What is the impact in digital marketing of the proliferation of different Operating Systems for Mobile, i.e. Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Firefox OS, Ubuntu, etc

In my personal view, the biggest impact on digital marketing of the proliferation of OS for Mobile would be the need for speed to catch up with synchronizing the compatibility and optimization for the different mobile platforms.

In today’s market, most companies are still resistant or slow in optimization for the different OS platforms for customers who are using different mobile devices. Hence, when more and more different type of OS starts to surface in the market through the different mobile devices, and at high speed rate, consumers may not be able to enjoy full optimization on their mobile devices when their OS is the newest in the market. This is especially so with the latest trend in “multi-screen” users in every household, where consumers uses multiple mobile devices at the same time at home or at work and the different mobile devices are of different OS.

However, it is also due to the above trending of fast growing mobile devices with latest OS that will greatly contribute to the higher demand in digital marketing. This is especially so for news and publications sector, where the demand for creation and maintenance of news for consumption on more mobile platforms are exceptionally high, which in a way generates demand for digital ads placement as well.

According to many different reports, mobile ads grew 80% in 2012. At $2.6 billion, mobile now accounts for more than 7% of total digital ad spending. eMarketer projects it will hit 21% by 2016.35. At the end of the day, although conversion rates vary by mobile operating system, it is still important for digital marketers due to continued rapid growth in mobile search traffic. Therefore, rapid optimization for mobile platforms across different OS will definitely lead to greater ROI for digital marketers.