On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Kevin Duffey <[email protected]> wrote:
> Can one of you guys explain fill rate? I've read the AdMob site.. doesn't > quite click with me. Btw, adwhirl is owned by admob, interesting. So if you > basically need an app that is downloaded 10's of thousands of times to make > a few bucks. By this I mean, if your app is downloaded by 10,000 users, and > they run it once a week, you're not getting many "views" to ads. I am also > confused as to why admob would want to decide to place their ads elsewhere? > By this I mean.. if you request an ad and don't get one back, that is admob > (or other service) deciding that they don't want your app to have that ad as > often as you may be requesting it... but isn't it money for them? I don't > understand why they would control that. As someone who has clicked on ads a > couple of times, I'd much rather see ads faster than slower.. especially > those that are regarding something I am interested in. > > Fill rate is just the percentage of ads requested versus ads actually shown (impressions). So for instance your app might request that an ad be shown, but AdMob might not have any ads to show at that time (based on their algorithms), so nothing is shown. That would cause your fill rate to go down. Your total number of requests will always be higher than your total number of impressions. > Do you guys know if any of these sites "target" users? I am not sure if > their SDK is able to actually watch what a user does and try to target ads > for that user. I am guessing not as that would be pretty intrusive on a > mobile device. > I kind of think not. I can see an instance where they might capture the device ID and keep a record of what kinds of ads they click, but from my experience, it doesn't seem to affect what types of ads are shown in the long run. > > On a side note, are any of you guys making enough to live off of with > android.. or is it basically a little spending cash and you just enjoy > writing apps for android? I know the rare apps like iFart on iPhone and > others that make the developer thousands, and in some cases millions in a > short amount of time, but I would rather see a more sustained income coming > in.. at some point your app is going to go further down on the market list.. > how do you keep people buying it to keep money coming in? I would guess the > free full version with ads is a better way to keep money coming in than the > buy once and that's it. > Nope, not making enough to quit my day job. I tend to play it safe though. I personally don't see this platform lasting more than 5-10 years before the next big thing comes out and everyone flocks to it. So, I write my applications, put them on the market and enjoy what money I get all the while being grateful that I have job security in my "real" day job. Also on this note, it doesn't seem as if the Android Market in its current form is able to allow people to quit their day jobs for any length of time. You would have to push out a new application every couple of weeks in order to make enough...assuming those applications actually are popular. I personally don't see how a dedicated Android company can make ends meet currently. > As well, how do you handle income taxes? If this is too off topic, I'd > appreciate a private mail. I am trying to figure out how all this works and > haven't found any good resource on how the whole keep your app selling on > the market, IRS/income taxes, etc works. > This is beyond my pay grade. Justin
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