International Digital Marketing

top announcements google i/o

Equipped with a Red Bull and a bowl full of popcorns, I had a chance to watch the three-hour-long Google I/O keynote yesterday. The event I wait with excitement every year was full of quite interesting announcements – or should I say “improvements” – especially in Google’s key areas of business for consumers and developers.

Unstoppable Android & Android Studio – Google I/O 2013

The keynote started with interesting news about Google’s Android OS, with company stating there had been 900 million activations of Android devices. Great.

Now to the best part: Google announced a new tool for developers called ”Android studio”, which provides more options for Android devs to play with, making the process faster and more productive. It surely looks great and I have to say I’m excited about the beta tester, localization and tracking possibilities. Can’t wait to use it myself!

Google Conversational Voice Search – Google I/O 2013

I’m not sure if this is “end of search as we know it” as it already exists on Android phones, but it is surely very interesting addition to a desktop search. The company announced in Google I/O 2013 that the conversation-like voice search is now moving from Android mobiles also to users’ computers through Chrome, giving people a new search experience where no typing is required.

Don’t be deceived – this is not like Apple’s Siri. It is much better. Why? The real power behind this search function is not in the voice recognition technology itself, but in Google’s data backend and what it knows about you. Apple might have a similar technology, but Google simply knows much more about you -  especially if are signed in to Google and Google+. This gives you a truly personal and relevant “conversation” experience (which can be sometimes scarily accurate…)

It will be interesting to see whether Google will add option “voice search” in their AdWords target options.

Google Photo – Google I/O 2013

Google is also improving its photo services in Android and Chrome with a cool feature allowing it to automatically create a photo album from hundreds of images uploaded to your photo cloud storage. Google picks the best photos based on aesthetic and image quality, landmark locations, friends and family members recognition, and it even checks whether people are smiling or not! It also disqualifies duplicates, blurry and under/overexposed images.

Social Media: Improved Google+ – Google I/O 2013

Whether you like Google+ or not, its new look and feel is eye-catching. I personally think the way posts are presented is more clear, more attractive and reading and posting in the platform is much more user-friendly.  The new dynamic display does not only allow you to have up to three columns, but you can choose whether you want to show your content in 1,2 or 3 columns. One to watch, as Facebook is moving to a sales focused format in their platform alienating especially younger generation. Watch out Facebook – Google Plus is finally starting to look sexy!

Mixing Social and Search?

Google also introduced a new feature called ‘Related Hashtag’, which allows Google to automatically add its own hashtags to your posts based on the text within your post. What comes to images, by using a new feature called “Image analysis” Google is able to analyze your image and decide whether there is any recognisable content in it. And then add an hashtag such as #Rome. Quite #cool.

If it is too much for your privacy conscious brand / mind, you can opt out for one post or all of them quite easily.

And of course …

… robots fighting with light sabers. How could anyone possibly not like that?

In action: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/15/willow-garage-pr2/

Back in 2010 I looked at the mobile market dynamics and OS market share statistics in the US and Europe, as all marketers talked about was Apple, iPhone apps and Apple’s products. In reality, was it all about Apple? Not really.

In those days Android had started eating slowly, but steadily iOS market share, and Symbian OS was still dominating Europe.  2010 seems like a long time ago – things have really changed.

Last year was full of lawsuits, clever advertising, product launches, failed mapping headlines, and a whole lot of drama between Google, Samsung and Apple. But … is it really all about Samsung and Apple?

Samsung vs. Apple – a clever PR stunt?

In 2012 Samsung established a very strong position as an Android developer fighting against Apple and received strong support from the Android community … and from a part of the media as well. But is this battle really that strong or did these two companies take advantage of the tension between Apple and Android fans to fuel the fire and get their names out there? Looking back at the big amount of Samsung vs. Apple law suits and the cocky “apology” to Samsung by Apple, it is possible. And if they did, it worked: for a month or two all media and people talked about was Samsung / Google vs. Apple. You had to make a stand – either you were Android fan or an Apple fanboy. It was all or nothing. All nicely timed with iPhone 5 launch as well as Galaxy launches.

