Monthly Archives: October 2015

To Grow Again, Yahoo Might First Need To Shrink

October 25, 2015 · by · in mobile marketing, Yahoo · Leave a comment

There’s a one-word answer for why Yahoo has struggled to grow in recent years: mobile. Yahoo’s business was built on a desktop-centric model that mobile is corroding faster than Halloween candy on pre-teen teeth. To find its way to mobile growth, it might have to shrink its PC-focused business. To appreciate the company’s mobile vulnerability, it’s instructive […]

Should Your Mobile Ads Entertain Or Inform? Why Not Both?

October 18, 2015 · by · in mobile marketing · Leave a comment

Americans buy books that claim John F. Kennedy’s assassination was perpetrated by a league of shadowy forces. Flip on Animal Planet, and you can watch a show about the search for Bigfoot. The 9/11 Commission’s report to some is a 571-page lie. Vaccines cause autism. Breast implants cause autoimmune disease. President Obama was born on foreign soil. […]

A Surprise Potential Beneficiary Of Ad Blocking

October 11, 2015 · by · in advertising, apps, mobile marketing, Windows Phone · Leave a comment

As this column has noted before, worries over ad blocking are over-done and almost certainly louder and more extreme than the damage this innovation will actually do to media companies and advertisers. For a moment, though, let’s imagine that ad blocking makes a meaningful impact. If that happens, there’s an unlikely beneficiary: Microsoft. Here’s how […]

The Dying Days Of The Digital Impression

October 4, 2015 · by · in mobile marketing · 1 Comment

In 1999, Hasbro Interactive published Rollercoaster Tycoon, a PC game that allowed players to build and operate their own virtual theme parks. It went on to become one of the best selling PC titles of all time. I had a bird’s eye view of the software industry because I worked in marketing at Hasbro Interactive […]