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Comment by adamhowell | Hacker News Reader

Wow, "iAd" - Apple's new mobile advertising offering - is Apple's first foray into advertising, isn't it?

Being able to keep the user in the app while showing them high-quality ads is a huge advantage. And most likely the source of the recent, supposed kerfuffles between Apple and Google executives.

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It kinds of put the Steve Jobs quote about Google going into multi-touch phones but Apple "not going into search" in perspective.

They're now competing in Google's main cash cow market.

Mobile ads are a tiny fraction of Google's business.

Mobile ads are going to be near 100% of future online advertising business. If you think most computer users want to be tied down to a desk all day, you're kidding yourself.

The future of small, handheld computing devices is coming.

What matters is not whether people want to be tied to a desk but whether they are.

I seriously doubt that. A real desktop computer is still the easiest device to use for work or non-casual activities. I don't think it's going away, and I don't think that the whole internet will be ported into individual apps for mobile platforms. Real websites can still display normal ads when you visit from your phone's browser.

I've personally heard Eric Schmidt say that mobile is the future of of Google (and this was several years back--they saw it all coming). Mobile phones will provide more people access to the Internet than PCs in the very near future. The phones are already there, it's just your definition of Internet access as many are very low-tech devices that can only use SMS to get mobile data.

Desktop computers will remain popular for work in information based economies like ours, but there are billions of people out there who will access the Internet soley from mobile devices.

(I'm currently sitting in front of my computer but am writing this on a mobile device.)

100%? I doubt it... What about advertising in the social space?

Is iAd going to compete with AdSense presented on notebooks? I don't think so.

It's not whether or not you are tethered to a desk, but what OS you run and what your relationship to your computer is. I have been using notebooks for the past 5 years and I would not call me mobile in any but the most literal sense.

But a rapidly growing fraction of Google's business.

It's not that easy to grow 1000% when you start little...

Mobile advertising is growing, but that doesn't make it a big part.

Google has said themselves they think mobile advertising is their future. That is the reason behind the huge android push. It isn't their main cash cow now, but they know it will be and I think I heard they think that within a 5 yearish span.

The focus on mobile doesn't change the fact that it's online advertising, and that's what Google wants to keep control of the most.

Great question by Gruber:

"There's got to be a developer kit for making these HTML5 iAds, right?" (http://twitter.com/gruber/statuses/11835821330)

Even before this I started thinking that an online app that made HTML5 banner creation cheap & easy would be huge. Now, jeez, seems like a no-brainer.

This is a problem for HTML5 content in general, isn't it? There's nothing on par with the Flash editor for creating HTML5. Adobe is the company I'd expect to create a visual HTML5 editor, but they're not going to give up the Flash war.

A good HTML 5 authoring tool is going to be so valuable, that whoever has the balls to built it is going to look pretty smart in a couple of years... and Adobe is either going to buy them, or ride Flash down into irrelevance.

It may be Adobe that creates it (or it may not).

I'm thinking Adobe is going to build one, and its going to do horrible 'one size fits all' type stuff, like Dreamweaver.

You've got a couple months before OS4.0 goes live. Hope you go for it! Quick idea: quick-start ad templates that can be created and shared and sold. But not outright community sourcing, invite required. Threadless mashed with iStockPhoto. Also, thumbs up/thumbs down to allow consumer vote on the iAd

+1 on templates. Plus: pay extra for hosting, stats, A/B testing, etc.

We brainstormed this idea a couple months ago but put it on the backburner because of still poor HTML5 support across browsers, etc.

Fall is a ridiculous deadline... but, admittedly, also an inspiring one ;)

Actually, Apple hosts the ads. I guess that might limit your ability to do A/B testing, too.

It all depends on how Apple structures the ad submission process. From Steve's pause before responding to the "will ads need to be approved?" question, I am going to guess they haven't entirely fleshed it all out, yet.

It's called Dashcode, and it ships with the OS X Developer Tools.

He mentions a 60/40 split on ads, can anyone speak to how this compares to other services?

(edit, the ads are basically mini-apps, apparently in HTML5)

Google, the 800 lb gorilla in this space, keeps the split completely secret probably cuz it's not a percentage but a value that changes over time.

Admob, the iPhone advertising platform that Google bought had the same split as iAd, 60/40 for CPC and 50/50 for CPM on banners. There are others that pay higher, more here: http://mobiforge.com/running/story/mobile-advertising-how-mo...

Given that Apple knows a lot about people's buying history and demographics from the iTunes store (music, apps, etc.), I expect they're going to be able to target these ads pretty effectively. I predict you'll see Apple being pretty selective about which advertisers get into the iAds program — they want high quality brands that will be of real interest to users.

From engadget's live blog:

>Q: Will there be an ad approval process? A: (Jobs... super long pause) Um... well there's going to be some process... but these people are paying to run ads. So, I'm not sure it'll be anything other than a light touch.

So that implies that they won't be too selective about the advertisers, though they might just charge enough to ensure that most advertisers are high quality.

These do look ridiculously sticky.

Now if they can figure out how to target this stuff AND deliver high quality... damn.

iAd - or Apps as ads are great for national brands, but not for everyone else. Google owns online advertising b/c it is point, click, type, done (not done for optimizing, etc, but for building and deploying).

Perhaps Apple is aiming to be a boutique ad net like the Deck or Federated.

Also - The FTC seems poised to block the Google/AdMob deal (http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0&pz=1&um=1...). Conjecture on conjecture, but if this happens, it would indicate a much more aggressive regulatory environment (makes sense given changing administration), so Apple might face issues of its own. As they said during their presentation, they control ~60% of the mobile browser market....

They control less than 15% of the smart phone market. They are in no danger at all of antitrust enforcement.

True - but the statistic I am talking about is Apple's slide today http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/04/iphone...

10:11AM "iPhone has a 64% mobile browser use share... everything else added together is half the iPhone."

Those are usage stats, not market stats. They don't mean anything.

Usage is the relevant metric when you're talking about advertising.

Under no circumstances is the government going to file an antitrust case based on web usage stats.

I suspect that apps will be the big market for iAd, at least initially. You'll be able to see the reviews, screenshots, and buy the app directly from within another app.

It'll be interesting to see if they offer iAd outside of the Apple platforms. These little HTML5 apps they demoed look mobile specific (location, shake, etc) but you could do something very similar for desktop browsers.

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