June 10, 2010

Apple iPad’s worm-hole effect

Filed under: Mobile Insights — Tags: , — Steve @ 12:26 am

Advertising keeps magazines and newspaper alive.  Advertising rates are based mainly on readership. Fewer readers means less valuable ads.

For the past 10 years it’s been a downward spiral, as readers leave the print medium getting their daily news fix from TV and the Internet.

For the most part, a magazine ad isn’t much different than a website pop-up ad.  Both get roughly 3-10 seconds of your attention? You look at the ad, absorb the message and move on.

The net worth of a print ad is based on the number of readers, and to some degree the profile of those readers. While an ad within a web page is more often than not, priced on a ‘per click’ or ‘per impression’ basis.

Now let’s look at the latest medium of advertising – the Apple iPad.

The iPad is a radically different medium.

An embedded app within a Apple iPad e-magazine isn’t a flat page. It’s interactive. It might not be an ad in the traditional sense, but instead an embedded video. More to the point, this ad can incorporate buttons that take you to other embedded videos and other segments germane to the subject matter.

An ad within the iPad environment is like a worm-hole, particularly when it appeals to a vertical audience like high-end car buyers, health nuts or sports fans. Click on an ad and it isn’t a one-step process. Done well, the reader is drawn into another world, free to explore without limitations.

Advertising within an iPad is multi-directional. It’s non-linear. You can move forward, go back or even up or down. Emotive advertising within the iPad has the ability to take you into another world. And you can stay there as long as you like.

And how do you put a price tag on that experience? It wont be cheap, because it’s far more than a passing 10 second glance.

Current advertisers are paying upwards of five times more to advertise in iPad based newspapers and mags. However, most ‘experts’ feel the rates will fall as the novelty wears off.

We beg to differ. We thinks rates will continue to climb as advertising better understand and explore the ‘worm-hole effect.’

May 30, 2010

Is Apple’s iPod Touch the New Enemy of Sony?

Filed under: Mobile Insights — Tags: , , — Steve @ 10:35 pm

Apple is notoriously stingy with iPod touch sales figures, but Flurry Analytics published numbers earlier this year suggesting the download volume at Apple’s App Store, during the Christmas period, was 172% greater for the iPod touch was than it was for the iPhone.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apparently told company executives that Apple is its “enemy of the future.”

Apple’s encroachment into the handheld gaming market has been substantial. The iPhone and iPod touch made up 19 percent of portable game revenue in all of 2009 compared to five percent the year earlier.

When the iPod touch was introduced, most of us saw the ‘touch’ as a emasculated iPhone. The media generally ignored it.

Now we see it as a stand-alone device with unique qualities. It’s a great handheld game player, a truly portable computer, one that slides into a pocket or purse. Plays virtually every of the 200,000 apps now available through the App Store. And it’s free of cell carrier contracts. You can even buy it at Costco.

Here is another view of the ‘touch’: think of it as a compact iPad.

It has the same operating system, plays the same apps, costs a whole bunch less and again there is no monthly contract. Granted there is less real estate, but that’s an advantage, not a disadvantage.

iPad critics wonder how people are going to lug this about. It doesn’t fit in a pocket. It’s too big, the claim. Others say the iPad is too heavy. Your arm gets tired when reading a book.

Okay, how about something smaller, something less expensive, something that’s light and portable?

Here is our take on this chameleon. Apple will introduce a slighter smaller iPad … or a slightly larger iPod touch. It’s ll about perspective. Remember all those early reports about a seven inch touchscreen? Maybe it’s another addition to the iPad ‘touch’ family.

May 17, 2010

The Schizophrenic iPad

Filed under: Mobile Insights — Tags: , , — Steve @ 10:03 am

The schizophrenic iPad

Are you an extra large iPod touch? Yes I am.

But aren’t you supposed to be a whole new platform? Yes I am.

Then what are you? I am both.

Canadians, like the rest of the world have been relegated to 2nd class citizen status.

To paraphrase, Seinfeld: No iPads for you.

