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Author: Dan Gendro

Microsoft is using mobile apps to draw users

Dan Gendro | June 11, 2015

The company is hoping to win over device owners with a spectrum of Android and Apple compatible applications.

Microsoft has been releasing a range of different mobile apps that are compatible with Android and Apple iOS operating systems in order to help to draw the attention and usage of those device users.

The company has been acquiring startups to help to give its own mobile application offerings a boost.

For example, Microsoft recently purchased a tech startup from Germany called 6Wunderlkinder. Now, it is able to offer mobile apps that compete with some of the core applications that had previously been used on other operating systems. For example the Keep app on Android or the Reminders application on Apple now has competition through the Wunderlist that was created by the newly acquired company.

That is only one example of several moves that Microsoft is making in order to draw users for its mobile apps.

Mobile Apps - Microsoft At the same time, the company continues to promote its own Windows operating system for mobile devices. That said, in the grand scheme of things, the number of consumers who are actually purchasing devices based on that OS are quite low compared to the number of people who are using Android and iOS based gadgets. Therefore, the company is ensuring that it will be able to appeal to a larger market by ensuring that its smartphone apps will run on the most popular platforms and not just its own.

The offerings from Microsoft include its Office programs for Android and iOS, which it created itself and released earlier in 2015. That said, it also has a calendar application called Sunrise, which was developed by a company that was purchased by the tech giant back in February. For its email application, it uses Accompli, which was the result of a purchase of another startup.

So far, the mobile apps that Microsoft has been offering – including its own and those developed by startups that it has acquired – have been receiving considerable praise from tech reviewers. It could be that the company may be starting to redefining its niche within the new device marketplace.

Mobile marketing is about to get a flashier image boost in Google search

Dan Gendro | June 9, 2015

The search giant will be replacing its text-only ads with those featuring images, which will likely come with a cost.

Google is going to be changing the way that mobile marketing looks on the device screens of searchers, as it will be changing its text-only search ads in order to include more visually appealing images.

Many have predicted that this feature will likely come with an added price tag for advertisers.

According to the Google AdWords product management director, Bhanu Narasimhan, “Text ads are informative, but there’s not much emotion there.” That said, with the new mobile marketing ads available in the search results, it will make it possible for device users to flip through photos that will feature a product or service. This way, they can see more before they move on to the next step of seeking more product information or even making a purchase or book a reservation – which will be possible directly from the search screen.

This will represent a major step forward from the traditional mobile marketing text ads that blend into the search results.

Mobile Marketing to get cool image boost on Google The hope is to take a major step away from the text ads that can seem to sink right into the background, in order to replace them with a mobile advertising experience that stands out a great deal more with visually appealing features.

That said, brands that would prefer not to shell out the additional money for the mobile ads will still be able to use the conventional text-only option. These will still also include the click to call option that has already been available through Google’s mobile search, but now in the case of the ads with the images, it will help to encourage consumers to actually act on what they see, instead of having their eyes skim right over it.

This service is lightly to help to boost the overall mobile marketing spending that is already experiencing a considerable rate of growth. For example, eMarketer has predicted that this year in the United States, alone, there will be $12.85 billion spent on search ads over smartphones and tablets. That amount will represent a higher amount of spending growth than that of desktop ads.