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GOOGLE STRIKES DEAL WITH COMSCORE: Google will soon begin integrating comScore's Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) measurement into its DoubleClick ad business in order to boost advertisers' ability to track online ad campaigns in real time. This is a multi-year deal that will cover display ads on video and on mobile devices. Google will also be able to share more data and analytics with its advertisers. The hope is to bring bigger brands away from TV and to the digital world. (USA Today)
MORE AD NEWS: Ad network InMobi has launched a new interactive video ad platform that is centered on mobile. InMobi hopes to broaden itself from just a pure digital ad network to focus more on the growing opportunity in mobile, as well as personalization. The interactive part of the platform allows advertisers to serve up contextualized and location-specific video ads to mobile users. (TechCrunch)
NOKIA TO MAKE ANDROID PHONE: Nokia plans to launch an Android-powered phone as early as this month, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company is expected to introduce its new device at the Mobile World Congress trade show on February 24. Nokia and its Symbian-powered phones were one of the strongholds in emerging markets before the real smartphone revolution of the past few years. Now, Android phones have taken over and forced Nokia to reconsider its strategy. Take India, where Nokia once held a majority share of mobile phone sales. Last year, Android powered 93% of phones shipped in India, according to IDC.
This is a bit of a catch-22 for Microsoft - its newly purchased handset business, Nokia, is now partnering with its toughest competitor in the smartphone platform wars. Nokia had been developing an Android device prior to the Microsoft sale, but Microsoft appears willing to sacrifice some market share to Android in order to kickstart Nokia sales while it refashions the Windows Phone platform to better compete on the global market. Either way, both Nokia's rush to move to Android and Microsoft's acceptance of this strategy illustrate how both have come up short so far in the mobile market. (Wall Street Journal)
QUOTE OF THE DAY - "The iTunes 'empire' of content and services would be ranked as number 130 in the Fortune 500 ranking of companies (slightly below Alcoa and above Eli Lilly)." - Horace Dediu on iTunes incredible standalone revenues, which are often ignored when judging Apple's overall value. (Asymco)
FOUR REASONS THE TABLET MARKET IS FAR FROM DEAD: In response to the Recode piece, "Our Love Affair With The Tablet Is Over" by Zal Billimoria, who is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Kevin Tofel of GigaOm outlines four reasons why Zal's take is overblown and how we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the tablet's potential. The reasons include disruption later on in the product lifecycle, changing mobile broadbrand prices, an early stage tablet app market, and that phablets' growing popularity is actually a boon for the tablet market and not smartphones. (GigaOm)
WIKIPEDIA VS. THE SMALL SCREEN: Many prominent online media companies have successfully made the jump to mobile, but Wikipedia's lack of a real operating budget has precluded its ability to really hammer down on mobile. Only 20% of Wikipedia's readership comes from mobile, while many large Web properties approach 50% readership on mobile. And the online encyclopedia has even lower editing activity on mobile. (New York Times)
YAHOO RESEARCH LAB KEYS IN ON MOBILE: Marissa Meyer began building back up Yahoo's research group Yahoo Labs when she came on board in 2012, after the group had languished over previous years. The semi-independent research division has pivoted to put a special focus on mobile, which Meyer sees as a major weak point for Yahoo. Technology developed within the research lab has already been used in Yahoo's well-received weather app, which was released last April. (MIT Technology Review)
VIBER UP FOR SALE: Israeli's prominent business newspaper The Calcalist is reporting that messaging app platform Viber is about to be sold for $300-400 million to a major Asian messaging platform, though details about which platform are still unclear. Viber has over 200 million registered users. (GigaOm)
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