Forget Apple and Google -- Here’s The Right Debate

What a great week for Apple and Google watching. Apple buys Quattro a day before Google introduces its Nexus phone, AT&T decides to sell Droid phones, Google uses the Quattro purchase to justify its AdMob purchase… it’s enough to make a CES attendee salivate with the possibilities of debates about Apple/Google battles around the Hilton lobby bar.

Problem is, these are the wrong debates if your business is digital content and marketing. Although the past week has been filled with fascinating news and rampant speculation about these corporations that the press is so obsessed with, the agenda for digital sales and marketing hasn’t changed. Any sales call that happens next week might begin with some friendly speculation about what Apple will do with a mobile ad network, or what the iSlate might do to iMac pricing, but eventually that meeting will get down to business… and that business will be all about the Internet audience that continues to be the most efficient and targetable audience in the media world.

Mobile advertising, the way I see it, will be based on downloads for at least the remainder of this year. Is that an opportunity for brands? Absolutely. Should a brand develop an iPhone app, and a Droid app, and a Blackberry app? Absolutely. But the biggest and most consistent branding opportunity still lies with the 200 million active Internet users. And although that number may be approaching critical mass, the interactivity of the audience continues to impress. If you don’t believe me check this out: comScore reports that nearly 4 out of 5 Americans visited a retail site during November, which for some verticals represents a 30 percent increase. I think we can make an argument for 80 percent of a retailer’s business.

Whether or not we win that argument, is a better conversation than whether the Nexus is better than the iPhone.