... an important part of the media landscape, especially as mobile-friendly "native ad formats" fuel growth in the market.

Here's an overview of some major players in the mobile advertising ecosystem:

• The lure of social media advertising is massive: As brands look across a fractured media landscape, social networks offer them an interesting proposition. Social networks have scale - enormous user bases and deep databases. They have high engagement - Americans were spending an average of 12 hours per month on social networks as of July 2012, with 18-24 year olds averaging 20 hours. And potentially, social media offers brands a uniquely captive audience for their content.
   
• Guaranteed placement is getting advertisers to pay up: Brands are paying to get their content or copy in front of a quantifiable audience, an increasingly rare feat in an era of scattered consumer attention. This desire for guaranteed attention also helps to explain social media's move away from traditional display ads — like Facebook's right-rail ads — and toward so-called "native ads" that surface in a user's stream, either as a Tweet or a Facebook post. A consensus seems to be forming around in-stream advertising as the most promising social advertising format.
  
• Social media advertising is set to explode: it is a young market and, so far, it represents only 1% to 10% of ad budgets for a wide majority of advertisers. There's significant opportunity for that share to grow. BIA/Kelsey recently published a study that offers one view - forecasting $11 billion of social ad spend in 2017, up from $4.7 billion last year. That estimate is large - but still seems pessimistic, because ...
   
• Increased mobile usage will be a huge driver of advertising growth: The BIA/Kelsey prediction calls for mobile to account for only $2.2 billion of that in 2017 - a 20% market share. This could easily be surpassed. Both Twitter and Facebook have passed the 50% mobile usage mark and, given the continued growth of mobile devices, it will only rise. Mobile accounted for 11% of Facebook's ad revenue last year even though it didn't release mobile ads until the tail end of the second quarter. By the fourth quarter, it was up to 23%. And now, Twitter is reporting that its mobile ad revenue regularly outpaces its desktop ad revenue. Social media advertising is therefore uniquely positioned to grab an increasing share of the fast growing mobile advertising market. 

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... "Data will be a core resource in the future". 

“If the UK wants to make sure that in the next phase of the digital revolution Britain has the Googles, and the Amazons and the eBays … then the government needs to turn its current enthusiasm [for data] to a really solid, defined implementation for a national core data set,” evangelises Mr Shakespeare.

“This is a major new piece of infrastructure for all society. It will be a platform on which we live our lives.”

Gavin Starks, ceo of the Open Data Institute, a quasi-independent agency responsible for assessing the government's use of data, agrees that the opening up of public data would provide an opportunity for businesses across Britain.

“Health care, transportation, finance, insurance; it will affect many, many different sectors, the change will be as broad as the web itself. There’s a huge amount of value to be unlocked".

An analysis by Deloitte, launched in tandem with the Shakespeare Report, calculated that the use of public data in 2011-2012 had added up to £7.2 billion ($11 billion) to the UK economy.

In one case, opening up live transport information from Transport for London saved Londoners' working time valued at up £58 million in one year alone, Deloitte guesstimates. Opening up more public data would unlock more value, the accountants argue.

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... users to send massive data files at a much faster speeds via their mobile devices, “practically without limitation.”

Fifth generation mobile networks (or 5th generation wireless systems) is a term used to denote the next major phase of mobile telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G/IMT-Advanced standards. 

The new technology will primarily appeal to phone-users who routinely send and receiving large amounts of data. With 5G networks, for example, Samsung claims that users will be able to send super-high-definition movie files in a matter of seconds.

The fastest wireless technology currently available – 4G or long-term evolution – has yet to be widely adopted worldwide. According to industry analysts, the next phase for the standard is likely to be a shift to “4.5G” networks.

Meantime, however, many networks still employ 3G.

Aligning itself with a target recently set by the European Union, Samsung has eyes on commercialising 5G technology by 2020.

Earlier this year the EU aannounced a plan to invest €50 million in research to deliver 5G mobile technology by 2020.

According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Samsung has successfully tested its 5G network with 1Gbps speed (potentially up to 10Gbps), and aims to provide service by 2020. 

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... smartphone featuring a screen that enables three-dimensional images without glasses.

Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles. Reporting from within the Amazon bunker, staffers claim that spectacle-wearers may be able to navigate through the phone's content by using just their eyes.

Reports the WSJ: "Some elements of Amazon's hardware push have previously become public. Last year, news surfaced about Amazon developing one smartphone. And last month, The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reported that Amazon also was developing a set-top box for streaming movies and TV shows."

As ever with the canny Bezos behemoth, there's more to this than meets the eye.

With smartphones - 3D or otherwise - Amazon could collect new data on its users via maps, phone-call tracking and app downloads, then offer users shopping recommendations. There is also the potential for new services like mobile payments.

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... set of guidelines for using HTML5 to create and run digital advertising. 

Released earlier this week for public comment, HTML5 for DigitalAdvertising 1.0: Guidance for Ad Designers & Creative Technologists aims to provide best practices and formal ad formats for HTML5 technology.

It addresses areas such as HTML5 display ads, file and ad unit size, code compressions, in-banner video advertising, efficient ad creative packaging, and ad server compatibility. The guidelines also include an HTML5 Wiki.

