Apps World London 2011 Recap

Let’s kick it off this way. We’re way passed the expiration date of when brands need to be “sold” on social media interactions and media buys. They get it. Consumers everywhere are now interacting, debating, enjoying a few minutes of leisure time, and making purchasing decisions based on recommendations from their social connections. The major shift is that they’re now utilizing mobile more than ever. Leveraging this key fact is the key to building a successful mobile offering.

At the Apps World event in London, a host of advertisers, publishers, content creators, developers and mobile carriers met to discuss the secret ingredients of reaching the top of the app charts. The answer, as one would expected wasn’t so straight forward.

A New Breed of Content Consumers

To fully understand the impact of mobile content consumption, one needs to understand the shift in consumer behavior. Nowhere is this more appetent than in News and Media publications.

Steve Wing, head of digital marketing, consumer media at Guardian News and Media, said it’s too early to tell exactly what impact The Guardian’s new iPad app is having on print sales.

“From our research, a large proportion of iPad people are non-newspaper buying – they’re new digital people,” he said, while pointing out that access to the iPad app is also being bundled with the newspaper’s six and seven-day print subscriptions. “To date, that level of cannibalization has not been there.”

TV’s Enhancing The Social Experience

The growth we’ve seen in apps across multiple platforms has been impressive to say the least. The rapid onset of app usage has also opened a world of opportunities beyond mobile devices, such as connected TV’s which will in no doubt revolutionize the way we consume media.

Apps World London dedicated an entire day to the subject of streaming TV media, offering incredible insight as to what lines ahead by the industry’s leading experts such as Rovi, Skinkers, TV App Agency, Phillips, Zee Box and many more. Representatives were on hand to discuss how TV’s will become more social and the revenue opportunities app enabled TV’s present.

While many manufacturers have attempted to incorporate apps into their HD and 3D TVs, most have been met with, at best, middling success. To date, their clunky interfaces minute amounts of content are making them feel somewhat like watered down additions to otherwise strong hardware.

Samsung however has taken the whole area very seriously, refreshing their connected TV line in 2010 with the Smart TV platform. Mixing together social networks, video on demand content, games, news and even video calling through a Skype app, its use of an app store and familiar grid-like app icon layout made it far easier to navigate than most rival offerings.

The Uphill Struggle for Operators

Suresh Jayaraju, VP and head of New Age VAS for Indian operator Reliance Communications, noted that operators face significant challenges in capitalising on the mobile app opportunity, due to their structure and focus being on legacy business models.

In his presentation, Jayaraju argued: “Typically, if you compare a telco with, say, Google or Apple, telcos have been built for the processes of delivering voice. And they have been very, very good at delivering voice. But in terms of apps, or developing and deploying technology products, I don’t think that they are really very capable. They are very hierarchical in nature, if you want to get a product out there are multiple business process, commercial processes.”

Mobile Ad Networks Galore – All Hands On Deck!

The most obvious scene at Apps World London 2011 were the myriad of mobile ad networks, all vying for your mobile ad spend. Representatives from  InMobi, Adfonia, MellinialMedia, Smatto, Sponsormob and TapJoy were on hand and ready to introduce attendees to their advertising opportunities.

The vast options available for advertisers shows that no ad network is dominant. There are at least 10 significant ad networks in the US alone. Additionally, no one really knows what “the best” ad network is. Any figures you read about market share or revenue are estimates, if not pure guesswork.

The words being repeated by almost every ad network was “spend slow, learn quick, build up your spend.” In a sense, mobile ad networks today are very reminiscent of online Pay per click networks.

In conclusion

The goldmine of information and insight shared at Apps World London were not to be missed, and this post touches just the tip of the iceberg. The future is clearly digital, multi-platform and significantly mobile.

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(Credit – event picture by www.apps-world.net)