Windows Store In-App Ad Revenue Plummets 196
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."
Re:don't want to see ads I pay for at all (Score:5, Interesting)
One more reason why people are not too keen on metered internet.
Unlike say a cell phone, I know if I use it for 30 minutes I have used, 30 minutes. Whereas if I visit a random website it might have multiple videos playing and will eat up a bunch of data, and I have no way of knowing this till the page has loaded.
Re:Good, very good (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I'm curious. What sort of revenue can you expect from adds from a user?
Say I use an app like the Slate.com app and read 6 articles a day. Plus the menu page, that's seven possible impressions. Maybe they'll be obnoxious and split some articles over two pages, so maybe 10 impressions. Let's say I'm religious about this app and use it every day. So you serve me 3,650 adverts per year.
Are you paid on ad views or clicks? What sort of revenue would you expect from one user who sees just shy of 4,000 adverts per year?
I'm trying to figure out what the value of a non-ad version of some popular free apps should be.
How much money do devs make from ads? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:As a customer... (Score:5, Interesting)
...I know I certainly don't want to see ads in Windows 8 apps.
Exactly right.
Screw them and their ads. Want to make money? Create something worthwhile and sell it. Want to make money from ads? Fuck You. I get bombarded with enough ads already.
Re:My opinion on this will be unpopular (Score:4, Interesting)
Basing anything on ad revenue is a cursed way to make money, and in the long run, unsustainable. Google and other large ad companies, including Microsoft may be making money, but that income from ads is not sustainable forever. .
I don't know about that. The television networks have been doing it for 60 years. That seems pretty "sustainable" to me.
On the other hand I would agree that the idea of "anybody can make a buttload of money from ads on the Internet" is a flawed business model. I particularly like this one comment from the article:
"I used to have a good bit of impressions / day then it dropped to barely nothing last week and now we're essentially at zero. I do only free apps so this is killing me! How am I even supposed to cover my Windows Azure costs let alone all the labor invested!" wrote user "silverdollar."
Translation: I want free money and I'm pissed that I"m not getting it.
My opinion on this will also be unpopular. Not making enough money from ads? Boo-fuckking-hoo. Get a real job and stop annoying us with your bullshit ads.
Re:don't want to see ads I pay for at all (Score:4, Interesting)
This could be abused. Create a website taylored to appeal only to a particular social or political group your dislike, and hide somewhere an image tag - display size 1px by 1px, but actually referencing a two-gigabyte jpeg. While your victims are on your site browsing whatever you put up there, it's draining their credit with a ridiculously huge background download.