Marketing Pilgrim

In what seems like a rare moment these days, analysts are saying that they actually underestimated something rather than hyping it beyond recognition. Maybe there is hope after all .

This time it is about mobile ad spending in the US. eMarketer writes

The US mobile advertising market is growing far faster than expected, driven by the rapid ascension of Google’s mobile search advertising business, advertisers’ growing attraction to display inventory on tablet and smartphone devices, and the growing roster of mobile ad networks such as Google’s AdMob, Apple’s iAd and Millennial Media.

The chart below offers the hope that this growth will be strong for quite some time.

Interested in building that killer app that will be your grand slam home run of your career? Convinced that you are absolutely certain that there are AT LEAST 5 million people out there that would give up $.99 in a heartbeat for your “awesome” app or mindless game? Well, that is great copy for someone trying to recruit developers but the reality of the app world plays out a bit differently.

That’s not to say that paid apps are dead. It’s just that they are going to be more like hitting the lottery rather than a solid business plan. According to a study by IHS Media Intelligence only about 4% of app downloads are paid for.

If you watch the commercials on TV, it’s easy to believe that the entire population of the Earth is walking around with a smartphone in their pocket. Not true, but that day is slowly approaching.

Google conducted a study of cell phone users in the US, the UK, France, Germany and Japan and found that globally, smartphones are on the rise. The UK had the highest concentration with 45%, up 15% from the first half of 2011.

The US is looking at 38% and Japan is the lowest with only 17%.

On the other hand, Japan has the highest percentage of daily internet usage on the smartphone. Germany had the biggest increase in usage from the first part of the year to the later.

Google+ has just lowered their minimum age requirement from 18 to 13. Young teens everywhere couldn’t care less.

Google VP Bradley Horowitz makes a great pitch though. . . .

Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet. And surprise, surprise: they’re also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it’s clear that teens will increasingly connect online. Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group.

Oh, snap! Did he just call Facebook “second-rate?” So he didn’t mention them by name, but come on. . .

While it may seem like a big deal that the most powerful sports league in the US (and maybe the planet), the NFL, is letting it’s players tweet during a game but let’s not run around ringing in the new era of social media and sports.

It’s pretty fascinating to consider, right? A player comes off the field after an incredible catch or incredible hit and immediately tells his followers how he feels. It’s the ultimate in letting the fans in on the emotion and intensity of such an emotional and intense game like football. From Yahoo we read

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been accused of turning the NFL into the “No Fun League,” but Wednesday, he took a bold step to fight back against that label. He’s not only allowing players to tweet during the Pro Bowl ‒ he’s setting up computer stations on the sidelines to help them do so.

Google continues to make changes in different areas of their business. Apparently, how that business is defined is causing pains for Wall Street types which is rather amusing, but I digress.

The latest adjustment comes in how average search position is calculate. From the Google Webmaster Central blog we get an example of just how this is being done.

Let’s say Nick searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12. Jane also searched for [bacon] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 5 and 9. Previously, we would have averaged all these positions together and shown an Average Position of 7. Going forward, we’ll only average the highest position your site appeared in for each search (3 for Nick’s search and 5 for Jane’s search), for an Average Position of 4.