Mobile Fix: Google, Facebook, old media and native ads
In this week’s round-up of everything mobile, Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive!, looks at the latest news from Google and Facebook, the continuing frustrations for legacy media and takes a look at some great new native advertising from Wired…
GAFA quiet period?
With anticipation building for both the Apple developer event (just over a week away) and the Google one at the end of June, you could argue things have gone a little quiet with GAFA.
Still no news on Apple and Beats. It seems that US financial rules mean that Apple doesn’t need to talk about a deal unless it’s much bigger than $3bn. So it could still be on. The Spotify results this week underline our belief that streaming is going to be a major business and Apple do need to step up to regain anywhere near the dominance they had with iTunes.
With 10 million Spotify subscribers – and around 30 million listening to the free (ad supported) version – people are starting to accept that streaming will reinvent the music business. More on the numbers here.
Google did make one acquisition, buying the Word Lens Translation app. This is one of those really innovative services that demonstrate just how magical mobile can be. Take a minute to watch the demo and download the app whilst you can.
Along with the Google Goggles Sudoku video it’s something we have used a lot in workshops. But since launch back in 2010 it’s been quite low profile and now Google see it can enhance their Translation service.
It’s another source of rich contextual data – once Google know I am using Word Lens to translate a menu or a road sign it has another powerful signal to decide which ad to show me next. Coupled with my location and all the data that Google Now can cook up, context is getting more and more usable.
Facebook were turned down when they offered $3bn for Snapchat a few months ago. So now they seem to be making their own version. Slingshot sounds like a better bet than Poke, but the FT says it may not get launched.
Given the way that Facebook is taking the constellation approach to its apps, we can’t see why they wouldn’t roll the dice on this. The video messaging space is very attractive to the audience Facebook is struggling with and the reach of WhatsApp is a useful lever. Maybe this is the first sign that the fail fast regime really is over.
Another interesting move from Facebook has the potential to spook people. A new service lets you automatically post about the TV show you are watching or the music you are listening to. The microphone option when writing a post lets Facebook listen to the sound and identify the tune or the show.
It’s another way of getting a signal that helps sell advertising. Remember Yahoo bought a firm with a similar technology; the IntoNow app was closed a few months ago – but Yahoo said the technology would be incorporated into some of their other apps.
Given how many TV viewers use their smartphones whilst watching TV, this tech could allow Facebook and Yahoo to offer synchronised ads to brands. The smart people at Xaxis are already looking at this type of service with their Sync product but their approach is a little less sophisticated.
And Facebook gave just announced some new policies on privacy.
Old Media
Whilst we wait for news from GAFA, the legacy media (arguably the biggest victims of the shift in both time and ad revenue to digital) continue to struggle. A new report castigates the BBC for not going fast enough in digital. A little unfair given the pioneering work on iPlayer etc but one of their non executives points out that Buzzfeed has a bigger global reach than BBC News despite only launching in 2010.
And much has been made of the New York Times Innovation report (leaked via Buzzfeed ironically) where the division of church and state are shown to be very pronounced. And the practice of journalists doesn’t seem to have changed much;
“Stories are typically filed late in the day. Our mobile apps are organised by print sections. Desks meticulously lay out their sections but spend little time thinking about social strategies.”
This piece looks at how so many people curate content from old media and do really well with it. We heard a similar story about a UK magazine that had a great cover of Little Britain – and when they PR’d the story a day before publication it got picked up by the Mail and the Telegraph websites and was soon being shared. But with no mention of the magazine.
A friend working at the company went to ask why it wasn’t on the magazine website – only to be told their policy was that nothing from the magazine could go on the site prior to the print sale day.
In our client workshops we often use a great quote from GE’s Jack Welch about change;
“If someone is going to eat your children, it may as well be you.”
In media it’s so true, but few people seem to have the appetite.
It is getting better. The Mirror announced a big increase in digital revenues and the The Daily Telegraph is pushing mobile first sites for the World Cup and experimenting with new ways of working.
newTV
Wired have produced some really good native advertising/branded content/advertorial for Netflix. It’s worth a look as a good example of what can be done – and its also interesting thinking for Fix readers interested in newTV. Surprisingly it doesn’t work that well on mobile. Adage take a look at the back story on its development here.
Wired also has another (apparently unrelated) piece on Netflix – looking at their chief product officer’s views on the future of TV. It reports a presentation he gave suggesting what TV will be like in 2025.
We’re not sure we agree with the idea of the smart TV being central – we favour the dumb screen with the smartness in a smartphone. Watching the NBA playoffs this week by Chromecasting from a BT Android app felt like a glimpse of the future. Will it really take another 10 years to reinvent TV? YouTube is only nine years old this month.
Social
One thing we keep reminding brands is that being early – and smart – in using new opportunities in mobile and social can deliver real competitive advantage. We think Ford has done a great job by being very focused on social and this interview with the main guy behind their social is a must read. He is leaving Ford and it will be interesting to see what he does next. Interestingly he has a good piece on the lessons brands can learn from the New York Times Innovation report we mention above.
This is an edited and abridged version of Mobile Fix – click here to read the full article on Addictive!’s website