Samsung became almost a symbol of fight against overly-confident Apple, but there are much more great Android developers out there including ASUS (creator of the highly successful Google Nexus 7 and Nexus 4), HTC, Sony, etc. But did anyone talked about them in Google vs. Apple battle? Not really.

So what is really happening behind the scenes?

Constantly changing mobile market dynamics

1.5 billion handsets were shipped in 2012, a 2% increase compared to 2011. 700 million of the handsets were Smartphones, yet even if the global smartphone shipments increased by 490,5 million units (43%), the saturation in Western Europe and North America impacted the slower growth.

Samsung, Apple and Nokia were named the top three vendors with Samsung shipping 30% of the handsets in 2012. Company’s Smartphone sales were mainly fueled by its record sales of the popular Galaxy models (396.5 million) yet the total handsets it sold were 400 million. Apple shipped 135.8 million iPhone units (19%) strengthening its position in North America, but the company failed to reach developing markets such as Africa as well as certain European countries. Meanwhile Nokia’s market share dropped in 2012, but the launch of Asha and Lumia 920 / 800 had a positive impact in Q4 2012 with 86.3 million units sold, in which smartphone accounted for 15.9 million units composed of 9.3 million Ashas, 4.4 million Lumias and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones. Chinese handset manufacturer ZTE settled for fourth place.

Mobile OS market share in 2012

According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android has shown strong growth in Europe and Australia in 2012 and is holding now 61.1% of the EU5 and 55,8% of Australian market share. The growth has been significant in Britain, France and Spain in the EU5, but increase has been slow in Italy and its market share has decreased – surprisingly – in the USA. What comes to other markets, in Brazil Android increased its market share to 47.1% and in Mexico to  37.3%.

What comes to iOS, despite iPhone 5 and iPad mini launch, iOS market share in the EU5 has increased only 0.2%. The biggest growth in EU5 happened in Italy and France, yet the iOS market share decreased 1.7% in the UK and Spain. The US market share increased 6.3%, while Australian market share shrunk 3,4%.

In Europe Windows Phone’s market share has more than doubled to 5.4%. The strongest market in EU5 for Windows phone is Italy with 13.9% of the market share (11.1% increase from 2011) and Britain with 5.9% market share (up from 2.2% in 2011). However, the growth has been slower in other EU5 countries, Asia and the US. In Brazil the market share has jumped up to 12.2% and to 2.7% in Mexico.

Symbian OS, Bada and Blackberry’s RIM have suffered the market changes most in developed countries.

Mobile market in 2013

Apple seems to be struggling with a falling market share – and shares. The launch of the iPhone 5 in 2012 was a disappointment for many, and especially Apple’s infamous maps have created headlines. iPad mini launch was also the first time when Apple moved from innovator to a follower by comparing openly iPad mini with Google Nexus 7 in the official press conference. Is launching a new model so rarely Apple’s strategy to make the products more special? Or is there perhaps nothing new to publish?

Anyhow, Apple has still a very strong ecosystem and it has done a brilliant job on introducing Apple products in all aspects of user’s life from home stereos and in-car assets to music and apps. Once you have bought Apple related things during years it is very difficult to switch to another Smartphone / tablet. That being said, Apple has made “switching” to other OS a bit easier with the introduction of the new cable, which means the things you bought for your previous iPhone are not compatible with iPhone 5 or any other new model Apple launches.

There has also  been a lot of speculation whether Nokia made the right choice of choosing Windows phone OS instead of Android. Maybe it did. If Nokia would have picked Android as an OS, what would differentiate it from other Android developers in Samsung’s shadow? It will be fascinating to see whether Windows phone platform keeps growing strongly. Other interesting game changers to watch in 2013 are Blackberry 10, and Linux / Ubuntu based devices.

Android is going strong, but we might see a change from a role as a market challenger to a leadership defending OS. And the OS with the biggest market share tend to get challenged by the smaller OS – just what happened to Symbian and Apple. As mobile market is changing so rapidly, it could be possible that in two years time Apple has become a dinosaur, Android / Google the bad guy and Windows phone the new trendy platform … and the fighter of justice.

