Mobile Commerce Everywhere

Mobile 1.0: Serving Up Ads to Eyeballs

Nearly 20 years after Web 1.0 and AOL, we are returning to an era of captive user attention and walled gardens, manifested most acutely on mobile devices. The mobile platforms of today are meant to control the services, content and marketing messages that are directed at a user—from messaging apps like WeChat, which act as wrappers around other services, to the smartphone OS itself, which is pre-loaded with system-level apps for nearly every utility and core service. The services where people spend time on mobile devices are increasingly hungry and extending their tentacles to capture even more of it.

As a result, the vast majority of mobile publisher revenue is generated by ads that are measured and sold based on impressions, views, and engagement—metrics tied to attention rather than outcomes. Publishers and the advertisers they serve aggressively push messages via autoplay video ads, pop-up banners, takeovers, pop-unders, scroll throughs, and any manner of ad surprises that separate and distract the user from the underlying content, intruding on a reader's experience with often-irrelevant information.

Only Google and Facebook have the sophistication to target accurately based on interest or intent. This has ensured that these two companies are capturing ALL of the digital ad industry's dollar growth, while the rest of the publishing industry declines in aggregate. But even Google and Facebook have begun to overload the user—Google returns ads rather than organic results for two-three pages on commercial mobile searches, while Facebook loads a carousel of ads at the top of each user timeline and one ad for every four Instagram photos—and will be forced to reduce ad load in 2017. As a result, users have thrown up their arms in frustration and disgust, hoping for a better publishing model that aligns interests with information.

The Turning Point: Mobile Commerce Everywhere

In this cluttered mobile environment, it was refreshing to learn of the New York Times' acquisition of The Wirecutter on Oct. 24 for $30M. The purpose of The Wirecutter is quite straightforward:

Wirecutter's purpose : to help people find great things, quickly and easily. Through rigorous testing, research, and reporting, they create straightforward recommendations that save readers from unnecessary stress, time, and effort.

The Wirecutter's purpose reminds one of Google's philosophy, as spelled out in "Ten things we know to be true":

_We know your time is valuable, so when you're seeking an answer on the web you want it right away—and we aim to please. We may be the only people.