Mobile Fix – Facebook flat, the death of retail and mobile scores

Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, rounds up this week’s mobile news.

Continuing on the money tip from last week Facebook have announced their results. Revenues were up 40% on the same quarter last year and mobile at $306m was double that of the previous quarter.

“Today there’s no argument, Facebook is a mobile company…it allows us to reach more people, and we’ll be able to make more money for each minute people spend with us on their mobile devices,” said Mark Zuckerberg

The stats on user growth are still amazing – they picked up another 74 million mobile users over the last quarter.

Whilst this impressed some, (and surpassed analyst expectations on earnings per share) the view from Wall Street was Meh.

The stock price fell initially and ended up around the same. Which suggests that Facebook might have some problems going forward.

With Wall Street so demanding, will Facebook have to push even more ads at their users? We have heard a few people remark that the ads are annoying them.

But of course it’s not to true to say people don’t like ads. People just don’t like irrelevant ads. And Facebook has more data than just about anyone else, enabling them to deliver really relevant ads.

But do brands and agencies care enough to use these scalpel like tools? Or do they prefer to just use the mass reach, with the same messaging for everyone?

We think many brands see the potential of Facebook but are struggling to find people who can help them unlock this.

With the huge reach and more and more evidence that Facebook ads work, we firmly believe that Facebook (along with mobile search) will be the first partner on any smart brands mobile plan. And those that do focus, will reap the benefits.

We are seeing more companies concentrating on Facebook because of this opportunity – Triggit have seen huge success since doing this.

Retail Dead?

Following the demise of HMV, Jessops and Blockbuster there has been some interesting thinking around the future of retail and ecommerce, with Marc Andreessen predicting the absolute death of retail.

“Retail guys are going to go out of business and ecommerce will become the place everyone buys. You are not going to have a choice,” he says. “We’re still pre-death of retail, and we’re already seeing a huge wave of growth. The best in class are going to get better and better. We view this as a long term opportunity.”

Whilst we can see what Andreessen means, we’re see a healthy future for retailers that embrace the digital opportunity and blend it with a great physical experience.

Mobile Scores

The big news in Football this week was Leeds knocking Spurs out of the FA Cup. Shown only on ESPN, most of the nation missed the chance to see a wonderful performance from the team the Premiership need. Now Murdoch has bought the mobile rights to Premiership matches, most of the population will probably miss out on seeing goals on their phones – unless they change the Times paywall policy.

Previous owners of these rights were ESPN and Yahoo, both of whom struggled to make any money.

We were interested that this news coincided with YouTube announcing that they will soon launch subscription channels, where consumers pay to watch and Google share the revenue with the content provider.

Whilst the early partners are all likely to be entertainment firms, we think this move accelerates the likelihood of sports clubs choosing to sell their matches direct to consumers, rather than just through the Premiership or the NBA for example.

There are an awful lot of Leeds fans who would happily pay £5 to YouTube to watch our next FA Cup game against Citeh – also on ESPN. And who knows – it may not be a complete waste of money.