“Google and Apple are doing more and more things together. We have similar goals, similar competitors.”

Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Google (2007)

I’ve been enjoying the last few months, as finally the market dynamics are changing and there is a lot of interesting things happening in the mobile space. It is quite fascinating to watch the war between Google and Apple, with lawsuits, new Smartphones and unexpected news. The war has become so huge, that it has awakened the interest even in the non-tech audience – Google vs. Apple makes headlines.

Apple heading for a Google-free mobile

Back in the days Google and Apple worked on various projects together, but ever since Google’s Android started eating Apple’s market share, the relationship between the two got ugly. Now, prior to the new iPhone launch, Apple announced that iOS 6 will not include YouTube or Google Maps. This is a big shift in dynamics as iPhone has had three of its important functions from Google since the iPhone launch in 2007: maps, search and YouTube. There are also rumors that Apple is considering removing Google as default search, as it is said to cost Apple 1 billion dollars per year in shared advertising revenues. In China, the company is already using local search engine Baidu instead of Google – if Apple decides to change Google to Bing or Yahoo in other markets they will be attacking Google’s core business.

This may go in two ways: either Google will pick up the game and improve its Maps and YouTube user experience in apps, or these two will focus on different ways to make other company’s life miserable.

Apple vs. Android Lawsuits

After winning a 1 billion lawsuit against Android-powered Samsung, Apple has decided to ask the court to include other Samsung hardware, such as the Galaxy S III, Verizon Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 10.1 into its complaint against the Galaxy Nexus. Meanwhile, Google-owned and Android-powered Motorola has filed a lawsuit against Apple, stating that all Apple products in the U.S.(except iPod and iPod Nano) infringe upon seven patents, including location reminders, email notifications, video playback and Siri. If Motorola is as successful as Apple against Samsung, all Apple products might be blocked in the US market. Irony.

The question is: what do the users gain from this? While it might be good that manufacturers are forced to think beyond Apple and offer more innovative and different designs, it is a pity that the focus has shifted from developing ground-breaking products to lawsuits. While competition should be fair, the battles should happen in the market – not in the court rooms. Maybe it was the months Apple spent talking to the lawyers, that delayed the new iPhone launch?

Apple vs. Android – perfect occasion for Nokia?

If Apple and Android continue the lawsuit war blocking each other’s mobile devices in different markets and forget what is best for the users, consumers may move to another system. In fact, Nokia is launching a new Windows phone 8 on the 5^th of September 2012, prior to the new iPhone launch. As both Nokia and Microsoft have a lot in stake, they will invest millions to make it huge.

Nokia has had a rough path lately, but hopefully the Windows phone 8 system will be more flexible making it easier for the developers to create apps, and shaking power dynamics between the OS. Nokia should definitely not be ruled out, as the conflict and lawsuits between Apple, Google and Android manufacturers may be a perfect occasion for Nokia to get back in the game. Who knows? In the end, even Apple’s Siri said, that Nokia Lumia 900 is “the best Smartphone ever”.

During the London press conference last Wednesday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the first 1,930 applications received for the new brand, or generic, domain endings replacing .com. The list includes brands such as L’Oréal, Chanel, Nike, Gucci, Macy’s, Swatch, Target, Zara, Next and Wal-Mart.

Almost 50% of the proposals (911) were from North America, more than 30% of the proposals were from Europe (675) and 16% came from Asia Pacific region (303). Only 1% of the proposals came from Africa (17) and 1,3% came from Latin America and the Caribbean (24).

What is a brand domain?

Brand, or generic, domain means website urls ending .brand, .thing or .idea instead of .com. The idea is to allow businesses that joined Internet later to find alternatives to “dot com”, but in practice these domains would most likely sit alongside established domains such as .com and .org. The possibilities vary from hobbies, demographics, and professions to corporate brand names. Few examples are .lol, .bank, .baby, .music, .doctor, .loreal, .youtube, .google, .coke, .apple and .twitter.

