While many have hailed the iPad as a future mainstay of targeted mobile marketing campaigns, no shortage of advertisers are taking a wait and see approach with regard to the new Apple tablet. However, if the pre-order stats from this past weekend are any indication, the iPad could very well have a much larger than expected audience right out of the gate.

The unofficial count of first day orders for the iPad presents an estimated 120,000 tablets were sold. And according to the information and sources cited in a multitude of media reports, that estimate could very well be a low-end conservative one.

A truly remarkable fact about the iPad’s pre-order explosion is that tens of thousands of consumers are purchasing a device that they have never before seen, touched, or experimented with in person. But if the tablet resonates with consumers as the iPhone has, it’s easy to understand why many industry analysts predict millions of iPads could be sold before the end of 2010.

With the iPad’s already established popularity will come an array of unique digital content offerings to the tablet, like the freshly announced Barnes & Noble e-book reader app. An application designed exclusively for the iPad, the e-reader app will provide access to the B&N eBookstore as well as any ebooks already located in the user’s digital library.

Share This

While many have hailed the iPad as a future mainstay of targeted mobile marketing campaigns, no shortage of advertisers are taking a wait and see approach with regard to the new Apple tablet. However, if the pre-order stats from this past weekend are any indication, the iPad could very well have a much larger than expected audience right out of the gate.

The unofficial count of first day orders for the iPad presents an estimated 120,000 tablets were sold. And according to the information and sources cited in a multitude of media reports, that estimate could very well be a low-end conservative one.

A truly remarkable fact about the iPad’s pre-order explosion is that tens of thousands of consumers are purchasing a device that they have never before seen, touched, or experimented with in person. But if the tablet resonates with consumers as the iPhone has, it’s easy to understand why many industry analysts predict millions of iPads could be sold before the end of 2010.

With the iPad’s already established popularity will come an array of unique digital content offerings to the tablet, like the freshly announced Barnes & Noble e-book reader app. An application designed exclusively for the iPad, the e-reader app will provide access to the B&N eBookstore as well as any ebooks already located in the user’s digital library.

Share This

If you’ve ever used one of the Location-based apps like Foursquare, Gowalla or Brightkite, you’ve gone through the steps of checking in to a location to earn some sort of reward for being there.

Now that these early-stage start-ups have proven the interest in Location-based Services, Twitter and Facebook want in (joining Google, Apple and Nokia in trying to figure out how knowing a users’ location can lead to major mobile ad revenue.) In 2010, in the least, we’ll see both Twitter and Facebook’s take on LBS, a smart move for both companies which are experiencing massive mobile access growth.

Facebook, which according to a new comScore report saw access to its mobile browser grow by 112% in the past year, is expected to add location sharing in its users’ News Feeds, which may more than just intrude on the smaller companies’ courts. An article yesterday in the New York Times cited sources saying that Facebook would announce the news at its F8 developer conference in April.

Meanwhile, Twitter, which saw access to its mobile browser explode 347% in the past year, is already testing out a geolocation feature, which some users have seen in various beta forms as they go about their tweets. Foursquare, still a solid player in the game, will offer a free analytics tool and dashboard to give business owners information and stats about their visitors. These days, there isn’t a company in the consumer mobile space that isn’t interested in Location-based Services, and the market is ripe for innovation.

Knowing where users are is one of the most useful pieces of data available for mobile marketing. Mobile advertising and marketing companies like 1020 Placecast, which send customers offers on their phones when they are near a brick-and-mortar store of a brand they’ve opted to receive messages from, go about the mobile marketing in a different way then would a Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare.

For the social media upstarts of the world, especially Facebook and Twitter, the audience is much wider. For Facebook, the largest social network with over 400 million users who are mostly connected to their real-life friends and family, users will be most likely to share where they are at any given moment. On the other hand, the type of person willing to share their location with the masses on Twitter and Foursquare is still a rare breed. That breed may still be valuable to target and for marketers, but Facebook has the opportunity to offer Location-based Services to a much larger audience, and as always they will try their best to appease privacy and business needs.

Also in the game, big mobile players Google, Apple and Nokia are also working on understanding where advertising dollars and mobile location meet. Apple is looking to use its GPS data for mobile advertising and Nokia is a key player in the international LBS market with their Ovi maps coming integrated with their phones for free.

Google is trying desperately to get its social Buzz going, but it’s struggling to find the sweet spot in social media. TechCrunch states “It’s a mess,” and for the time being, I agree. However, Google’s Location-based Advertising patent won earlier this month may help them in the long run if they can ever get their buzz going. Filed six years ago, the patent is fairly broad. It covers using location for targeting, setting a minimum price bid for an ad, offering performance analytics, and modifying the content of an ad.

Share This

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. And while the waiting isn’t fully behind us yet, people chomping at the bit to get their hands on the iPad can at least circle a date on their calendars.

Apple today announced that the iPad will be released on April 3rd. However, only the Wi-Fi version of the iPad will become available first. And although a release date is yet to be announced for the 3G and Wi-Fi iPad models, a late April arrival is expected.

Global availability (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, etc.) similarly won’t be achieved until late April as well.

On March 12th, pre-orders will be accepted for the tablet either via Apple’s online store or at a retail outlet.

In the official news release this morning, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stated: “The iPad is something completely new. We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Coinciding with the iPad’s April 3rd arrival, the iBooks app will also arrive along with Apple’s iBook bookstore.

Share This

At the annual Apple shareholder’s meeting yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs reiterated again the fact that Apple is a mobile device company focused on small acquisitions to grow its businesses using the nearly $26 billion pile of cash its sitting on.  Through its acquisition history and future plans, its clear that Apple wants to own every piece of  each “mobile device” they offer, especially the iPhone.

At the shareholder’s meeting, Jobs expressed his continued interest in acquiring companies based on their talent and technology, not by their perceived market position, meaning the company will go after small startups that offer highly focused technology, or highly skilled and knowledgeable founders.  The company wants to acquire startups that can help bolster certain aspects of its products- a perfect example being the low-key acquisition of a mapping startup a while back to help Apple develop its own in-house mapping solution.

It’s clear the company wants to own every aspect of the devices they offer, and they’re already on the right track.  With the iPhone, the company directly handles the hardware,  software, the mobile commerce and music aspects via iTunes, mobile application distribution via its App store, and soon its own mapping solution, effectively locking out all third-parties and positioning itself to keep the iPhone (and all its revenue streams) all to itself.

One obvious priority is to directly dominate the mobile advertising flowing through iPhones and their subsequent content.  With Quattro wireless waiting in the wings, it will soon pull the trigger and offer a unique in-house mobile advertising solution to the thriving community of developers surrounding the iPhone and the future iPad.  By Quattro being the default solution, and being included in the iPhone SDK, it will effectively lock out other ad-networks without explicitly doing so, keeping yet another aspect of the iPhone ecosystem all to themselves.

With a location-aspect being paramount in mobile advertising, its in-house mapping solution will play a huge role as well, meaning Apple can offer developers and advertisers one of the most comprehensive and well-rounded mobile solutions available, without forcing them to seek certain aspects elsewhere.  When a developer wants to develop, distribute and monetize their applications, Apple will be there to handle the entire process from design to monetization.  This puts Apple in a unique and highly powerful position.

With $26 billion in the bank, and a highly focused acquisition strategy, Apple is on track to dominate the mobile ecosystem on several levels.  This was the message Jobs had for shareholders yesterday, and as history has proved, he usually delivers.

Share This