Fragmented Future Of Mobile Ad Networks
in the coming year, we could see the top three smartphone device makers all have their own mobile ad networks. And RIM’s ad network could also be prohibited from serving ads on the iPhone with Apple’s policies. The result of this would be a more device-centric, fragmented, mobile advertising market. Already Steve Jobs is promoting Apple’s iAds as a revolutionary ad format optimized for the iPhone and iPad. RIM and Google could be forced to develop and tout their device-centric ad formats.
And thus, advertisers would be encouraged to go to each device manufacturer for the ad formats that promise the best clickthrough rates. It would be a nightmare however for advertisers and agencies to have to split their spending between all the different networks. Advertisers hate fragmentation. They love scale: buy once, plaster everywhere.