ICANN announced that the companies that have applied for the brand domain names are now going through an independent review process with a 60-day comment period and a 7-month objection period. The organization will review each proposal, make a criminal background check for each applicant, and assure that company’s financial plan is stable and contingencies exist in case a company goes out of business. If there is a conflict between names, ICANN encourages competing bidders to reach an agreement together, but the organization will hold an auction if the parties fail to reach a compromise.

Expensive – but a trend to watch closely.

These domains do not come cheap.  There is a $185,000 fee per application, and so far ICANN has collected about $350 million from the bidders. ICANN states that the main reason for the high cost is the technical complexity as it is not simple to run these top-level domains. The first domains are estimated to go live in the first quarter of 2013.

It is expensive, but most of the brands are registering the domains for defensive reasons to avoid competitors and other public to acquire their brand domains. The application cost now might be $185,000, but if a competitor or counterfeiter registers the domain first, the acquisition cost in the future may become extremely expensive.

End of dot com or a passing trend?

Besides of applying for brand names, some companies such as L’Oréal are also registering generic domains such as .skin, .hair and .makeup. This is expensive, but it may be a very smart move against the competitors if the trend takes off and the brand will receive more traffic and consumer interest. It will be interesting to see what Google’s point of view is regarding the subject, and how this will affect the SEO as the keywords in domain name have a positive impact on ranking. Maybe Google itself will start giving or selling .google domains for businesses and users to increase its prominence in the cyber space?

At the same time, people are used to .com and country specific domains such as .co.uk, .es and .it. When the system is launched, how do you explain people that “doctor” is a website without www or .com? It is also to be seen how the system and new domain endings work in practice. For example, if the user types “doctor” in the browser bar, he is expecting location based search results. Instead, he might end up in the page of whoever owns the domain .doctor, which will most likely only annoy him. This is why the url structure change may result confusing for general public and the adoption rate may be low. If the consumer interest and adoption rate are low, after the first excitement brands may start simply redirecting these brand domains to their  .com site.

It is an expensive game to play and at the moment only the big players can invest in these domains. However, if the technical cost goes down after the first wave of brand domains, it might be the end of the “dot com”. Or then we only end up with a big bunch of 301 redirects.

Facebook has a lot to prove. The much hyped Facebook IPO turned to be a fiasco, as the company and bankers evaluated the social network to be worth $100 billion while investors did not. Despite the little peak ($45 share) during the launch on May 18^th 2012,  the Facebook share price has dropped from the opening price of $38 to about $28 this morning.

So, what went wrong?

Too high and optimistic expectations

First of all, let’s look at the numbers. There is an impressive quantity of users in Facebook and the social network has been predicted to reach billion users this year. But does it justify that Facebook was being valued at almost 100 times last year’s profits? This is much higher than tech companies Apple and Google, who in fact make much more money.

In addition to above, in February 2012 Facebook admitted that it did “not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue” from mobile even if more than 425 million monthly active users, representing 50% of the total MAUs, were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has serious implications, which probably were not bypassed by the investors.

What comes to the launch itself, there were too many shares in the market. Also it did not help either that Facebook insiders, such as Facebook board member Peter Thiel, increased the amount of shares they wanted to sell. This raised suspicions – what did they know, that normal public did not?

Is it time to make Facebook users pay?

Facebook has launched a test in New Zealand to see whether it would be possible to make profit also with the users. According to CNET, the social media platform has recently tested out a new service that permits users to make their status updates more prominent in exchange for some money. The new service works like the premium ads to businesses. By paying $1.80 New Zealand dollars ($1.42 U.S. dollars), Facebook users can promote their status update and assure it remains in their friend’s news feed.

If this business model would result successful, Facebook could possibly make a nice profit and gain investors’ trust back. As the user’s friend base, likes, groups, and applications grow, user’s status updates are likely to get lost in the middle of it all. Facebook users also love friends’ “likes” and comments, especially if we are talking about top influencers, and sometimes they have something important to say that is worth highlighting, such as a lost mobile or an item on sale.

