CLASH OF THE TITANS: Apple’s Steve Jobs (pictured) is drawing fresh blood in his all-important battle for ad dollars with Eric Schmidt of google. (REUTERS)
Score one for Apple.
The company made an aggressive entry into mo bile advertising yesterday. CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a new mobile ad platform, knocking Google and saying current mobile ads “suck.”
The “iAd” will be built into Apple’s new iPhone operating software, and allows interactive ads to be embedded into applications that run on its devices, including the iPad and the iPod Touch. Apple will also sell the ads.
The move dramatically ramped up Apple’s ri valry with Google.
The Internet giant has an extensive mobile ad network and is gaining market share with its own mobile operating system, Android. But Google is also facing pushback from reg ulators, with signs mounting that the govern ment will chal lenge its acqui sition of mobile ad firm AdMob on competitive grounds.
Jobs said that the iAd will give developers a new revenue stream. “We want to help developers make money with ads so they can keep their free apps free,” Jobs said.
But Apple also stands to make a chunk of change. Right now it gets a cut of revenue from programs sold through its App Store, but nothing from free, ad-supported apps.
It will keep 40 percent of iAd revenue, while developers get 60 percent.
Jobs said most mobile advertising out there “sucks.”
When users click on an ad they are usually taken to the advertiser’s Web page and must find their way back to the app.
Jobs said iAd will display so-called rich media ads — featuring video and interactive content — without leaving the app.
Jobs showed off the iAd at an event to preview the new iPhone operating system, which lets users multitask by switching seamlessly between third-party apps without draining battery life.
Although developers can preview the system now, users will have to wait until summer, when Apple is expected to roll out a couple of new iPhones.
iAd is Apple’s first foray into advertising since it acquired mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless in January. Jobs acknowledged yesterday that he first tried to buy AdMob, the leader in serving up ads in iPhone apps, but Google beat him to the punch.
“Google came in and snatched them from us,” he said. “They didn’t want us to have them.”
Ad executives said iAd is a vote of confidence in the future of mobile advertising and takes ads on Apple devices to the next level. But they said it is not necessarily a game changer for the rest of the mobile industry.
“With the highly splintered mobile space as it exists today, even a great solution like this is a solution that works in a vacuum,” said Adam Kasper, director of digital media at Havas’s Media Contacts. “This is an ad platform that works on a limited amount of the mobile universe.”
Jobs also said that Apple had sold 450,000 iPads since its Saturday launch.