Ever since Apple’s iAd announcement yesterday, many have questioned whether the lack of Flash is going to dilute the effectiveness and long-term viability of the platform, and what it means for the future of mobile advertising on Apple’s devices.

One such person with a keen interest is Greystripe CEO Michael Chang, who yesterday released a response regarding his views on the whole situation.  Greystripe is an ad-network that utilizes Flash-based transcoding to bring the technology to Apple devices, and as such, was watching the iAd announcement very closely.

“True to Apple’s style, the company continues to improve their products and platforms based on consumer feedback.  We are thrilled with the iAd announcement, it’s a thumb’s up for mobile display and brand advertising,” explains Chang.  “Today Steve Jobs highlighted that mobile advertising is not all about search, that it needs to be interactive, elicit an emotional response and function within the app.  We agree 100% and have been doing this for over 18 months with our rich media iFlash ads.”

He then speaks of the difference between HTML5 and Flash for mobile display ads and the many questions left unanswered during the announcement.  “The in-game ad that Apple demoed today was almost exactly like Greystripe’s Alice in Wonderland interactive ad campaign.  The challenge that Apple faces is that they require HTML5, while almost all digital advertising is built in Flash,” Chang continues.  “Unfortunately Apple’s announcement today raised as many questions as it answered.”

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Today at Apple’s iPhone OS 4 announcement, there was the predictable and laughable lack of Flash inclusion once again for the fourth-gen OS.  Though Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform will be based on HTML5, where does it leave the rest of the ad-world who does use the seemingly ubiquitous technology?

After the event, during the Q&A portion, Steve Jobs was asked yet again about any future plans regarding Flash — even just in iAds — in which he promptly replied “no.”  It’s now clear that Apple will never use Flash, opting instead for a life of HTML5.  While I’m not saying there’s something wrong with HTML5 from an ad-unit point of view, it’s the simple fact that Flash is used in an astonishingly large amount of ad creative already in use from a brand’s inventory.

Now, when advertisers choose to adapt to the iAd platform for distribution, they’ll have to completely re-work their Flash-based ad-inventory instead of simply using the tried-and-true ad-units they already have.  What’s the solution?

I think with Apple’s long-term blockage of anything Flash, we’ll see an uprising of Flash-based transcoding to allow the same experiences Flash provides, but scaled to adapt to iPhones, iPod touches and iPads.  Greystripe has already made waves with its “iFlash” proprietary transcoding methods, and I think similar methods and fixes will be in the works very soon.  That is if Apple doesn’t block those moves as well, which is a strong possibility.

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I’ve always been intrigued with the concept of proximity marketing, but a perceived lack of interest in the U.S has made any news or advancements in the technology all but lost in the shuffle.  To me the concept provides a unique and inexpensive opportunity for marketers, but there has to be underlying factors prohibiting its advancement, but what are they?

With increased interest surrounding mobile marketing, it’s interesting that proximity marketing has been largely looked over, though both concepts are fundamentally different.  While there’s really no definition that exists which separates the two, the easiest way to distinguish proximity marketing from mobile marketing is simply the concept of localized content. Potential advertising audiences must enter a “localized” area such as a grocery store or a shopping center in order to receive the advertisement with proximity marketing, while mobile marketing doesn’t require such an attribute.

Education of marketers in the U.S is one prohibiting factor in my mind, with almost no news coming out regarding the technology, even though numerous companies exist on U.S soil that provide proximity marketing solutions.  Marketers are already bombarded with so-called new-age marketing channels, and adding one more to the mix will confuse the masses even more than they already are.  Still, proximity marketing offers something even mobile marketing in large part can’t provide; being extremely inexpensive and very easy to integrate.

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We here at MMW strive to answer any questions you may have or give guidance in pertinent segments of mobile technology, advertising and marketing to all who request it, but every now and then we receive emails from readers that are just too good not to share.  As such, I’d like to share a quick email we received recently with a simple plea for help from someone struggling with advanced mobile technology:  (anonymous) writes…

Dear MMW – I’ve been trying to recieve collect calls from my boyfriend in jail.. and it doesn’t go threw can u plz help me.. thanks a lot!

