Mele’s Musings

iAd: The Mobile tipping Point We’ve Been Waiting For

Like evolution, changes come in big pushes, not gradual changes. That’s what it feels like to me over the past few weeks in regards to mobile advertising.

When big changes like this come, things start to feel like they are moving very quickly, and many people’s reactions are to dismiss the changes. Think Twitter and email. This feels like one of those times- where a lot of things feel like they are changing rapidly, and we collectively have a hard time getting them to fit into our old models of “the way things are.”  We were just getting used to mobile phones with video and the web on them, and now the iPad and iAd come out and it just feels like too much too soon.

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So why the iAd?

What the iAd stands for is the natural progression in the way that Apple - and others - are helping to modify our behavior. Apple started it with the deployment of apps for the iPhone (see my last post). Now, apps feel like a natural and obvious place for us to interact with the internet regardless of mobile device. Any smartphone that comes out anymore is expected to have apps. They are simply table-stakes now. They fit the platform of touch screen and mobile better than the text-based web because they are more visual and intuitive, they are faster and easier to use. Who needs bookmarks and shortcuts? That’s what apps are.

And now that consumers are starting to use apps for navigation on mobile devices, the ad potential is huge. Jobs says 1 billion ads per day will be served based on current app usage stats. That’s a lot of ads - and he’s probably being conservative.

You don’t have to take my word for it.  In his Cnet article, Tom Krazit also identifies why Apple’s plan may be the most effective.

So you can doubt the iPad or app usage or whatever, but the primacy of the app on mobile devices is here to stay regardless of manufacturer, and it has serious implications on the future of media and technology.

Don’t confuse my take on this with Apple love or fanboyism or anything like that - although I do appreciate Apple, this goes beyond Apple. What this is really about is behavior modification.

All great changes in how we approach the world are based on behavior modification, not brands. Cars changed behavior, not Ford. Phones changed behavior, not American Telegraph and Telephone. Computers changed behavior, not MSFT. Social sites, email - these all change behavior creating a new market and a challenge to older models, not the brands that are the current winners in the markets. Some brands are just better at taking advantage of the new behavior.

What’s scary is that the web is suddenly starting to feel old already.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The web is and will continue to be vital. It’s just that our use of it will not be limited to web sites and web browsers.

Apps are the new normal and they have completely altered how we interact with the internet. Along the way will come imitators who might even outdo Apple. Remember the last big computer evolution before the Internet? It was the same thing - user control via the mouse and graphical rather than text interfaces. Apple won at first, then MSFT ate their lunch. The same thing could easily happen here.

So, we just have to get over it. This is not about Apple, this is about a new way of interacting with the Internet. Developers like apps, brands want them, and content creators need them. They will keep content developers with options in terms of revenue models.
We are on the cusp of something big. Dismiss apple if you will, but we ignore this new evolution in device interface at our own peril.

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