Well, well, well.  What does everyone make of this?  The word is that Apple is going to announce a mobile, personalized advertising system out of its acquisition of mobile advertising firm (Quattro) in 2008.  Apple is uniquely positioned to leverage its iTunes/App Store content that appears to be a shot across the bow of Google. 

The article suggests Apple will announce the revolutionary ad platform on April 7. 
See HERE!

More advertising? I t think it sounds horrible. Apple doesn’t need that revenue source, it can leave it to the mobile application developers.

awcabot - 27 March 2010 12:29 AM

More advertising? I t think it sounds horrible. Apple doesn’t need that revenue source, it can leave it to the mobile application developers.

You sir are a buzz kill!  Or maybe a GOOG shareholder? 

I’m in favor of anything that make the cash register ring louder without compromising the experience—and Apple isn’t going to become a giant pop up ad.

Mercel - 27 March 2010 12:05 AM

Well, well, well.  What does everyone make of this?  The word is that Apple is going to announce a mobile, personalized advertising system out of its acquisition of mobile advertising firm (Quattro) in 2008.

Actually, Apple purchased Quattro Wireless in January, 2010. Obviously Apple had plans to immediately leverage the asset at the time of the purchase.

DawnTreader - 27 March 2010 01:09 AM

Mercel - 27 March 2010 12:05 AM

Well, well, well.  What does everyone make of this?  The word is that Apple is going to announce a mobile, personalized advertising system out of its acquisition of mobile advertising firm (Quattro) in 2008.

Actually, Apple purchased Quattro Wireless in January, 2010. Obviously Apple had plans to immediately leverage the asset at the time of the purchase.

You are correct.  In the same article, I plucked year 2008 out of the part of the story where Apple registered a patent that mitigates ad clutter by turning off ads if the user was ignoring them.  Apple could redefine how ads are presented and leveraged. The bar is being moved once again if this story holds water.  If true, I’d say Apple is moving quite fast with its latest acquisition.

Google were recently granted a broad ranging patent on location aware advertising. It may be that switching on multi-touch in Android coincided with Google being granted this powerful bargaining tool against Apple. But Google jumped the gun, in that Apple doesn’t need to use location awareness in advertising for some time. So the HTC patent battle would be to offset the 6-9 months Google just stole on the phone front by not waiting for a deal.

Maybe Apple is moving to bring the conventional ad industry onside, while Google remains at war with them.

WoW.  Just when you think Apple cannot surprise and delight further this ‘‘iAd’’ comes along. What could it entail? Could each App be its own media generator like a TV station? An App that is constantly being updated like Bloomberg’s excellent market business app or the highly acclaimed Major League Baseball app start running permission based ads on their product? With Apple’s iAd as the intermediary collecting 30 percent along the way? My mind boggles. The story yesterday about Schmidt and Jobs with pics talking together may be instructive. Jobs is reported to have said something like “They’re going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it.”
Aside from making money on this stock it is so much fun (and challenging) following this remarkable company !!!

Patently Apple covered a recent filing from Apple related to LBS and advertising

Apple LBS patent

In October 2009, Apple stunned many in and outside of the Mac community with a patent about an Apple hardware subsidizing plan that would in effect consist of an enforceable ad program mechanism.  The straight forward deal would be simple: if you want a subsidized iPhone or even a free one, for example, then you’ll have to abide by some rather basic rules involving interaction with ads that would periodically appear on your system. Why this initiative-to-be upset so many people is still a mystery to me. Then on December 21, yet another patent surfaced indicating that Apple would put ads on media players accessing Apple’s App Store. On January 4, AllThingsD, Kara Swisher - broke the news about Apple buying Quattro Wireless which quickly spread throughout the Mac community via sites like MacSurfer, 9 to 5 Mac, MacDailyNews and others. In hindsight, we now see that Apple’s patents actually provided us all with a clear heads-up on a new direction that Apple was considering for internet services. In context, yesterday’s published patent added yet another twist in the wireless ad game. While the patent begins with providing touch screen based media player users with a rather valuable method of creating highly functional contact icons for their home page, it quickly shifts to exposing Apple’s ulterior motives relating to ad placements. Though to be honest, it could end up being a nifty idea, really.

