Yesterday, I raked Mashable’s Ben Parr for his assertion that Apple’s then yet unannounced mobile advertising platform posed a credible threat to Google. Now that Apple has announced iAd, and seeing how Ben’s rumor reporting was right about it coming, I circle back for a postmortem. Simply stated: I stand by my assertion that his sourcing was weak and that he didn’t support bold assertions that Apple’s still unreleased mobile ad platform is way ahead Google’s.
I was fairly confident that Apple would announce a mobile ad platform today, too, but couldn’t express so yesterday. How would it be when dinging Ben for pushing unsubstantiated rumors that I asserted some myself? In two Betanews posts, I explain why Apple’s mobile ad platform isn’t way ahead of Google’s—in the way asserted by the Mashable post:
Absolutely, Apple and Google are competing in mobile, but not around advertising platforms (Yet, anyway). I explain how, based on my experience covering the companies as an analyst and journalist, using clear examples. Quickly: Apple’s worldview advocates an app-centric mobile Web where the company tightly controls hardware, software, services and application development platforms. Google’s worldview is a browser-centric mobile Web, built around open-source and open standards. Google’s platform is much more open than Apple’s, but by no means totally.
Ben probably is a hell of a nice guy, and Mashable is one of the blogs I regularly follow. Since I razed his reporting yesterday, I will look for opportunity to praise it in the future.