Virgin Mobile enters mobile advertising - will display banner ads to users

Looks like it’s the season of banner ads. After Google, Third Screen, AdMob, Yahoo, and most recently Microsoft, Virgin Mobile USA has announced that it will display banner ads to its mobile users who surf the web in their cell phone.

Virgin Mobile will use AOL’s mobile advertising system to display banner ads to users. This is the first time Virgin Mobile is entering the mobile advertising market. However, the CEO of Virgin Mobile has made it clear that they are being very cautious with these ads. These banner ads will be displayed on an experimental basis and depending on the response they get, they might think of expending their territory further.

The way I see it, this is a perfect partnership. Virgin Mobile’s growth has been not so impressive recently due to various reasons and AOL is the classic example of an erstwhile famous company trying to come to terms with the fact that it’s struggling. These two entities have joined hands. So, if things work out well, it might be good for both of them.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Motorola to split in two - Mobile devices and mobility solutions

You are not doing good business, you’ve posted losses for four consecutive quarters, and your investors are not happy – what do you do? You split your company in two. That pretty much sums up what Motorola has decided to do.

Motorola, as I already mentioned, is suffering heavy losses recently and there was a talk that it could sell its mobile phone division. But in a press release today, Motorola has confirmed that it will be splitting the company in two – mobile devices and mobility solutions.

Greg Brown, the CEO, will take care of the broadband and mobility business and the company is in search of a person to take care of the mobile devices division.

Motorola has said that this will help the management focus better on the business and might also help its shareholders.

So, Motorola has made a quick decision and put an end to all the speculations. This move, I think, will help them concentrate better on both divisions – mobile devices and mobility solutions – properly and might also give them some time to regroup and come up with an idea to revive their handset business.

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Mobile advertising discussion at the World Economic Forum

I’m still checking out the latest happenings at the World Economic Forum at Davos and interestingly, mobile advertising and technology is being discussed quite seriously.

Firstly, let me throw you some numbers. China Mobile adds roughly 6 million new subscribers every month; that’s right, month after month. Going at this rate, it could add 72 million mobile subscribers by the end of this year. Already, there are 3 billion mobile phone users in the world and the number is growing stronger than ever. Sounds amazing; doesn’t it?

A lot of people in the panel, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, were of the opinion that mobile advertising could be huge. Panel Moderator David Kirkpatrick said that mobile phone is rapidly becoming the de facto internet device, replacing the need of a PC or a laptop for that matter.

Wang Jianzhou, CEO of China Mobile, seconded the opinion of Eric Schmidt that location based mobile advertising could be the future of mobile advertising. He believes that it will enable advertisers to send special, customized information that the subscribers can make use of. As I already discussed, location based mobile advertising, when implemented properly, could be a great way for both advertisers and customers to benefit from each other.

It’s really interesting to see a lot of high profile people discussing the issue of mobile advertising at a stage as big as the World Economic Forum. Mobile advertising industry couldn’t have expected a better way to kick off the new year.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Location based mobile advertising the key - Says Google CEO

We’ve heard a lot about mobile advertising, haven’t we? We’ve seen people talking for mobile advertising, people talking against mobile advertising, and hell; even people who don’t know a thing about mobile advertising giving their opinions. Finally, we have a voice, an authoritative one that is.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt talked about mobile advertising at the World Economic Forum at Davos and made a few interesting points. Forrester has predicted, rather cautiously, that mobile advertising will reach the $1 billion mark in 2012. Talking about it, Eric said that mobile advertising could reach that mark very soon, in fact it could even happen next year.

Location based advertising, which is the most talked about aspect of mobile advertising as of now, has the potential to make mobile advertising far more powerful and effective than what it is right now, according to Eric. So, he was pretty bullish about the “revolution” that is mobile advertising.

Well; this has been my opinion for a long time now and finally we’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth. What remains to be seen is, how well these mobile advertisers could exploit location based advertising in their favor.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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