Despite launching iAd in 2010, Apple’s foothold in the mobile advertising business hasn’t really taken off yet. Tim Cook even addressed Apple’s advertising strategies during his interview at the All Things D tech conference this week, and stated advertising isn’t core to Apple’s business.
Apple’s enthusiasm for mobile advertising might start picking up soon though if today’s latest rumor turns out to be true. According to Business Insider, Apple is planning to launch an ad exchange, similar to way Facebook and Twitter have recently done.
The new rumor claims that Apple might launch the new ad exchange inside iAd. Here’s how Jim Edwards describes the way Apple’s ad exchange might work:
“In theory, an ad exchange would work by allowing advertisers to target users as they enter the Apple eco-system on their iPads, MacBooks, various web sites and apps. The system would alert advertisers that an Apple user arrived. Any advertiser tracking that user with a cookie (a piece of software that tracks previous web sites you’ve looked at) could then bid to serve an ad targeting that user.”
This is the first time that we’ve heard any rumors about Apple working on an ad exchange, so we advise taking this with a healthy dose of pessimism for the time being.
That being said, Tim Cook hired Todd Teresi to run iAd last year, so there might be bigger things in the pipeline. Teresi was the VP of Media Solutions at Adobe, and would be one of the most qualified guys Apple could hire if it does want to start an ad exchange.
Source: BI
