As fast as business moves in the technological sector, mobile related business ventures seem to be among the fastest. The technology is evolving at a startling rate, with the number of mobile users increasing every year. This is amplified by how global an industry it is, with reach greater than the Internet, movies, and in some parts of the world, TV. It is into this highly competitive market that Amobee is thrust.

While it might sound like another mobile company with an odd name, Amobee is looking to alter the nature of ads on mobile products. Key to their philosophy is ad-funding mobile content, like text messages, WAP sites, video playback and games, as a complement to or even as a way of eliminating standard fees. Particularly in the case of the mobile game sphere, the possible benefits from this approach are huge.

We chatted at length with Roger Wood, SVP and GM of the Americas for Amobee, to get the bigger picture around Amobee (and to hear more of his smooth, dulcet voice). [Is there something you'd like to share with the readers, Dave? – Ed.]

Amobee's most recent high profile move was one with Exit Games, which despite the name, does not actually make or distribute mobile games. The two companies will serve up targeted and contextual opt-in advertising impressions for mobile games. This will be accomplished by inserting Amobee's HAPI (Handset Application Programming Interface) into Exit Games' Neutron mobile multiplayer solution, allowing Amobee's ad server to display ads during certain key points during the gaming experience.

"At Exit Games, we provide mobile game publishers and developers the best tools across platforms. As we see in-game ads becoming a big part of this platform, so we see this as giving our partners the resources that that they need," said CEO of Exit Games Tom Sperry. "Exit Games is integrating Amobee's API into our back end and we've been working with each other flawlessly. We want to roll it all globally and so far the process has been great."

"What we've developed is a quiet side software model that is light," added Wood about HAPI. "It doesn't need to be re-certified. The most onerous part of creating a mobile game is the certification process. When we integrate our technology into a title, it does not require a recertification.. We make sure the code doesn't alter the game or screw anything else up, so it doesn't require that."

"This alliance [with Exit] helps shows off our technology, on two different phones at the same time," Wood continued. "With our technology, one multiplayer participant might see an ad for Pepsi while another one sees an ad for Volkswagen. This is unique; our competition's systems, you see the same ad and see it over and over again.

"Exit games is the only company of its type, but we're looking for several other companies in the next two quarters. We want to do something unique. Some people might ask, 'Why not have ads on low accessed WAP sites?' We don't think that's a big business. Our competition can do that all they want."

While delivering marketing opportunities over mobile phones isn't the newest concept in the world, the variations and ideas Amobee has are very ambitious. The company looks to provide ads in such a way that it complements whatever the mobile user is doing. Ultimately, Amobee believes their approach will benefit operators, developers, and agencies as well. The company presents this as offering various advertising "value streams."

"There are some formats of entertainment that lend themselves to be ad subsidized, meaning part of the cost is subsidized by ads," explained Wood. "Other forms of entertainment are not meant to be subsidized by ads. For example, if you're going go the Super Bowl, all the ads in the stadium are secondary. We feel wireless carriers will come to realize the fundamentals of the entertainment business. Some of it will need to be ad subsidized and others ad supported. The only way you can be that agile is have an ad platform that's equally agile."

"For these mobile games, we think 'Can you make this ad subsidized (Vanity Fair magazine), or sold or supplemental (ads are just gravy, like in the Super bowl) or simply ad supported (free of transaction, like broadcast CBS)?' We think we're the only company thinking about it in this space," he added. "You have to take games on a case-by-case basis. We think something like the Pirates of the Caribbean game should have a different distribution plan than Namco Classic Packs."

"We can do ads in between levels, after certain levels, before the game, after the game. Let's talk to the publishers to understand the nature of their games. My favorite example is, what if during 24, Jack Bauer was cut off in the middle of a sentence? That's what we're doing in the mobile advertising industry. Also, where's the context of this ad? If you get to a certain level, you might want to have Excedrin because they have a headache from playing too much. You might have to rotate a frequency cap for somebody who plays a game 25 times in the same day. We think about those things, and we think the market will catch on to it."

The sorts of ideas that Amobee has laid out sound like they could be omnipresent in a couple of years. After all, casual games have demonstrated that various forms of advertising are accepted as means of subsidizing or supporting the experience. With the current low rate of conversions from trial to full purchase in the mobile game sphere, are vast amounts of ad supported mobile titles really that far off?

"Yes, I think ad driven games are the way of the future," Wood affirmed. "I think that with our solution, publishers will open up a treasure trove of new titles in an ad funded model. There are dozens of titles that should have been ad supplemented all along and there are also a whole bunch of titles that should have been ad subsidized. If some had been ad supported in the first place, maybe they wouldn't have died. We found 30% of the people came back and engaged the product again when it was ad funded. When we subsidized it, there was a 10 times increase in downloads; when it was ad supported, a 50 times increase. In the whole history of entertainment, supplementing and subsidizing ads have increased its reach. People also realize there's no such thing as a free lunch and are willing to 'pay' in some fashion."

"The biggest thing is [you must] fit the advertising to the nature of the content, please," he pleaded. "We are here for people who want to create the best ads for what they're buying: high impact, high value inventory. The most valuable asset is peoples' impressions, so think about the entertainment experience, for crying out loud."