On the other hand, the hidden/not seen status updates are mainly caused by Facebook’s own features, issues and sorting algorithm, that sets up the top stories as default and makes everything very cluttered. It highlights stories such as the games people play, music they listen to, apps they use and articles they read – and do not forget to add the brand communications and ads on top. The social media platform has already been pushing its luck, and it is to be seen if this will provoke users to leave the site.

To be honest, I am interested to see how this works out and what users’ reaction will be. How important showing status update is for users? How much are they ready to pay to be “liked”? And if they are ready to pay to be “liked”, are they ready to pay to access the platform in the future? Maybe this is just the first step towards a Facebook membership fee.

“It sees us”,

Samsung representative, Galaxy S III London Launch

Samsung’s new Galaxy S III is smart … very smart. The mobile manufacturer unveiled last week in London the highly expected addition to its Galaxy S family, after creating a lot of hype around its launch. Even if the launch event itself was not as impressive as Nokia’s Lumia’s, the new Smartphone makes iPhone look a bit “old school”. Maybe the iPhone5 launch is so delayed, because Apple needs to reinvent phone’s features after each Android launch to seem innovative? Who knows…

Very Smart Mobile Technology

Besides its big screen size and 720p resolution, Samsung Galaxy III is differentiating itself from the competition with eye tracking capabilities. The technology called Smart Stay allows the front facing camera to monitor your eyes and know when you are looking at it. This allows the mobile not to “sleep” from inactivity if you are watching a film or reading an e-book, for example.

Other interesting smart feature called Direct Call is well adapted for real life. For example, if you are sending a SMS to someone, but decide it is actually simpler to give him a call, you can move the phone next to your ear to make a phone call to that number. With the Beam sharing function, that combines NFC technology with Wi-Fi Direct, you are able to share movies and music with other phones by simply tapping them. You can also throw content to TVs, as well as make the TVs mirror what is on your Smartphone screen.

The mobile device uses ‘S Voice,’ an advanced natural language user interface, to listen and responds to your words. You are able to use it to command the phone with only your voice to snooze, play songs, turn the volume up or down, send text messages and emails, organise your schedules, or take a photo. It is to be seen whether it understands the Scottish accent better than iPhone’s Siri.

Samsung Galaxy S III Launching First in Europe

Samsung announced that it will launch the 3G version of the Galaxy S III end of this month, and 4G version is arriving later this summer. Surprisingly the manufacturer has decided to launch first in Europe on 29^th May, before launching in the North America in June. There has also been rumours that the phone would be launched before the USA also in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Interesting choice. One of the reasons might be the objective to strengthen Samsung presence in the other continents as it has a strong presence already in the USA.

According to IDC, the global sales for mobile devices (feature and Smartphones) increased 11.1% in 2011 compared with 2010 with Nokia leading with 27%, Samsung with 21.3%, Apple with 6%, and LG with 5.7% of the global mobile market share. The top device manufacturer by market penetration rather than sales is Nokia in Western Europe, Samsung in the US and Sharp in Japan.

What comes to only smartphones, according to IDC, also smartphone sales showed strong growth worldwide in 2011 the global sales growing 31.8% in 2011 compared with 2010, and Smartphones represented 31.8% of all handsets shipped. Samsung leads the way with 19.1% market share, Apple follows closely with 19%, Nokia is third with 15.7%, RIM with 10.9%, and HTC is fourth with 8.9%

Samsung Galaxy S III to conquer Europe?

It is an interesting phone with interesting features, but it does not seem world changing. It seems more like a refreshed version of their already successful model. However, as the company is planning pop-up stores across Europe to give customers the possibility to play with the Galaxy S III, I am hoping to see a stream of American tech tourists arriving to Europe to get it – just like we used to travel to the USA to get an iPhone.

And yes, I will be happy to go and play with the Galaxy S III as well.

Pinterest. Surprise, surprise – another new social network everyone talks about. There is a lot of hype around the platform, but is it really necessary to invest again money, time and resources in another social network?