Impatient to get our hands on the iPad, we drove to Buffalo during the 3rd week of April and bought four of the 32G iPads. There were no lineups, but the Buffalo store only had five of the Wi-Fi versions left. The 3G versions had yet to be introduced.

Initial impressions?

Here’s what our number one tester had to say:

A lot has been written about the iPad, with much of the commentary touching upon the same points:

  • It is heavier than you would expect.
  • It’s fast, way faster than a laptop when launching apps and surfing the Net.
  • The super-sized screen attracts a lot of fingerprints and smudges.
  • There is an emotional attachment, a bonding that occurs between the device and the user.
  • The screen is really bright.
  • The extra real estate makes a huge difference.

Typical of early Apple launches, it’s missing a number of major features.

Keynote files import but with omissions and problems. Apple has posted a advisory on best practices.

There are have been early complaints about iPad apps are dramatically scaling back or even blocking their video when on the 3G-ready iPad.

A lawyer claims the iPad helped him successfully win a $300,000 lawsuit. Schools are discovering new uses. And those in healthcare are also discovering ways to implement the iPad.

Here are key findings:

  • As a show and tell device this has it all
  • The simplicity of it is the attraction
  • easier to read articles, blogs and websites than iPhone
  • it really does belong in a category of its’ own
  • iPad apps that make use of new screen space can make people more productive
  • taking email and notes on the device just feels right
  • watching video on sites like youtube and vimeo even more enjoyable
  • takes mobile computing to another level where a laptop can not.
  • has the possibility of taking the web from 2.0 to 3.0
  • easy for anyone to use
  • opens up possibility for different usage
    - an architect at a construction site viewing blueprints
    - mechanics using it for engine diagrams and diagnostic tests
    - students carrying this one device, rather than heavy text books
    - doctors being able to grab patient data at any time any place within a hospital
    - etc…
  • changes the idea of the way we use and view the internet

April 25, 2010

iPad: Connecting the dots…

Filed under: Mobile Insights — Tags: , , — Steve @ 8:41 pm

Many of the so-called experts, the technocrats and bloggers who write reviews are lukewarm about the iPad. That’s because they cannot connect the dots.

To truly appreciate the iPad, you have to understand Apple and its ‘Master Plan’.

In 1984, when Apple introduced the 128k Macintosh computer, the computer-philes and nerds scoffed. The elite thought it was a joke. The Mac certainly wasn’t a serious computer. It couldn’t possibly have any business implications. And what’s with this thing called a mouse?

Historians argue that you must understand where you have been, before you can truly know where you are going.

Steve Jobs talks about connecting dots: “It is impossible to connect the dots looking forward. It’s only years later that you see the connection”.

Here is the Apple Master Plan:

1.  Hype the ‘next great thing’.

Create awareness levels like never before. Why? So the ‘early adapters’ will lineup and scoop up every single item in the store. These early adapters are prepared to pay a premium for these devices. The sales, the lineups and the resulting frenzy creates even more hype.

And the competitors, those who copy Apple hoping to grab some of the low-hanging fruit are squeezed out of the equation. All of the early adapters have bought into Apple. No one cares about the copy-cat versions.
2. But the iPad is missing a whole bunch of trick stuff.

Of course it is. Apple’s Master Plan argues that you keep the good things back, feeding them into the system in precise amounts, in order to maintain media coverage, maintain interest levels and bring new converts to the Apple Store.
3. The schedule, according to Jobs.

Apple will introduce new versions in six months or less. Each successive launch will include more goodies. They might even cost less!

In 12 months, Apple will launch an all-new version that will make everyone drool. And in two years the original, high-priced under-rated, but top selling version will be obsolete.

In 1984, Apple introduced the mouse and the GUI (graphic user interface). At the time, the tech-savvy giggled.

Today, Apple is in the process of scrapping the mouse and creating a far more intuitive, almost universally accepted, user interface that will open the door to all new industries, applications and users.

History suggests: don’t bet against Apple.

Want to know more about the Mobile Fringe iPad Master Plan? Let’s talk.