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In the last fortnight, Apple has attempted to kill the web as we know it by promoting ad blocking in its new iOS. Ad blocking means you don’t see ads on Google, Facebook, YouTube, the Guardian etc. Since iOS 9 was released on 16th Sept, 3 of the top 5 apps in the App Store have been ad blocker apps.
Ads clutter up webpages, slow down page speed and eat battery life, who would want them? On the other hand, it is handy having the sum of all humankind's knowledge in your pocket, equally accessible by all, for free. Not to mention the communications valhalla we live in these days in which friends and family the world over are only a finger click away, again for free. If Apple succeed in shutting down internet ads it will demolish the digital media landscape as we know it. It looks to me like 21 of the world's top 25 websites are totally dependent on ad revenues for survival. Without ad revenues they would have to charge us to consume their content. This would be tricky, it would create a need for a user-friendly payment mechanism for consuming digital media. I wonder how Apple would suggest we pay for our web browsing & app browsing on our Apple devices?
In other recent news from the mobile giant. Apple launched Apple Pay in the UK this month - 5 days before they unleashed ad blocking!
Could Apple completely disrupt an industry from the ground up and make us all pay producers for something i.e. internet content, that we were already getting online for free? Well they did it with iTunes…
Remember the big Net Neutrality debate last year? Well, in my opinion this is Apple’s play at creating a two speed internet with better services for those who can pay for content. This is not egalitarian and as such, an affront to net neutrality.
As two well-known Craggy Island residents would say, down with this sort of thing.
In other news, Digital Media Dinosaurs Google (joking, joking) announced they are following Digital Media Dodos Facebook (ok, I'll stop now), and allowing advertisers to create audiences in AdWords by uploading email addresses. This is savage news for savvy remarketers. Cookies are a very flakey technology for capturing an audience. Cookies give you an audience on one of their devices for a limited time. Email addresses are a much more robust asset for capturing audiences. Email addresses live a lot longer than cookies and give you the opportunity to target your existing customer base in a way cookies don’t. We’re working on some super-exciting audience targeting strategies which we will share with you soon.
Facebook, not wanting to be caught resting on their laurels, launched Instagram ads on Wednesday of this week (30th Sept). We’d our fingers crossed that this would be an extension of their excellent Facebook advertising platform, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. Bring it on!
And closer to home, the Irish online economy is thundering ahead with 62% growth in Q2 year on year. You might have seen our Q2 E-Commerce Quarterly Study covered in the Irish Times. You can digest the full study here.
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