For developers, I see it increasing considerations, opening up some level of fragmentation in the iOS development environment and process that we haven’t seen to date. Up to this point we’ve only seen a limited number of iOS devices brought to market, and all of those have been developed for the AT&T network capabilities, policies, and data handling. There is consistency and control there. Verizon is a different carrier with different requirements and different data policies. These differences will have subtle impacts on consumers, but bigger implications for developers and marketers.

When you look at absolute percentages, I think we’ll see a spike in iPhone market share. But for the everyday consumer, this is still a high-end phone with a high-end data plan, so that in itself defines a limited (but still large, active and desirable) segment of subscribers. If they had announced the iPhone was coming to Verizon and you could do all the cool stuff possible on it for $50 a month, then we’d have something more to consider.

Yet there is another factor to consider — one that will be compelling to see play out as the mobile ecosystem matures — that we attach emotions to our consumer electronics, and especially to our mobile devices. Understanding and appreciating this emotional connection is core to developing a correct approach to mobile marketing.

I see Apple products, iPhones specifically, as similar to baseball fans. Lots of people claim allegiance to the New York Yankees — many more than any other team. The Yankees bring an excellent product to the field that has clearly dominated over time. However, the total number of baseball fans that root for other teams dwarfs the Yankee fan base. In fact, odds are that when you ask one of those non-Yankee fans how they feel about pinstripes, you will get an impassioned, negative response. You would think these other fans should hold the same disdain for the Yankees as they do for any other team that comes to town, but some reason they hate them with a passion. Perhaps they resent them for their previous success, access to resources, and their culture-influenced branded affect. Whatever the reason, there’s a low percentage of chance of ever converting them to a more positive feeling about them. With many other choices out there for consumers, I see parallels here that might play out similarly in the mobile phone arena.

For my take on how the Verizon iPhone announcement will affect m-commerce, check out this article.

What are your thoughts on the Verizon iPhone?

First off, a cookie is a small data file that is placed on your computer when you visit a website. It allows the website to recognize you as a user. For example, a cookie allows a site to remember your user information and can help you do cool things like shop more efficiently online. There are two types of cookies that companies typically use on websites to enhance user experience: first party cookies and third party cookies.

The difference in these cookies is pretty much who brings them to the “party.” (The party is the domain that is specified within a cookie.) A first party cookie means that a company directly placed the cookie onto your computer so that the domain from the website matches the company’s domain. An example of a first party cookie is Amazon.com placing a cookie on a computer. A third party cookie would have software company XYZ placing a cookie on a computer on behalf of Amazon.com.

From what I can find, some people block third party cookies on their computers. This is because they perceive third party cookies as an attack on their privacy. Some folks believe that third party cookies provide advertisers with their personal information. That’s not the whole story, but I’ll go into detail on that in another post in the future.

People do not tend to block first party cookies. They see first party cookies as beneficial to their lifestyle. For example, a first party cookie could save their passwords on a site and use their online behavior to give them more relevant offers.

There is software out there that can provide you with first party cookie integration that gathers useful online behavioral data and better matches products and services to your customer’s needs. Understanding the consumer, and giving them what they want, are basic tenants of marketing. First party cookies (and first party cookie integration) facilitate a better shopping experience.

You may be asking yourself, what exactly is behavioral targeting and how does it affect me as a marketer? I did a bunch of research and here’s what I found.

First, there are two different types of behavioral targeting, which are very different from each other. There is onsite behavioral targeting and network behavioral targeting. Both have their respective advantages and disadvantages. Onsite behavioral targeting is when a company collects data for a specific user only on their site. The company then takes the data they collect and uses it to post more relevant offers to that user while they’re on the site. For example, an eCommerce company knows the past purchase history of a customer, and offers complementary products when they return to their site.

Network behavioral targeting is when a company collects a user’s data across an unlimited number of Internet sites. This means that they track you no matter what site you’re on and then serve you ads and offers all over the Internet based on your past online activity. For example, you visit several different eCommerce sites in search of horse attire. Then when you go on to a site like Yahoo, you’d see ads related to horses; or, on a site like Ebay you’d only see content that relates to horse gear when you first hit the homepage.

Recently, there’s been a lot of concern among consumers about behavioral targeting. I’m not an expert, but it seems like onsite targeting is less invasive and creates less “ad noise.” I can see how some consumers see network behavioral targeting as an online stalker. To me, onsite behavioral targeting is like a sales person making suggestions to me.

Here are a couple articles I think are great for beginners to find out more about behavioral targeting and how marketers are utilizing it:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006362&src=article1_newsltr

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3630107