New York-based mobile adver­tis­ing plat­form Star­tApp is going 3D, a move which should come as lit­tle sur­prise to any­one hold­ing media jobs in mobile adver­tis­ing agencies.

Feel­ing the mobile pulse

Let’s be more spe­cif­ic: Star­tApp, which was found­ed in 2010, has kept a keen eye on devel­op­ments in mobile phones adver­tis­ing from the out­set, and like every­one with media jobs in this sec­tor, it’s noticed that mobile app con­sump­tion is bur­geon­ing, over­tak­ing web brows­ing in 2011 and poised to over­take TV view­ing time too.

The num­ber of peo­ple using mobile apps has leapfrogged by 35 per cent since last year, reach­ing 127 min­utes per day as opposed to just 70 min­utes spent surf­ing the Web (a con­trac­tion of 2.4 per cent).  But there’s a conun­drum here, which is exer­cis­ing app devel­op­ers and entre­pre­neurs alike: how to make mon­ey out of this rip-roar­ing take-off in mobile app usage?

Gart­ner fore­casts that mobile app down­loads will total 309 bil­lion by 2016. But 93 per cent will remain com­plete­ly free. So how to make a buck? Star­tApp thinks it may have a lucra­tive answer: the 3D App­Wall, which effec­tive­ly tur­bo-charges in-app ads giv­ing them a vibrant new lease of life.

And it couldn’t have come at a more appo­site time: a new study from Juniper Research sug­gests that in-app adver­tis­ing spend­ing will sky­rock­et from last year’s $2.4 bil­lion to a stun­ning $7.1 bil­lion by 2015. Releas­ing 3D ads now seems like an espe­cial­ly time­ly move.

Sky­wards

The New York start­up foment­ed a storm in the mobile adver­tis­ing world last year when it revealed that in just two years, its tech­nol­o­gy had been down­loaded no less than 800 mil­lion times.

Star­tApp helps devel­op­ers mon­e­tize by means of mobile search and in-app adver­tis­ing, and it does both exceed­ing­ly well. Down­load StartApp’s lit­tle soft­ware pack­age and a new search icon will appear on your home page. When­ev­er you use that icon to con­duct a search, a cut of prof­it will qui­et­ly go to Star­tApp and its app devel­op­ers. About one fifth of Android devices now car­ry the tech­nol­o­gy, which gives Star­tApp an envi­able acco­lade: biggest inde­pen­dent search dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work in the West.

App devel­op­ers stand to make lucra­tive prof­its in the com­ing few years as brands switch mas­sive­ly to mobile. Star­tApp aims to help them do just that.