Opinion

When 51Degrees arrived in 2011 we changed device detection with our innovative open source business model. The software, source code and intellectual property is freely licensed. A flexible subscription model is used to provide data updates. We only do Device Detection, and we do it better than anyone else. We’ve driven all the innovation in the Device Detection space.

James Rosewell, CEO and Founder of 51Degrees, asks why the world needs 5G and how it will impact the Programmatic Advertising and Publisher industries. 5G isn’t a tactical issue to be addressed in 2018 alongside header bidding, viewability or brand safety. It is, however, something to put on the strategic roadmap and to start preparing for. 5G presents a clear opportunity for Adtech and Publishers to address many systemic problems over a realistic timeframe. Prepare now to embrace the 5G opportunity in the early 2020s.

Tablet device sales have been declining in recent years. In Dec '17, our data showed that 59.83% of our clients' web traffic came from mobile devices, with 16.22% of that coming from tablets. While not a formidable figure compared to smartphones, it still represents a large enough share to show that brands and e-commerce sectors still need to respect that tablet usage is still present and they need granular device data to optimise their online content. In this article, we take a look at the most popular tablets globally and Apple's dominance in the tablet market.

In August 2017, 51Degrees wrote an article outlining Samsung Internet usage trends. We revisit the usage trends four months on and highlight what has changed.

In July 2017, after eight long years of deliberation, the European Patent Office (EPO) finally granted Afilias Technologies Ltd patent EP2245836B1 "Determining a property of a communication device". 51Degrees, the company I founded and still run, opposed this patent not because we think it affects any of our current products but because it attempts to monopolise the earlier WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource FiLe) solution now run by ScientiaMobile along with other well-known computing techniques.

We check out the re-release of an old favourite feature phone and test the device detection results. The new Nokia 3310 does not have a standard User-Agent compared to the majority of mobile devices we detect. The User-Agent for the Nokia 3310 comes as part of the HTTP header produced by Opera Mini, which is the pre-installed data-saving browser for this device.

This essential blog compares the approach used by 51Degrees and DeviceAtlas. It describes the high-level operation of each product, areas of difference and associated intellectual property. In simple terms, it will help readers match products to common use cases and formulate tests for evaluation.

At 51Degrees we detected User-Agents for the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL over five months before the phones were publicly released, we first detected the development codename of the two devices, walleye and taimen, shortly followed by the formal moniker.

In 2015 we released a detailed blog on Device Detection for Apple iPhone and iPad. Since then Apple has released many more devices. Identifying Apple devices can be challenging and when putting plans in place to optimise websites for mobile devices like Apple, companies have two choices. Try and run a solution internally or simply have 51Degrees do the work for you with the added benefits of the Apple device properties we provide in our data files.

Because we endeavour to support companies and hobbyists with our unique open source solutions, we are sharing some JavaScript that will enable you to set up an internal solution if you wish. We would, however, encourage you to save yourself the time and effort and use our data files to support your strategic website optimisation decisions.

This blog was published on the IAB website on the 31st of August 2017.

James Rosewell, CEO of 51Degrees writes about the misconceptions hindering publisher revenue growth and the impact on header bidding.

It has been 7 years since web professionals went mad for mobile first, Responsive Web Design (RWD), single URL, one size works for websites on every device. Every major publisher in the UK got swept along. Adtech and advertisers had to fit in. Have web professionals forgotten the power of server-side optimisation or the techniques available to them?