Yes. There is actually a very good reason why Pinterest should not be ignored: the total number of global unique visitors in Pinterest increased 2,702.2% since May 2011 reaching 11,716,000 visitors by January 2012. It has 1,36 million visitors a day.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social photo sharing network that allows people and brands to create image collections, Pinboards, based on their interests, hobbies, products, beliefs, humour, art, events and more. The idea is to connect people through the things they find interesting and get inspired by. Users are able to browse other users’ collections, re-pin images for their own Pinboard, follow other users, and like their photos. Pinterest allows users to share pins also on other social networks, which increases the social visibility.

Pinterest – user demographics and engagement

The average Pinterest user spends almost 16 minutes on the site per visit compared to 16.4 min. in Youtube, 12.1 min. in Facebook, and 3.3 min. in Twitter. Surprisingly, Pinterest provides more referral traffic to other sites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined together, and the apparel retailer referral traffic from Pinterest increased 289% between July and December 2011.

50% of the Pinterest users have children, almost 70% of Pinterest users are female, and 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women. Instead of teenagers and young adults, the platform seems to appeal most for the older age groups: largest age group is 25-34 year olds (27.4%) followed by 35-44 year old users (22.1%). Interestingly 45-54 year old users represent 17.9% of the user base, which is a high number compared to other social networks.

Pinterest in Europe

In Europe Pinterest has grown exponentially since May 2011 becoming the fastest growing social network. According to Comscore, in January 2012 the UK had the highest number of unique visitors in Europe (245,000), Germany had 67,000 unique visitors, and Spain had 62,000 unique visitors. What comes to the growth, from May 2011 to January 2012 Germany had the highest growth rate of 2956% in Pinterest, followed by Spain (1348%), and Italy (794%).

Even if the unique visitors decreased in France and the UK between December 2011 and January 2012, engagement on Pinterest increased by 1740% and 20%, respectively.

Is Pinterest worth investing?

Pinterest is currently the fastest growing social network in the US and Europe, and it is very interesting from a brand perspective. You have a possibility to target people according to their interests in real time without being their “friends”, provoke a stronger response with images as people are very visual, and obtain social recommendations when people “pin” or like your image. With a proper preparation, the social photo sharing platform may be very beneficial for sales,  and looking at the demographics, it is great especially if you are targeting women and more mature demographics.

How brands can use Pinterest? For example, ecommerce sites and brands can use Pinterest to pin their products (fashion, clothes, shoes, accessories, interior designs, household items, wedding items, baby products, etc), travel companies and hotels can pin location pictures, food manufacturers can pin beautiful dishes, pet food companies can pin cute animals, etc. etc. The list goes on, but as with other social networks stop and think before you start pinning. Pinterest has a lot of potential, but if not done properly the end result may not be what you expected. To be successful as a brand you need a proper Pinterest strategy to reach right people, and if you have a good strategy  – an image can be worth a thousand words.

We have been aware of it for almost a one year, but unfortunately the lawyers in EU headquarters are not changing their minds as we secretly hoped. The new EU data cookies law will be effective from 26^th of May 2012 in the UK, but very rare companies have done something about it. Now we only have two months left.

What is a Data Cookie?

Cookie is a small file that is downloaded onto your device when you access a website, and it sends your information back to the site once you access it again. Cookies are used in most of the websites – for example, eCommerce site stores delivery details to fasten the checkout, Google analytics (one of the most common cookies) uses cookies to provide statistics for the website owners, and Google also uses them in Google search to provide more personalized search results and adverts.

The reason why cookies are so important for companies is the statistics and results they provide. These allow website owners to analyze the data and take actions to optimize the website performance. Marketers also need the results to justify the digital investment for the top management and investors.

What is the New EU Data Cookies Law?

The European Union Cookie law – or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 – was created to assure that website users have a choice whether the website can collect their information or not.

It means that cookies or similar devices must not be used unless the website subscriber or user:

(a) is provided with clear and comprehensive information about the purposes of the storage of, or access to, that information; and

(b) has given his or her consent.