While we’re solid in our belief that we know the mobile industry inside and out, collect calling from jail cells seems to fall just outside our area of expertise.  While we appreciate this individual reaching out in her time of need, I can safely say for once that I simply don’t know the answer….

While we all understand the benefits of mobile marketing on a large-scale, why then does the concept of hyperlocal mobile marketing seem to always get lost in the mix?

I live in a small town, filled with small businesses and business-owners locked in to legacy ideals when it comes to marketing.  The thought of targeting customers via mobile devices is a concept that many scratch their heads about when planning their marketing strategy, and usually go back to old-time techniques when finally executing that strategy.

For those located outside the tech-savvy regions of the US, where mobile marketing is deemed the “frontier of marketing innovation,” the concept is still largely overlooked by those who can benefit the most from it – small businesses.  While there’s startups trying to bring the new-age ideals of mobile marketing to a hyperlocal level, it remains shrouded in obscurity for most SMB owners.

In large part, I think it all comes down to simplicity.  Cutting through the big words, various platforms and OSs, techniques and methods associated with mobile marketing, and instead focusing on the bottom line of using method X to achieve more sales/leads/etc should be emphasized on a hyperlocal level.  If SMBs get confused by the concepts, they’ll return to their so-called tried-and-true marketing methods, which may be easy to understand and implement, but not nearly as effective as a simple mobile strategy would have been.

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I’ve long said that carriers continually miss the boat in terms of leveraging their position to capitalize on mobile marketing and advertising, and a new survey reinforces my stance even further.

CSS Insight, in its most recent survey, indicates that most consumers ignore the services offered by wireless carriers in favor of more familiar names on the Web. While the research suggests ways for network operators and phone-makers to maximize the uptake of the mobile Web, results indicate that many of these opportunities are being overlooked (again).

Most carrier-based “portals” and services such as Nokia’s Ovi are losing out to familiar Web brands like Facebook, Amazon and Twitter, who carry much more name recognition and worldwide appeal than that of a single carrier.  Still, carriers should have recognized the potential the mobile Web was inevitably going to provide and acted before it was too late.

Granted, the aforementioned survey was conducted in Europe, which differs slightly in terms of mobile tech and uptake than the US, but the sentiment remains the same- carriers have, again, failed to recognize an opportunity for immense revenue and user-interaction that would have kept them in front of their subscribers instead of pushing them away to third-party mobile Web content providers.

Martin Garner, Director of Mobile Internet at CCS Insight and one of the report’s authors, said: “Our survey reveals the true picture of mobile Internet usage among young consumers in Europe’s top five markets.  It shows that as smartphones become more affordable, people are using them to access the sites they know and love on their PCs.  Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers are losing the battle to define the mobile Internet experience, despite the huge sums they’re pouring into sites that compete with the familiar Web names.”

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One of the biggest complaints coming from those involved in mobile marketing and advertising — and those sitting on the sidelines — is the lack of tools to properly measure the effectiveness of mobile ads.  It’s one of the largest inhibitors for brands leery of the concept, and a primary roadblock that has to be overcome…but how?

In yet another study, it was found that more than half of executives would inject more money into mobile marketing if there was a better way of measuring its effectiveness – 58% to be exact, who simply want greater accountability in the segment.  ”As our research shows, there is a clear appetite for an industry-wide measurement platform,” said O2 Media Managing Director Sean Gregory.  ”The launch of Mobile Media Metrics will more than meet this need.”  While an industry-wide measurement platform would be ideal, it’s simply not viable in the current state of mobile marketing.

The problem is fragmentation of information.  Running a mobile campaign relies on multiple platforms, varying technologies and fragmented metrics from various sources, leaving many holes in its path.  You’re most likely faced with overlapping reports from ad-networks and agencies, duplication of conversion tracking to your site/mobile app and the daunting task of bringing everything together into something that’s actually usable.

While there’s no clear cut answer, and standardization and centralization of mobile metrics is a pipe dream at best, we’re left at the mercy of existing analytics providers and ad-networks to come up with an industry-wide solution.  The only answer in my opinion is for every ad-network and metrics-provider to liberate the data they accrue, and make it available via APIs.  Developers could devise a solution or create a mashup of sorts to centralize and make sense of all the fragmented information that plagues mobile marketers and advertisers.

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