Apple Announces IAd Platform

 Steve Jobs announced the new IAd platform this week during the iPhone 4.0 release event.  After acquiring a mobile advertising firm (Quattro Wireless), Apple is anxious to provide mobile ad opportunities as another way to leverage revenue on the IPhone and IPad.  

What does this new platform mean for health and human services?  While details are still sketchy, Apple will most likely provide location-specific advertising opportunities and possibly specific application targeting.  Basically, a local agency can provide an ad for HIV testing to patrons of the Grindr application within a certain metropolitan area.

The new platform will leverage many of Apple's existing API calls (like acceleration, GPS and internet connection).  This provides excellent opportunities to pull data from the internet, such as a list of local testing sites based upon GPS, and send that to the user through the advertisement.  All ads are designed in HTML5, which could include embeddable media streams such as video or audio clips. Think testing PSAs or other prevention messages.

We would be interested in developing an advertisement campaign with any CBO or health department when the new platform is released.  Email us at info@nptlabs.net if you are interested in participating in this new and exciting platform.