Christian Howes of WebTrends on Google Android

I’m thoroughly enjoying reading the Android perspectives of executives across the telecoms industry — and beyond. I’m really pleased to be able to bring you a slightly different viewpoint from Christian Howes, Digital Solutions Architect at web marketing & analytics leaders, WebTrends.

Over to you, Christian:

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The cynics amongst us might suggest that Google Android is an attempt by the search giant to ‘mop up’ as yet untapped advertising revenues from mobile devices. Google is already responsible for a hugely significant proportion of overall spend in the online advertising market and as the proliferation of mobile devices continues and the use of 3G and wi-fi grows this revenue stream will rocket. However in the short term it will struggle to gain market share as the established players such as Rim and Windows Mobile, along with Apple and the ubiquitous iPhone already have a pretty convincing hold on this competitive marketplace, especially if you consider that in the case of Android we are only talking about one network (T-mobile) and a couple of handsets initially.

In the mid-to-long-term it will definitely become a contender, as the openness of the platform architecture is embraced by developers and the Android market content distribution system swings into action. It’s also worth considering Google Chrome’s role in all of this; the search engine has a real chance of establishing itself as a defacto standard for mobile browsing, making Chrome a critical component in Google’s strategy for the subsequent adoption of Android. The soft launch of Google Chrome could even have been to ensure that users became accustomed to using it in anticipation of the Android becoming the foil to Chrome…

This is all exciting news for savvy marketers, who will be breathlessly anticipating the ability to run more analytical tracking from mobile devices that can be combined with behavioural information captured from the sites and even applications used. Combine this with the ability to identify the consumer from the mobile network itself and in turn reach out with a specifically targeted message, and the one to one marketing panacea may finally be here.

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Thank you very much Christian!

(We’ve more Android perspective to come!)