The future IMO is location aware targeted advertising.  Wouldn’t it be nice if when I went to the grocery store and loaded up my basket, my mobile phone read all the RFID tags on the items and downloaded all the applicable coupons from the manufactures which are accepted by the cashier with a swipe of my RFID equipped iPhone.  At the same time my account is debited for the transaction amount.  No longer do I need to hunt through the daily ads to save my hard earned dollars.  Magically the iPhone does all the work.  If I save $10 per week the $30 per month data plan is a no brainer and I no longer have to spend Sunday morning clipping coupons.

Apple is starting to show its horns again.

interesting times.

maybe this scenario is a possiblity:
if a user is prepared to accept ads, he or she will be able to subscribe to magazines or newspapers on their iPad free of charge . . . or alternatively if he or she is not prepared to view the ads they will be required to pay a small fee for an ad-free version . . .

this should be very positive for the stock price - thoughts?

the-irish-guy - 27 March 2010 11:33 AM

interesting times.

this should be very positive for the stock price - thoughts?

GOOG down
AAPL up

To better assess Apple’s evilness, let’s first start from Apple’s stated purpose for buying Quattro:

Oppenheimer: “In terms of our Quattro and Lala acquisition, we acquired Quattro because we wanted to offer a seamless way for our developers to make more money on their apps, especially those that are providing free apps.”

Yeah, yeah, there’s _always_ a profit motive behind stuff like this, so I guess we can bring out the ol’ Apple horns again.  But Apple looking into making ads not suck could be a really big thing for the mobile space, and beyond really.  And a win for developers of free apps only helps the App Store.

It seems to me Schmidt figured out while sitting on Apple BOD that Apple would somehow
make money from ads on the iPad. This is why he and Google decided they needed their own platform. So we could say Google picked the fight but it could be for self preservation. Now that Apple is rolling out their own ad media vehicle the story unfolds. Android, Chrome etc. is starting to make sense. Remember that Apple was trying to buy Ad Mob Last year and GOOG scooped them. I would not be surprised if GOOG offered to share the ad revenue from iPads and iPhones but Apple likes to be in charge .... just WAG spec on my part of course

SNIPUS - 27 March 2010 12:56 PM

It seems to me Schmidt figured out while sitting on Apple BOD that Apple would somehow
make money from ads on the iPad. This is why he and Google decided they needed their own platform. So we could say Google picked the fight but it could be for self preservation. Now that Apple is rolling out their own ad media vehicle the story unfolds. Android, Chrome etc. is starting to make sense. Remember that Apple was trying to buy Ad Mob Last year and GOOG scooped them. I would not be surprised if GOOG offered to share the ad revenue from iPads and iPhones but Apple likes to be in charge .... just WAG spec on my part of course

The market’s been migrating to mobile devices for quite some time and Google knows that. Apple’s chosen to leverage its iPhone OS platform for ad revenue and other services simply because it’s the natural expansion of the eco-system. I don’t see a reason for Apple to partner with anyone due to the structure of the app store store and the developer relationships.

Google’s biggest mistake was bringing out a handset. Ultimately Google and Apple are establishing rival platforms to replace the desktop-based operating systems that have controlled the market since the emergence of the PC. The two companies are natural rivals now and Microsoft, despite its dominance in PC operating systems will struggle to keep pace.

I have been waiting for this for a few months, but it may come sooner than anyone expected!

This is HUGE HUGE for the shareholders. It could be every bit as important to getting MEDIA directed TO the iPad as the APP STORE is to the success of the iTouch and iPhone. Now the publications will have an easy and direct way to reach out and supplement the additional costs of gearing up for SUPER RICH content instead of essentially PDF “dumb pages.”

Anyway, the best way to see what QUATTRO/Apple has to offer, is to go and see what they are offering to potential customers.

http://www.quattrowireless.com/

SUPER RICH content without flash i should think . . .