Gasta Tech News: Mobile TV

Mobile TV is not that far away, Gasta.com has been looking at the leading companies that are ready to offer the middlepath software to enable mobile devices to become Mini television recievers.

Mobile TV services are based on two different technologies: the incumbent 3G-based services and the now emerging DVB-H-based services. Axel Technologies' solutions enable mobile TV services based on both technologies. The company's flagship product, Salmonstream Mobile, enables the implementation of full digital mobile TV service based on DVB-H. In addition to comprehensive middleware products, the company develops user interface software that supports several digital television standards.

Gasta Tech News: Mobile Email for the Masses

Mobile Email for the Masses

Until recently, mobile email use has been limited to business users who can afford to buy an expensive smartphone and are willing to accept a costly data plan. But there have been strong signs over the course of 2007 that the age of mobile email for the masses is upon us. The combination of the adoption of industry standards enabling push email on mass market feature phones and affordable service plans is set to make mobile email for the mass market a reality. Evidence of this shift is seen in particular in emerging markets, where fixed-line infrastructure is limited and PC penetration is low, whilst mobile phone penetration is soaring.

The mobile operators in emerging markets now have the opportunity to make the mobile phone the primary method of accessing the internet, with mobile email probably being the most popular application for both business users and consumers. As a result, I can see mobile email consumption in the emerging markets of Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe leapfrogging the 'developed world' in Western Europe and the U.S., which will mostly remain limited to high-end business user email.

However, to make this happen, it is important to use middleware that can support the majority of the mobile phones that are already out there in those markets. Communication only works if it can be sent and received; so, by using standards such as IMAP (LEMONADE), SyncML, and email-to-SMS conversion, we will see email and synchronization services extended to every single mobile phone on the planet.

While we are all drawn to sexy new devices such as the Apple iPhone, the fact is that smartphones represent only a tiny portion of the addressable market. The vast majority of phones in use today (and in the foreseeable future) are mass market feature phones. Therefore, it is essential for service providers to offer push email and synchronization solutions that work well on the phones that are already in users' hands today. In 2008, the time is right for mobile data pricing plans to fall and, as customer numbers increase, we will start to see mobile email becoming the next generation SMS.

*Source: Visiongain Mobile Email Market Report

Gasta News: Google to Aquire AOL?

Imedia has a story about a rumour, Gasta News picked up this rumour before but the latest development by yahoo/microsoft makes it even more interesting now.

News of Microsoft's unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo may have far-reaching implications for the mergers and acquisitions frenzy that has come to dominate interactive industry headlines. According to a report in The New York Times, a redrawing of the industry landscape could put AOL in play.

While rumors have long circulated about AOL's parent Time Warner looking to spin-off the internet giant, a united Yahoo and Microsoft -- still a big if -- could prompt Google to reconsider its position with respect to AOL.

Google, which handles search for AOL, already owns a 5 percent stake in the company.

Gasta Advertising: CPA model

Gasta CPA Model is proving more and more popular.

Mason Wiley: Writing on Imedia Connection

Advertising on social networks can be very expensive -- with little payoff. Here's an easy solution to this cost problem.

Social networks are commanding attention -- for good reason. Millions and millions of people visit them daily (and to many an employer's chagrin, hourly). Given the sheer number of users and their length of stay, the big social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and others should be an advertiser's paradise. But they're not -- yet.

Ironically, the huge number of impressions generated by social networks poses challenges for advertisers. For example, buying all those eyeballs on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) ad model can be prohibitively expensive for many. And unlike sites centered around a specific interest, social networks attract so many different types of people that targeting is difficult. Behavioral targeting offers promise, but hasn't yet evolved to the point at which it can guarantee a positive ROI.

A new ad model has emerged that can. The cost-per-acquisition model (CPA) provides advertisers with a guaranteed way to ensure ad efficiency, while also opening the door for social networks to monetize more of their traffic.

The benefit of CPA for advertisers
The CPA model is ideal for social networking sites because it eliminates virtually all the risk for advertisers of buying on a CPM basis. As a performance-based model, advertisers pay a fee only for the results their CPA campaign generates. That result can be any transaction specified by the advertiser. For example, an advertiser places a CPA campaign on ESPN.com. Rather than paying for all the people who see that ad, the advertiser only pays the publisher for each user that not only clicks on the ad but also follows through and completes the desired action as defined by the advertiser -- anything from an email submit or qualified lead to a sale or paid membership.

Through its 1:1 ratio of pay-per-action, CPA changes the rules for advertisers. The need for narrow targeting to eliminate ad waste becomes irrelevant since there is no waste. Similarly, there's almost no possibility for click fraud since advertisers only pay for results. And unlike CPM, the results of a CPA campaign are directly verifiable through tracking technology, which enables advertisers to determine which ads convert and which do not. For example, an A/B test of landing pages can be measured against the actions completed via any number of creatives or landing pages as well as the conversion processes. The path to purchase is easily tracked back to the source, including the placement of the original creative.

But the single greatest appeal of CPA for advertisers is that it is performance-based. With advertising costs directly tied to results, it provides them a way to advertise with full accountability and control. Advertisers simply establish the actions -- signups, sales, leads, etc. -- they want to reward, and establish how much they're willing to pay. If online publishers think the campaign will generate sufficient response with their audience base to meet revenue goals, they can choose to run the campaign.

Certainly, by running campaigns based on the promise of a potential future reward, publishers are taking a risk. But given that CPA campaigns are more aggressively focused on generating response than the many revenue-sharing campaigns available, it's a gamble that has been paying off for them. Now, social network publishers are finding that CPA can pay off for them, too.

The benefit for social networks
Like any publisher site, social networks want to maximize advertising revenue. Cost-per-thousand is the most prevalent model they use to do it, and it seems to make sense because CPM focuses on the number of impressions generated -- and these sites generate a lot of them. The problem is that these impressions come from an incredibly broad cross-section of the population, many of which can be irrelevant to a given advertiser. As mentioned above, although these sites generate billions of impressions, targeting the right ones is challenging. While targeting users based on where they have clicked (behavioral targeting) can help improve the odds, it is by no means an exact science or a guarantee that a sufficient number of users will perform the desired action.

These inherent challenges under the CPM model have limited the appeal of social networks for advertisers. The result has been a tremendous surplus of excess inventory that despite all best efforts just can't be sold. And a lot of those billions of impressions have gone un-monetized. But now that's changing thanks to CPA.

With CPM, the advertiser assumes the risk by paying the publisher for uncertain potential results. In CPA the publisher assumes the risk by running ads for uncertain potential payments. But when its remnant inventory at issue, the publisher runs no risk; it is inventory that would otherwise go unsold. So it only stands to reason that a social networking site will make more money running CPA ads on remnant inventory than it can just selling space based on CPM alone.

Conclusion
The CPA model is not new, but it has evolved to be a highly cost effective way for advertisers to use social network sites, and an effective way for social networks to generate increased revenue. And new widgets and applications are emerging for social networks that can make CPA even more powerful in the future.

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