Windows Store In-App Ad Revenue Plummets

jfruh writes "One of the hooks Microsoft has used to get developers to build apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 has been pubCenter, an ad network that's easy to add to apps and provides revenue back to publishers. But many developers found that on April 1 that revenue abruptly dropped by an order of magnitude, with most potential ad impressions going unsold; one developer reported only 160,000 ads served to 60 million requests, a fill rate of less than 0.3%. Since many of the ads before April 1 had been for Bing, this may be a sign that Microsoft is no longer willing to subsidize its developers — and that advertisers aren't that interested in buying ads in Windows 8 apps."

As a customer...

[JMJimmy]

...I know I certainly don't want to see ads in Windows 8 apps.

Serves them right

[i kan reed]

Trying to convert a general purpose computer to a phonelike environment has an inherent failure, that users recognized, then later advertisers recognized that users recognized it. I've heard windows 9 is planned to cede even more ground on the general purpose front. That would actually make me, a windows developer(currently), switch to Linux on as my main platform.

Good, very good

[All_One_Mind]

Both as a developer for nearly all platforms, and as a consumer, I despise software monetization through ads. Sure, I understand that not all apps have a clear method of monetization, and so many developers rely on ad revenue to offset their development time/costs, but I personally won't touch their adware, period, meaning they lost the opportunity to monetize me at all. Adware wasn't acceptable to me in the 2000s with ad supported Windows software, and it's never been acceptable to me on iOS, Android, or Metro, or any other platform since then. It seems to me that ad supported software was largely rejected by consumers up until the proliferation of smart phones, but I still reject them and refuse to support a business model that under the hood is really after collecting consumer data. From my prospective, adware is spyware, albeit less innocuous, but still privacy invading, unwanted, and annoying.

Re:Serves them right

[cbhacking]

Where have you heard that? Considering that Win8 is fully functional as a general-purpose OS (and indeed adds many distinctly non-tablet features, such as Client Hyper-V, the Win+X / right-click-on-Start menu, Windows To Go, improvements to Task Manager, and so on), and that Windows "Blue" (which may or may not be Win9) is probably (based on the leaked early builds) adding back the ability to display the Start button at all times and to boot straight to the desktop, I'm not sure how much less ground it could lose on the general purpose front...

Re:don't want to see ads I pay for at all

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be less of a problem than them being included in the Metro Apps provided as part of the OS. (Like the weather one).

Re:Serves them right

[nnnnnnn]

Win8 is fully functional as a general-purpose OS

Any OS that has two taskbars is not functional.

Not surprising

[Anubis IV]

Apple has run into similar issues with their iAd advertising network that they run for iOS devices. It had an initial rush of advertisers who spent big money placing orders for "premium" ad space, followed up by results that didn't justify the additional costs. Apple extended the program to developers who wanted to advertise their apps in other apps, offering them a smaller minimum ad impression order size compared to general advertisers. That minimum was later reduced, and then reduced again, and I believe reduced yet again, along with the rates involved, indicating that interest has been weak and weakening. It seems to have finally stabilized, but it's FAR cheaper than it once was, with minimum orders that are significantly lower than they used to be.

Meanwhile, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 have been seeing worse-than-expected sales since their launch, so I don't exactly find it surprising that an advertising network focusing solely on them would be faring worse than the one on a platform that is doing quite well. Not to mention that both Apple and Microsoft make their money from selling products to customers, whereas Google, who seems to be running the advertising network that's actually doing well, makes around 98% of its money from selling ads. Small surprise that they'd manage to succeed here as well.

Re:don't want to see ads I pay for at all

[Secret Agent Man]

Yeah, this was one of the major turn-offs for me. I wanted to use a couple of the apps, but once I saw ads I uninstalled them immediately. I have ad-free alternatives that work just as well. Putting ads in the default apps was a big mistake.

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