Mobile ad network Millennial Media is releasing an SDK and the PadMedia Creative Suite, with new creative ad formats built specifically for Apple?s iPad.

The PadMedia Creative Suite will be included in the iPad SDK when it is released tomorrow, April 9. The PadMedia creatives will be formatted and available on other tablet devices later in 2010. 

?There is a lot of hype out in the market on the iPad, but at the end of the day, advertisers want to reach consumers, and if consumers choose the iPad, we?ll be able to connect brands with these consumers,? said Mack McKelvey, senior vice president of marketing at Millennial Media, Baltimore, MD.

?Our developers expect us to move quickly as new devices enter the market,? she said. ?We currently have numerous developers in our iPad beta trial and we?re excited to push the full SDK with the PadMedia suite the first week that the iPad is on the market.?

If developers would like real-time information on the iPad or other devices, Ms. McKelvey said that they can visit the company?s developer portal at http://developer.millennialmedia.com.

In February 2010, Millennial Media announced that it acquired TapMetrics, a San Francisco-based mobile analytics firm focused on application usage and behavior.

TapMetrics? software suite provides detailed analytics to enable developers to better manage their application sales and revenue.

Since adding $16 million to its cash position in November, Millennial Media has expanded its offerings to include handset manufacturers and platform partnerships that seek to access its base of developers and publishers. 

Millennial helps developers and brands reach iPad users
Millennial Media?s iPad SDK is code complete, and will be deployed after testing with beta publishers on-device is finalized this week.

Developers will be able to download the SDK through the developer portal mmDev.

In the interim, the iPad SDK is available for private beta through the portal as well.

For advertisers, Millennial Media is releasing its PadMedia Creative Suite, which includes standard mobile ad units and new unique ad formats for the iPad, including:

o Floating Canvas: Advertisers choose where a rich-media ad will expand upon click, leveraging the large canvas of the iPad.

o RTP (Return-to-Play): Specifically geared towards entertainment developers, these ad units let consumers respond to an ad, pausing their application experience and resuming when they are ready.

o Motion Creative: Using the iPad?s accelerometer capability, all ad units, including the Floating Canvas unit, can become interactive when the user turns or rotates the iPad in different ways. For example, these ad units will allow the consumer to pour a beverage into a glass when the device is physically rotated from portrait to landscape.

o Full-page Interstitials: These full-page ads appear upon application launch or during transition in game play. Advertisers can use the creatives to brand or promote in-ad interaction and post-click actions.

Ms. McKelvey said that this new set of creative units have been created specifically to help everyone in the new iPad ecosystem of application developers, publishers and particularly, advertisers, maximize the media capabilities of this new device.

Millennial Media?s iPad SDK and creative ad units are more validation that the iPad is a new class of mobile device that delivers an experience as good in the home as it is on the road, according to Ms. McKelvey.

Apps are still red hot
In 2010, eMarketer reported that consumers will spend a projected $6.2 billion in mobile application stores, and ad revenues derived from those applications is expected to generate $600 million worldwide, according to Gartner.

In addition, Gartner estimated that mobile application stores will see more than 4.5 billion downloads in 2010.

Apple alone reported 3 billion downloads from the App Store as of January 5, 2010, and 26 percent of U.S. Internet users said they were likely to download apps from the iTunes App Store on the iPad, according to comScore?s March 2010 report.

In January, Paul Palmieri, president/CEO of Millennial Media, published his initial thoughts about the iPad on the company?s blog, here is an excerpt: 

The iPad is a big mobile device, not a stripped down PC.  Tablet devices would ultimately be based on mobile platforms:

o The mobile experience is inherently different from the desktop experience.  Trying to cram the wired web into smaller, mobile devices just does not work for mobile consumers.

o Mobile users are more willing to pay for content and are much more responsive to advertising?if done correctly?than surfers on the wired Web.  

? The price is right.  Apple sees the iPad as a mainstream, mass-market device. The unlocked, non-contract, 3G support is healthy for the industry and good for consumers.

? The palate for mobile advertisers has just been expanded. With the iPad and numerous other tablet devices poised to reach the market early in 2010, we are excited to work with advertisers to help them get the most out of this new class of mobile device.

? The monetization roadmap for developers increasingly needs to be a coordinated business strategy. New screens, new platforms and new opportunities mean complexity for developers. Developers should partner with providers who give them broad device and opportunity coverage in a coordinated fashion, and that have direct relationships with the advertisers who seek these new and powerful audiences. 

?The in-app opportunities for the iPad are exciting,? Ms. McKelvey said. ?By utilizing the accelerometer functionality, imagine a consumer mixing and blending a cocktail all within an ad, or a beverage company allowing a consumer to turn their iPad horizontally and watch and hear a soda pouring into a glass on the other side of the ad.

?Return to play allows gamers to interact with an ad, pausing their game, and returning to it when the interaction is complete,? she said. ?These are initial ad units in our initial iPad SDK, and we?ll certainly add in-browser creatives and other capabilities over the coming weeks.?