However, device finger printing as a way of user identification is allowed.

What does the EU data cookies law signify for companies?

From May 26^th 2012 companies must inform users about the cookies on their website, what the cookie is doing and ask actively users permission to use that cookie. Besides websites, devices like mobile phones, internet-connected TVs and gaming consoles require the same level of compliance.

How this is done in real life without spoiling the user experience? Well, that is a good question.

If the user does not give permission to use cookies, companies will have no track record of their visit, which means that visitor numbers are going to drop record low. It will also be extremely difficult to track website and campaign performance. Not only there is a great quantity of own and third party tagging, but do not forget the quantity of embedded YouTube videos, widgets, social log-ins, plug-ins etc. which also want to use cookies. Who will explain the Facebook cookies – the website owner or Facebook?

How to ask users permission to use cookies?

There are not many examples how companies are asking users permission to use cookies in real life. This is most probably because companies do not want to add an annoying message to their website until they absolutely have to. And of course companies prefer seeing what competitors are doing first and then possibly copying the message to their website. Of course the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website had to provide an example. Not a great one to be honest, since if user ignores the message and does not click “accept” you cannot track them. It meant that ICO’s analytics data regarding the unique visitors dropped 90%.

There are however few options, such as:

• Modal dialogue box, which explains in detail what cookies are on the site and what they do. It is shown as a layer and does not allow user to interact with the site until they opt-in or opt-out
• Status bar, which appears in the top or bottom of the page. It informs users that cookies are used on the site and user needs to opt-in or opt-out to close it.
• Warning bar, which appears every time the website wants to use a cookie asking user to either accept or decline it.

How this is implemented in mobile, TV or tablets? I do not know. Maybe one option is to start by having a link advicing users of the new privacy policy, which then leads to a page explaining in more detail what the cookies are, why they are used, how they improve the site functionality, and explaining how the user can disable them in their browser (if they really want to).

Whatever you do, it is not worth waiting for 26^th May 2012 to see what competitors are doing or you might risk a 500,000£ fine. It is better to start thinking and experimenting with AB testing now before it is too late. Of course usually the government does not act until someone complains – but do you really think that some of your competitors would not be happy to tip you off?

With more than 425 million monthly active users utilizing Facebook mobile products in December 2011 only, the social networking platform is finally focusing on mobile and tablets in 2012. Wise decision, since not only Smartphone market is increasing, but according to a research by BI Intelligence global tablet sales will reach 500 million units per year by 2015 – exceeding the number of PCs currently sold per year (~360 million).

Facebook has mentioned that as part of its mobile monetisation strategy it will start using “sponsored stories” in mobile users news feed. But is that really all?

Facebook – more than a simple platform

Until now Facebook has been focusing on normal web strategy and constant updates that seem to make its users’ life more difficult. But hate Facebook or not, the social network is becoming much more than just a platform. Facebook is on its way to become its own Internet portal by using Facebook IDs as an online passport to various products and services hosted on its own developer platform.

Facebook’s inter-connected business model has worked well and the company has created its own successful ecosystem. The social network has made great progress especially with social gaming, and its close relationship with Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars) has been very beneficial for both.  F-commerce is also blooming with companies trying to get more touchable return on their social media investment and Facebook has even launched its own online virtual currency called Facebook credits. They allow Facebook developers to offer in-app purchases with Facebook cutting 30% of the revenue. A similar model Apple uses in its App store.

Facebook mobile monetisation strategy

Now there is the problem. Facebook needs to establish a proper mobile monetisation strategy, yet the native app store model is very restrictive. For example, Apple takes off 30% revenue of the apps sold, and insists on maintaining control of the iOS payments process. This means that Facebook cannot take advantage of ‘in-apps payments’: a revenue generated by its current ecosystem.

What comes to f-commerce, according to a study by Shopatron, most of the tablet owners find shopping with the tablet engaging, and the conversion rate from tablets is much higher than conversion rate from mobiles or even PCs. If Facebook wants to expand its F-commerce business, it needs to offer companies a way to create a tablet optimized social shopping experience, and lure them away from iPad apps.

