In today’s WSJ, there’s a story about Apple’s compromises in the mobile ad space, as they face legitimate competition from other players/networks.
This is true. But for a conspiracy theorist like me, I see one advantage that can be played against any of their competitors, should they choose to unlock it.
In iOS5, Twitter integration becomes part of the core iOS experience. If you have a Twitter account, it can be associated with your device. Which means, in theory, it can be associated with your Apple ID. Your Apple ID is the unique identifier (along with your device ID) that Apple can use to track downloads and app behavior. What if you married app usage data with the content you post and/or consume in your Twitter stream? What if you also married that to what you do on sites that you log into with your Twitter ID?
Add mobile payment data and you may have the most targeted advertising ever.
Mobile advertising is still in its infancy. Everything we use to target now is a proxy for what we should be using. But if you want to know where it’s going, you can start by extrapolating like I just did.