Bring "The Cloud" Down to Earth

70% of smartphone users have incomes above $50 thousand per year.

53 percent of iphone users are over the age of 34.

-- http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/iphone-vs-android/

The iPad and "web books" based on Google's Android platform are signs that mobile OS ecosystems are expanding beyond smartphones and the Web. People find unique new uses almost every day. Local promotions and advertising is an emerging use.

Superbowl ads demonstrate that advertisements can be part of the show. Delivering rich content and an enjoyable experience to the early adopter demographic is the premise of iAds, the Apple version of "advertisements that people actually want to watch".

The Apple pitch is that nobody reads internet advertising, nobody is reading old media advertising. The only way to change that is by engaging the user with cool content. Apple's starting price for an engaging and emotional iAd, put together by their developers, is one million dollars. The Nissan Leaf has grabbed a lot of free publicity by being one of the first iAds.

-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-_xa_m7MXU

Internet bandwidth is the choke point restricting delivery of rich content to mobile devices. HD movies are about a gigabyte per hour of viewing. Based upon AT&T pricing, mobile bandwidth cost is roughly $15 per gigabyte. iAds, and HD content served from the Web, however enjoyable they may be, incur bandwidth overhead when served.

Local delivery is an option that can serve practically unrestricted amounts of rich, high value content to mobile devices with zero bandwidth costs.

How to find local wifi hot spots on the latest Droid, iPhone, BlackBerry:

Finding Wifi Access Point on Popular SmartPhones

Notice in this instance the wifi could be designated as LOCAL ONLY to alert users that they are not going to be able to get to the Web on this connection, only browse local content.

On a local intranet, viewers can consume all the rich content they want, without paying for internet bandwidth. When this hot spot serves content of interest to them, they are truly free to enjoy it as they will. If they have the latest iPhone4, they can enjoy Facetime with other iPhone4 users connected to this local wifi.

-- http://www.youtube.com/apple#p/u/2/R1wbQdVezio

Just like other uses being discovered for smart mobile devices, this takes nothing away from the existing possibilities, simply adds one more option to the mix.

Serving local new media content, in the simplest form, only requires a Web server and a wifi transmitter. Optional content management systems and ad tracking as shown below can make a local intranet system look and work much like the full Cloud version of the Web.

A purely fictional demo of a local intranet site with banner ads on front page:

Advertising Banners on the Front Page

Big Smith ad clicked:

Big Smith The Band

Touch Press ad clicked:

TouchPress Magical eBooks

Chocolate powered racer ad clicked:

Chocolate Powered Racer

Note that all advertisers may include rich media, pictures and video, stuff that people may actually want to see.

If advertisers are paying for banners, they also want to be able to gauge effectiveness by tracking impressions and clicks. Impressions are the number of times the banner was displayed on the site:

Click Tracking

The site and ads above are purely fictional, put together strictly as a demonstration of some possibilities. I personally find them interesting, no reason other than that.

Big Smith, the Band http://www.myspace.com/bigsmithband

Touch Press Living Books http://www.touchpress.com/

University of Warwick racing http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/racing_car/

Why start exploring new ways to engage customers with hyperlocal new media content? Why not? In the new media world the options are changing almost daily. Local content served locally is a great way to discover for yourself the possibilities on this new frontier. It is an opportunity to fill the gap between ads that nobody wants to see, and iAds that few can afford.