Will Facebook abandon App store?

Probably not. The social network is not likely to ditch the existing native apps, because they already have a large user base and work well with the different OS. However, Facebook has a team (so called Project Spartan) playing with HTML5 technology, which is a coding language that allows companies to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system. According to a research firm Strategy Analytics, 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones are to be shipped in 2013(up from 336 million in 2011), which brings interesting possibilities.

If the company starts creating its own apps without registration fees and payment restrictions, it is free to monetise via Facebook Credit and in-apps payments. Quite a significant move, since if Facebook starts developing HTML5 apps many companies and its partners are likely to follow. Which certainly will not make Apple happy.

We will see. There are many other possibilities for Facebook in mobile space, such as augmented reality with facial recognition, and the company also needs to consider very well whether it is worth making another powerful enemy, especially when iPad3 is coming up. If Facebook starts competing with Apple’s App store, their relationship status is likely to become “complicated”.

Ever dreamed of an app that works in all devices and operating systems? Creating a mobile app requires investment and resources, but with increasing number of players in the mobile space, app development has become even more complicated and expensive. Instead of one iPhone app, you need to decide whether you will also develop the same app for other operating systems, such as fragmented Android and emerging Windows OS.

But there is hope. HTML5.

New technology with increasing potential

According to Michael Mullany, VP of marketing and products at Sencha, already 95% of the functionality of native apps is being delivered by HTML5, and the new technology will emerge competitive on just about every level within two years. Meanwhile, research firm Strategy Analytics forecasts 1 billion HTML5 compatible phones to be shipped in 2013 (up from 336 million in 2011), which has provoked interest among big players such as Facebook and Google.

In addition, Financial Times surprised the market last year by withdrawing FT iPhone app completely from App store, and creating its own HTML5 app instead. Within only few months FT managed to migrate 1 million of its mobile users from its native mobile app to the browser-based version. Currently 20% of total page views and 15% of new B2C subscriptions are coming directly from mobile and tablet devices. Quite impressive.

What is an HTML5 app?

HTML5, also called “the flash killer”, means a fifth generation of coding language that is used to create web pages. It gets to bypass phone’s hidden components that in the past have forced developers to create a specific app for each OS. This means that instead of creating various versions of the apps for different OS and devices (iPhone OS, Android, Windows…), by using HTML5 companies are able to develop one mobile / tablet app that is suitable for any device or operating system.

HTML5 app benefits and challenges

Main benefits: cost savings and accessibility. Besides huge savings on mobile / tablet app development costs, you are not restricted by terms and conditions and do not require anyone’s permission to distribute an HTML5 app. It means that there is no 30% cut of app revenue, which happens with apps sold via native platforms. HTML5 apps are also searchable by search engines such as Google, which expands their reach beyond native app stores such as Apple’s App store and Google’s Android market.

Main web and mobile browsers support HTML5 and most of its features are able to run on low-powered devices such as smartphones and tablets. However, even if HTML5 has been improving fast there are still some limitations such as speed, access to certain phone features such as Bluetooth, and inability to handle the intensity of graphics performance for maps and fast-moving games as well as native app. What also is required for HTML5 to really kick off is an effective distribution channel for the HTML5 apps, user feedback system, and simple and secure payment channel. In general, quality of the apps may also not be up to same standard if there is no central quality control.

Should our business invest in native or HTML5 apps?

If the aim is to develop a graphic fast-moving game or location-based app using maps – maybe not. If the aim is to develop an engaging mobile app that does not require necessarily fast internet connection, HTML5 apps can make life less complicated. Instead of a long process of creating, testing and approving many versions of the native app for different operation systems, company can concentrate on one mobile app that is suitable for most of the devices. This allows us to invest more time and resources in something more important, such as building a proper mobile strategy, instead of running around like headless chickens focusing on small details instead of the big picture.

To be honest. If we have a possibility to produce something that most of the people can access while making considerable time and cost savings – shouldn’t we?