that which is being left on the table and, going a step further, the degree of value that is being delivered to the end user.  Remember, at the end of the day, value delivered directly correlates to bottom-line revenue.

The beautiful thing about the mobile industry is that it has the potential to bring never-before-seen value to digital advertising. Having a commerce-enabled Starbucks ad served based on geo-location when a user is looking for an iced coffee on 38^th and Madison is quite remarkable. Mobile ad serving technology sits at the core of this movement and allows publishers of mobile content to put an engine in place that will push the most valuable ad available to the end user in an instant.

But what does this engine look like? How powerful and intelligent is it really? Will it allow publishers to rest easy knowing that even while they sleep, a fleet of servers is ensuring that the most valuable ad available is being called and pushed to a device according to prioritization rules they have put in place? 

Mobile publishers need to start peeling back layers of the onion and re-evaluating the ad serving solutions they are currently working with. The mobile industry is moving fast and it is essential that the proper technology is put in place today so that your sales team doesn’t get left in the dust, unable to sell and “monetize” their inventory effectively.

Given the power of mobile devices, your ad server should be able to deliver on your needs.  Being told “we aren’t able to target with that level of granularity” or “unfortunately we can’t serve those types of ads” is unacceptable. I bet there is a company out there that can do it all and has redefined the mobile ad serving standard; you just need to take a leap and give them a call.  

Contact Mocean Mobile to learn more about how you can monetize your mobile networks.