50,000 iPhone Apps! Phil Schiller gives WWDC attendees the numbers.
Comments are flying over the FTC (Fair Trade Commission) investigation into Apple aka Steve Jobs recent changes to their iPhone policies. It is not to say that Google has had their share of government eyes prying on acquisitions with AdMob. As reported on MediaPost, the government agency has been an equal opportunity antagonist. Maybe the days of turn the other cheek are over. But I would be remiss if I did not state that this is the benchmark of the smart pipe for entertainment and out of home advertising. The question is: “Has Steve Jobs gone too far?”.
Photo Credit: MediaPost
Developers and aficionados of mobile devices have weighed in on the regulation of antitrust. Some mobile developers have not been pleased with “the Apple way”. Many see a ban of development with third party tools, like Adobe’s Creative Suite as a stop gap for access to larger audiences. Apple loyalists show the loyalty with iPad sales skyrocket to 1 million dollars in the first day of launch. While the Google camp has as strong a brand loyalty as anyone, open or close operating systems, it is the race to dominate a market with a platform that has the right long term value to a consumer to lock them in..
Steve Jobs was nowhere in sight at the World Wide Developers Conference last year, however, representing Apple (APPL) was Vice President Phil Schiller, known for his role with the Apple App Store, he demonstrated the number of iPhone apps against their competitors. There is no question that the lead is held by Apple developers; however, there is a question of duplicity about accurate metrics chimed Fortune magazine’s online journalist, Philip Elmer-Dewitt.
Michael Chang, CEO and Founder of Greystripe, who is not a stranger to my articles or the mobile advertising industry talked with me today about the FTC inquiry into the mobile industry. As reported on the Dow Newswire, many companies are entrenched in their ad mobile network may be affected. Some experts disagree.
Marianne Pfeifer: What is your assessment with the actions of the FTC?
Michael Chang: There are really two stories here; one with Google and their recent acquisition of Admob back in November 2009 the other with Apple’s recent iPhone platform policy changes. Scrutiny for both is related to how open each of these platforms is for advertisers, developers of apps on each platform, and ultimately the end users. Google has a massive and dominant market share among web advertisers and has been able to migrate online AdWords clients to mobile where and some would argue that this give them a potentially unfair advantage in mobile. Either way the two companies are the 800 pound gorillas in determining how we entertain ourselves and communicate with one another. The FTC making sure that the free market has a conscience.
Across the “pond”, Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief WWP is lobbying for a more rigorous inquiry into the Google-Admob acquisition. It is no surprise that this advertising professional sparks so much attention. The WWP commander in chief positions him squarely in the middle what is contrary to his contemporaries: the important of mobile GPS and media data with privacy concerns. With this in mind, I had to ask the question about open verses propriety OS systems.
Marianne Pfeifer: Apple may change their SDK for their iPhone to avoid antitrust investigation. It seems that Adobe plays a part in this scenario? Who needs Flash when there is HTML5?
Michael Chang: The SDK changes, wherever they end up, really affect the developers who want an easy solution to create their application and then make it available on ever mobile platform. Today it is not that easy some of the friction that Adobe’s tools try to absorb. The idea would be to be able to create an app once with Creative Suite and then have it run on iPhone, Android, etc. Apple blocked developers from doing this on their platform which has created a riff between the two companies. In regards to the Flash versus HTML5 tussle, this is an issue that definitely affects the advertising community which creates 90% of their ads for digital in Flash. In five years we will see standards in the industry for a rich media and mobile market.
Marianne Pfeifer: Google is giving Android phones to Adobe employees. Sounds like both companies are doing what we in the high tech industry do in a friendly competitive environment. What do you think?
Michael Chang: It makes sense, Google wants more and better content for Android and Adobe wants developers to stick with their rich media creation tools and workflow. It is symbiotic. Getting developers on your platform are key to making any mobile platform a success so I see an alignment with an open and friendly market.
Marianne Pfeifer: Has all of the recent activity in mobile helped your business, especially the Apple’s iAds announcement back in April?
Michael Chang: All the activity has really sparked the imaginations of the advertising community. Greystripe is seeing a tripling of our monthly revenue from April to May since the iAds announcement. We are selling“iAds-like” iFlash advertisements for the iPhone. Greystripe’s iFlash technology delivers Flash-authored ads as HTML5 into iPhone Applications providing a similar experience to iAds including rich media animation, touch interactivity and multiple click-actions without leaving the application. Greystripe currently holds a 75% market share of the full screen rich media mobile market. We are serving 300M rich media impressions a month and we reach 14 million unique monthly users with these types of ads in the U.S. Although Apple's iAds will increase competition, the growth of the pie for rich media mobile advertising will accelerate dramatically thanks to Steve Jobs; Greystripe is well positioned to capitalize on this market growth.
Antitrust regulators are studying recent changes Apple made to its licensing agreement with iPhone application developers and are likely to open a preliminary investigation into whether the company's actions stifle competition in mobile devices.
For inquiring minds: Q&A: Potential Inquiries Into Apple’s Rules
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