Google introduced a really awesome feature called app streaming to search results last month, and now a very similar technology is coming to the company’s AdMob ad platform. A couple new app ad formats are being introduced today, the first of which allowing users to try out an app within an ad itself before downloading…
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Google at its I/O developer conference back in May took some time to discuss improvements it was making to its Play Store for Android devices. Of those, one area in particular the company touched on was improving the discoverability of apps through better categorization and the ability for developers to A/B test their listings to find which combination of titles and screenshots would lead to the most downloads.
Another way the company has been working to help developers drive awareness of their apps has been through testing Play Store search advertisements, placing a developers’ app at the top of search results against specific keywords. The ability to purchase these placements is starting to roll out today.
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As part of the Game Developers Conference taking place this week in San Francisco, Google is hosting its own Developer Day and updating its AdMob platform and introducing a new Nearby Connections API for developers.
Using the Nearby Connections API, developers will be able to build a connection between Android phones or tablets and Android TV into games. The Android phone or tablet will display on-screen controls, and game playback will be displayed on Android TV creating a console-like experience without a separate controller.
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Google announced today on its AdWords blog that it will be rolling out new mobile display ad formats and tools for advertisers in the coming months. Google is hoping the new ads, which will be available through the Google Display Network, the AdMob Network and DoubleClick, will help advertisers increase engagement with users on mobile devices.
The ad types include “Mobile lightbox Engagement Ads” that will dynamically resize to fit any ad and device size, TrueView video ads that will roll out more broadly in apps through the AdMob network, as well as an anchor ad format for mobile web apps and magazine style text ad formats that will expand into apps instead of just on mobile websites. Google also announced a number of new tools coming for advertisers to help improve the experience with mobile campaigns:
Google says the new ad formats will roll out to its various ad networks in the coming months.
Google announced today that it has finished the rollout of its new AdMob to more than 200 countries and as a result the company will stop accepting apps into Google Play based on its old SDK on August 1st. Following this initiative, the search giant will sunset AdMob’s legacy platform on August 31st. After this, legacy ad units will stop working and the outdated AdMob UI will no longer be accessible.
Google today announced that it is launching a public beta for its new Web Designer tool that allows users to build interactive ads and other HTML5 content. Google says that with HTML5 ad spend expected to overtake Flash spend within the next two years, it’s aiming to provide easy-to-use tools that will allow publishers to quickly and easily create and publish HTML5 ads:
We’re working hard to solve this development challenge by offering agencies powerful yet easy-to-use tools for HTML5 production. In this vein, we announced DoubleClick Studio Layouts for HTML5 back in August, which lets you create HTML5 ads in minutes, and last week we announced Ready Creatives in AdWords, which creates HTML5 ads for you in seconds. Today, we’re excited to announce the public beta of Google Web Designer, a new professional-quality design tool that makes HTML5 creative accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler.
Google walked through a few of the features of Web Designer in its blog post:
It also noted that access to Web Designer will be free for all, at least for the time being.
The Web Designer beta is available to download on Google’s website. Google has a getting started guide here, and high-speed demo of an ad being created in the Web Designer beta is below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHj7fqbNaQw&feature=youtu.be
Google announced updates to its AdMob ad network, which it acquired in 2010, including improved app promotion, strong filters for ad relevance, local payments eliminating currency conversions, and more.
Developers will see the changes roll out over the next few months according to Google.
Software maker Oracle estimated that each day’s worth of Android activations makes Google approximately $10 million in annual revenue while also strengthening its Google+ service, German patent blogger Florian Mueller wrote on his FOSS Patents blog today. Oracle made this claim at a German court in regards to its patent infringement claims against the search giant:
While this case awaits trial, more than 700,000 Android-based devices are activated every day, all fundamentally built around the copyrighted Java APIs and the enhanced performance enabled by Oracle’s patents. Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google.
Oracle did not explain its math, however, leading Mueller to suspect that the figure is based “on the assumption of annual advertising revenues of $14 per Android user.” Interestingly, Oracle wrote in court documents “Analysts have predicted that the number of new Android devices will reach 2.5 million per day within twelve months.” However, it is not just about mobile advertising, the success of Android is benefiting Google’s other properties, namely its Google+ social network…
Hot on the heels of a plethora of yesterday’s Android announcements, Google has launched a new site aimed at app developers. In a nod at “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, a sci-fi comedy series by Douglas Adams, the company named it “The Guide to the App Galaxy by Google”.
Available here, this useful new place is meant to “help app developers, regardless of platform, build a business on mobile – whether they’ve just launcher their first app or are looking for additional tips as they grow their portfolio“, Google says. Resources include Google’s AdMob network to promote apps via paid campaigns or cross-promote apps within one’s own portfolio.
It’s all about monetizing lazy users who aren’t keen keen on paying for Android apps as much as their iOS counterparts. In addition to the freemium model, the site notes, developers will benefit from better understanding of the ways to monetize users with in-app adverts and in-app purchases as opposed to one-time paid downloads.
Hint: Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate the spaceship through the site.
It didn’t take long for the iPhone location tracking issue to escalate and get blown out of proportion. The story spread like a wildfire as we learned that both Google and Apple were summoned for the May 10 Congressional hearing. That was just a warm up, though. Reuters reports that South Korea police is after the search giant, having raided their Seoul office on Tuesday.
The reason? AdMob, Google’s mobile advertising arm, was illegally collecting location data from Android users without their consent. That’s the official line the country’s authorities provided to Reuters.
The probe into suspected collection of data on where a user is located without consent highlights growing concerns about possible misuse of private information as the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets increases.
We suspect AdMob collected personal location information without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the raid and said the company was co-operating with investigators. This latest development follows-up on the news that the governments of South Korea, France, Germany and Italy are considering probing Apple over the location data gathering fiasco.