Avers John Percival, senior creative technologist at PointRoll, and member of the IAB’s HTML5 Working Group: “With multiscreen advertising growing at such a continued rate and increasing in demand daily, it's mandatory that we (as an industry) demonstrate how marketers can strategically and effectively bring HTML5 ad development into the mainstream.”

The deadline for public comment on the HTML5 guidelines is June 10. Following that period, the IAB’s Ad Operations Council and Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence will evaluate comments, make any needed changes and issue a final version.

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... Condé Nast, The Wall Street Journal and Univision presented ambitious slates of original programming to advertisers for the first time. 

Additionally, companies like Yahoo and Hulu, that already produce web content, announced greatly expanded offerings.

As a result, US viewers are being bombarded with an array of new internet programs — eleven from Yahoo, fourteen from AOL and a whopping thirty from Condé Nast, including one that will let viewers watch a Vogue editor, Hamish Bowles, as he shops around the world.

Advertisers and agencies, however, are less than enthused at the trend - expressing concern that audiences for individual shows will become even more fragmented and microscopic than they already are.

Says Group M's chief investment officer Rino Scanzoni of the new video offerings: “I don’t care how good your attention span is, I think it becomes all a blur.”

Karen Cahn, general manager of AOL’s online video arm, says the company monitors viewers' comments closely to see if they are uncomfortable with the video brand placements. “So far, so good,” she claims.

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... strong demand in China to offset weak sales in Europe.

According to Trolin, teledining has become popular with people who don't want to lose time traveling between megacities to eat with friends or business colleagues.

Teledining enables one group eating at a restaurant in one city to connect with friends in a different city via teleconferencing.

Another trend, currently peculiat to China, is young people's preference for voice messages rather than texting or e-mailing.

Says Trolin: "A voice message is more lively than a text and can be listened to at the recipient's convenience, while a call could come at an inappropriate moment. He himself has become accustomed to using his phone primarily to send and receive voice messages.

He declined to say what BMW will do to tap into these trends, but history shows that the automaker is willing to cater to Chinese tastes. 

An example of which is the preference of Chinese customers for long-wheelbase versions of mid-sized and compact sedans.

"Not because they are chauffeur driven but to offer more legroom to their friends and family members as a sign of high respect," explains Gerhard Steinie, director of the Shanghai studio of BMW Group's DesignWorks subsidiary.

Read the original unabridged AdAge.com article. 

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... marketers and the global search engine optimisation industry. 

The current Domain Name System, which performs a lookup service to translate user-friendly names into network addresses for locating internet resources, is restricted in practice to the use of ASCII characters, a practical limitation that set the original standard for acceptable domain names.

Internationalised domain names can only be used with applications that are specifically designed for such use; they require no changes in the infrastructure of the internet.

Speaking at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit this week, Jennifer Wolfe, president of Wolfe Domain, acknowledged that while this may seem a potential threat to search experts, marketers need to look at the millions of dollars that companies have invested and assume they're not doing it without a plan.

Grant Simmons, director of SEO and social product at The Search Agency, told the conference that he recognises the branding opportunity for companies like L'Oreal and Johnson & Johnson - but unless it's adopted by search engines, he doesn't see any change in SEO.

Half of the top hundred global brands who have applied for the new top-level domain names are paying (in aggregate) more than $350 million in fees to acquire the names.

Google alone has applied for 101 Top Level Domain [TLD] names - some of which are "open," which means they can resell them to businesses and consumers.

Microsoft has applied for eleven TLD names as closed systems. Amazon applied for 76 TLDs, each one a closed system to support their company and affiliates. "We expect Amazon to create an affiliate system," said Ms Wolfe.

TLDs will become ZIP codes or category regulators. Search engines will begin to weigh the TLD name as a category, and .com will become diluted in search results - less valuable.

According to Wolfe. "We will see some of those big social media companies like Facebook that didn't apply jump in during the next round."

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... 'I will never live a day without them'. 

Google's gizmo is a wearable computer with a head-mounted display [HMD] under development by Google's Project Glass research and development project, with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer.

Google Glass displays information in a smartphone type hands-free format that interacts with the internet via natural language voice commands.

While the frames do not currently have lenses fitted to them, Google is considering partnering with sunglass retailers such as Ray-Ban and may also open retail stores to allow customers to try out the device.

The Explorer Edition can't be used by people who wear prescription glasses, but Google has confirmed that Glass will eventually work with frames and lenses that match the wearer's prescription.

The glasses will be modular and therefore possibly attachable to normal prescription glasses.

View GoogleGlass video.

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... a product of the imagination.

But with $3.25 million in initial financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, change is afoot.

Mr Kaplan will join the Lear Center's director of research, Johanna Blakley, as a principal “investigator” for the new enterprise.

Kaplan spoke last week about the futility of counting page-views, “likes,” and retweets when trying to figure out whether an opinion piece, a documentary film or a television show actually moved anyone.

“Those measure how many people saw something,” he said. “That’s not the same as an outcome.”

Read the original unabridged New York Times article.

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