Guest post from Julien Oudart, Sofialys
Julien Oudart is VP Sales & Marketing mobile marketing company Sofialys. Here he writes for Mobile Europe on the topic of apps – asking if html5 means the end of apps. What do you think?
YouTube is revamping its mobile site at http://m.youtube.com, making its mobile application obsolete. This move further validates industry speculation that HTML5, along with better processors and cloud services, might just mean the demise of applications. In such a case, industry experts say developers will need to take heed. Most importantly, it cuts through the highly fragmented phone market working on any HTML5-compliant mobile browser, including iPhone and Android. According to some industry specialists because the browser is not within Apple’s iAd white picket fence, it has more advertising revenue options.
This article aims to discuss the arrival of HTML 5 and its impact on companies in the media and advertising world. To what extent will HTML5 be used in the near future? Does it’s creation really mean the demise of mobile applications? What would this mean for developers and Google and Apple? How would this affect the mobile ad industry and what new revenue could it generate?
A lot of evidence points to the decline of apps, or at least the slowing down of apps over the next few years. A recent report published by IBA suggests that app sales will peak by 2013. At an OMMA Mobile conference that took place in New York earlier this year, agency delegates firmly concluded that HTML5 is the future of mobile advertising, and Apple certainly seem to confirm this view with the recent introduction of iAd. Launched on 1st July, Apple’s new service – which is HTML5 compatible and will offer advertising inside mobile apps, initially on the iPhone and iPod Touch – promises to combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of internet advertising. The company claims that the deals it has already secured represent almost half of the total forecasted mobile ad spend in the US for the second half of 2010. A force to be reckoned with without a doubt, (if the figures are to be believed), with Apple taking more than $60m in bookings for the new network even before its official launch date.
Other industry experts are also convinced that applications will become redundant in a 4G world. Indeed, when we consider the fact that a brand will soon be able to simply just build a HTML5 website which consumers can then store as a bookmarked icon on their iPhone’s home screen, it does seem to point to the redundancy of applications. And Saj Cherian, principal at US-based Valhalla Partners, in Vienna (VA), has a valid point when he says that Apps have proliferated primarily to address the shortcomings of device processing power and network bandwidth. As faster smartphones gain mass adoption, 4G networks are stood up, and more processing is done in the cloud, we will inevitably go back to the Web. He believes that we will get the rich user experience we have come to know via apps by merely browsing the Web. HTML5 will be a catalyst as well as a host of other enabling technologies, such as better browsers and cloud-based services. Indeed, according to the 2010 Mobile Web Usage Forecast by mobile Internet firm Volantis, HTML5 could become the standard platform for browsers and mobile web applications. Moreover, the forecast predicted that the greatest pull toward the mobile web would be gaming and social networking. 55% said social networking would encourage them to use mobile web and 17% said they would use the mobile web to access games. Others however, believe Games will be the exception rather than the rule as they are more processing intensive and better merchandised / monetized via application store downloads.
A take-over?
However, whether HTML5 will take over from apps is another question – and one that has sparked raging debate over the past few months. While there is little doubt that the advent of HTML5 is definitely good news for the mobile advertising industry (it is a way for advertisers to create richer experience and increase interactivity with end users – through enhanced designs, animation and visuals), there is strong evidence to suggest that both worlds will be able to happily co-exist, for the time being at least.
HTML5 will be increasingly used for mobile websites and more – as a general rule anything that improves user experience on mobile web is something the industry is looking at closely. In addition to YouTube’s afore-mentioned experimental HTML5-based version of their site, TechCrunch has reported that NetFlix is flirting with HTML5, too, especially as it pertains to embedded browsers in TV-based devices. And the New York Times’ website now embeds some video clips without resorting to Flash. The revamping of the YouTube website is a particularly significant move and one that has a direct impact on the mobile marketing and advertising industry. As the world’s biggest online and video community, it is a platform on which marketers are able to find virtually any audience they want to target and create innovative advertising and video content that allows the community to interact with the brand. YouTube enables brands and marketers to increase sales and exposure in various different ways; in addition to running video advertising, such as InVideo Ads or YouTube video ads, brands also sponsor contests, create brand channels and add their own original content to the PC and mobile versions of the site.
This has particular relevance in view of a recent Morgan Stanley report indicating that within 5 years more users will connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PC’s. Given that YouTube consumption on mobile devices has also grown considerably (playbacks were up 160% in 2009 over the previous year), it is more than fitting that the site has opened up the concept of accessing video on the go. The company is currently rolling out an updated version of the mobile site and which is not only faster but also offers a user interface that incorporates larger, more touch-friendly elements and features and functionalities such as search query suggestions.