Is Google Ruining Mobile Advertising?

July 10th, 2009

Note: this is being cross-posted, with additional content, from the Adobe Experience Design site, Inspire. I’m their featured guest this week.

According to AdMob, a large portion of iPhone and iPod Touch users claim to use their mobile devices to browse the web more often than they use their desktop or laptop computers. This number is undoubtedly going to grow.

Combine that with an article in AdAge this week examining the problems with Google’s AdSense for Mobile product, and you see the current, expanding dark period for users (victims?) of mobile ads.

Mix in Noah Brier’s thoughts on Google as a market leader and we see a larger risk: if Google ignores UX right now and users acclimate, nobody will have the weight to course-correct where the experience is concerned.

Admittedly, my opinion is that mobile advertising should shrivel up and die. That said, if it’s going to exist, the UX should be at least tolerable and, preferably, stellar.

This is the kind of problem that arises when engineers don’t obsess over UX.

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