Tag Archives: Mobile

iPhone Apps on the iPad

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In general it’s a nice idea to be able to use the mobile applications we have purchased for our iPhones and iPods on our iPads too. However, the user experience is pretty bad because iPhone apps are designed for a 480×320 screen.

The bottom line is: You are better off using a website instead of an iPhone app. Unless you are using a made-for-iPad app you should use your browser instead of these applications. Running regular iPhone apps on an iPhone is pretty lame.

Here is what you get when you display this on the 1024×768 iPad:

And here is what the corresponding website looks like on the iPad:

Which version would YOU prefer?

Mobile Expert Surgery at a4uexpo London 2009

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If you happen to be around at the a4uexpo affiliate marketing conference in London next week, this one might be of interest for you:

On Tuesday between 2pm and 4pm you’ll have the opportunity to get some free one-to-one consulting on mobile marketing and mobile advertising. You will be able to find me in the expert surgery zone. Details can be found on the a4uexpo blog.

Going Mobile Full-Time

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Some of you may have have noticed that I’ve kind of reduced my posts on affiliate tracking and related topics. In the near future you will see more posts on mobile advertising and mobile affiliate marketing.A couple of months ago I took over the management of a boutique mobile advertising network. My goal has become to grow this baby.

I’m convinced that the mobile web will experience a great gain in popularity and importance in the next years. To all those of you who still believe the wired internet will rule the world forever, you’re gonna be dead meat in five years.

Well, not quite. But outdated distribution channels like over-the-air television or old-school business models like CPM advertising are slowly but surely going to die out. Mobile internet usage is definitely a new trend and I’ve decided to jump onto that train. So wish me luck.

Mobile web design for multiple screen sizes

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I’ve just returned from Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas and share another link with you. Someone in my session on mobile affiliate marketing asked me about how to design mobile web pages best, considering the different handsets and screen sizes. Here is a great article on designing for multiple screen sizes which covers it pretty much.

a4uexpo London 2008

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Last night I returned from a4uexpo London, the biggest affiliate marketing conference in the UK, probably in Europe. Thanks a lot to Matthew Wood for inviting me to speak. My session was about affiliate marketing on the mobile internet. I’m glad my gig was on the first day as we stayed up quite late as usual.

The crowd of attendees and speakers was quite international. So I ended up hanging around with the German crowd. You guys were fun to be around, especially during the Thames cruise and the drinks at the Novotel afterwards. What happened to Michael? I hadn’t seen him all morning.

I enjoyed a4uexpo a lot and recommend anyone to go. It costs a little bit of money but the investment is definitely worth it. If you’re a beginner it’s really worth attending the sessions. Otherwise you can also hang out in the conference area and get to know new people. Everybody will get something out of the show.

Matt announced that a4uexpo will be expanding to the continent. The first non-UK a4uexpo is going to be in Amsterdam. You should consider Munich or Berlin too.

I’m sure there will be more blog posts, photos and videos published soon. But here are a few pictures from the trade show and the parties:

The End of Cookie Tracking?

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Concerns about data protection have inspired publishers of web browsers to come up with “stealth” modes. Especially traditional browser cookies are under attack now. Today a large percentage of the online advertising business is based on these cookies. What are the implications?

Internet Explorer

The current version 7 of IE blocks all third-party cookies by default. That means that pages loaded via frames cannot drop cookies at all if their domains are not equipped with a proper P3P policy. Many advertisers haven’t taken care of that, so all the iFrame affiliates will have more and more difficulties.

Internet Explorer 8 is going to introduce a private browsing mode. Cookies are not rejected right away but are treated as session cookies and deleted when the user closes the browser window. Some people refer to it as the “porn mode” but it was originally designed for the use of the internet on somebody else’s machine. Another new feature is giving users the ability to delete all cookies except those of bookmarked websites.

Mozilla Firefox

The current Firefox does not block third-party cookies. But it’s very easy to tell the browser to delete all cookies on closure. And a lot of people actually do this. Also, there are many plugins that filter out banners and cookies today already. The funny thing is that sometimes these impressions are still counted by the delivering ad networks even though nothing is being displayed.

Google Chrome

This sucker is quite ironic. It allows users to switch to a “stealth” mode making it difficult for ad networks to re-target ads and track conversions. However, the browser software itself collects data and passes it back to Google. As a result Chrome only allows Google ads to work, the other ad networks can be blocked. In my mind Chrome is the biggest spyware ever, nicely packaged I have to admit. I hope they’ll get sued over this.

Solution for Online Advertising Networks

For many years the effect of rejected/deleted cookies has been unkown. Now we finally have a profound data basis. AffiliateFuture, an affiliate network based in the UK, observed a 7% increase in tracked conversions after they introduced flash cookies. I think with the introduction of new browser generations the effect will be much higher.

Online advertising networks can’t rely on traditional browser cookies alone anymore. They must also incorporate technologies such as finger-print tracking and the use of flash cookies. Not one of these methods alone will work. They have to be used simultaneously.

Mobile Tracking

A lot of browsers on mobile phones do not support cookies, Javascript and Flash. So none of these methods can be used to track well on the mobile internet. That’s why for example Google’s conversion tracking is useless for mobile ad campaigns. The way to go on mobile is server tracking on the side of the advertiser and batch imports to the ad network.