A recent estimate by Gartner claims that the number of smartphones will see a huge surge in popularity in the near future with a 27% growth predicted for this year. With more and more mobile phone users moving towards smartphones, the mobile internet market is likely to see terrific growth in the next few years.
Taking a cue, Google recently announced on their blog that they were implementing an update to their ‘Adsense for mobile’ section that hitherto let website publishers go for a one format ad for all visitors from mobile phones. Moving ahead, Adsense mobile publishers will see two options to choose from. One option is to choose ‘All Phones’ and the other is to choose ‘iPhone and other high end devices’. The difference – iPhone and other smartphone users will be shown much larger ads.
Explaining the move, Google writes in their blog, “We’ve done this by introducing a new JavaScript snippet that is easy to implement and specifically optimized for mobile to reduce latency on high-end mobile phones. Furthermore, this new snippet will allow publishers to select additional ad unit sizes from common AdSense formats“.
Is there a way for website publishers to choose not to display obtrusive ads to their visitors? No, says Google. Even if the publisher chooses the ‘All phones’ option, Google will determine the handset and display larger ads if it were one of the smartphones.
Google hopes the users love this new change as it provides them with “increasingly relevant and device-optimized mobile ads that load faster“. In a way, Google is doing it right. Unlike its desktop counterpart, mobile internet has failed to grow big till now. By displaying more prominent ads wherever possible, Google gives the publishers an opportunity to earn more. This will bring in a lot more publishers to the mobile internet segment which is the trigger point for more advertisers to join in thus building the entire ecosystem.
With 3G yet to come by and lack of smartphone penetration in India, the news does not affect most of us. But for those who do own an iPhone or a Blackberry, get ready for some more obtrusive ads on your phones.
