anyone heard about Appayable? sounds too good to be true

Few android developers I recently met have started using appayable (www.appayable.com) and our quite pleased. Has anyone here tried them out? They are basically paying you for data sharing driven by their SDK (they do not place ads). They add on to anything you make today and do not replace anything. This sounds too good to be true so I was wondering if anyone can share more info on them or their own experience

How much do they pay?

What permissions do they need?

They seem to need “Social Info” to pay well, so I guess they work better for apps that already has that info (ie, Facebook or G+ connection). Anyway, did anyone try it?

I didn’t try them, but they need GET_ACCOUNTS permission

Just been looking at them again as they sent me an e-mail.
Would like to hear from anyone who is already using them!
The main question I have is if their data collecting meets Google Policies?
I know we are all overly-paranoid now (who knows if that’s a good thing), but Google is relentless.

Heavily redacted.

Open their JAR file and determine if you are comfortable extracting information from the user’s device and sending it to their servers. Given the recent Heyzap fiasco, it is likely that their SDK is not Google Play policy compliant without a EULA.

On the other hand, there is probably good money to be made.

Cheers for that @mind

That hardly adds up to a “Social Profile” by any stretch of the imagination. That is just an outright rip of all valuable data.

Oh well. STEER CLEAR.

I got an email from them today as well. Thanks for the heads up, guys. Saved me a lot of time checking them out.

Richard,

My name is Keith Petri and I am the individual whom sent you the message in regards to the Apayable SDK. I’d like to address each of your points individually and am happy to address any additional concerns you or other users may have with our SDK.

First and foremost, we are a company with the interests of developers in mind. We value your time and monetary investment in building and marketing mobile applications - and much like the traditional publishing industry we see the troubles in generating revenue from your users. There are three issues facing the mobile ecosystem that are causing a nominal (if not, minimal) amount of revenue to be passed from advertisers to publishers in exchange for inventory and the eyes of YOUR users:

  1. Engaging Ad Units: This is being addressed and we will see great new video pre-rolls, interstitials, engaging display units, etc. in the coming months.
  2. ARPU: Mobile commerce is catching on and the trust of consumers in the channel to complete transactions (or attribute to desktop transactions) will continue to rise. This quarter - with the holidays - will be the largest one yet.
  3. Most importantly, a lack of mobile data for use in targeted advertisements.

We work with advertisers and advertising platforms to provide insight for targeted ad buys to i) increase CTR and hit the KPIs set forth by the advertiser, which in turn will ii) increase the CPM cost and optimize the amount of revenue YOU, as a developer, can generate. Appayable is a platform built for developers/mobile-publishers to benefit from.

Appayable does not hide the data we collect. We openly share this information - as I would have shared with you via email - if you had waited for my response. There is only so much information I can provide in an introductory email to notify developers of our service.

Our data collection, analysis, storage and licensing practices abide by all currently accepted legislation and regulation including that of the Google Play store (since its update on September 23rd) and even participate in industry working groups that discuss such issues and the future of advertising and technology. You are correct that there are certain regions in the world (here is high-level map: Forrester’s Global Data Protection and Privacy Heatmap), but we are more than aware of the limitations and abide by all applicable laws.

Perhaps most importantly, Appayable is a service. You can choose to work with us, or not. If you do not want to earn residual, ancillary income without interrupting user experience in your apps (which look great, 1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhs.wordhero & 2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhs.anagram), then so be it. Just like any ad platform (i.e. AdMob), you do not need to work with us. In addition, nearly all permissions are optional for the developer to include. You were kind enough to decompile and share our JAR file, but you neglected to mention that everything is controlled by the individual publisher.

We work with over 6,500+ applications and none have been blocked/banned/etc. We are not flagged as a virus, as we are not one. Please do not talk badly about our business. If you would like to speak with me, I am happy to jump on a call, have a webinar, meet in-person (we have offices in Israel, NYC, and California), etc. Just ask.

~ Keith

Keith, thanks for clarifying,
I’ll check it out.

Please, don’t. It is the worst kind of network and will get you banned.
@mind - why did you redact your post?

@Appayable
Would you please elaborate on your payment model and please share some real numbers from your current developers .
Is it region related , do You accept all users from All over the world or not ?
Do you show EULA ?
What is your supported payment methods and schedule ?

@Magnesus : I have no wish to interfere with a companies business model. That’s when they get lawyers involved.

That being said, I exchanged emails with Keith, then had a long call with him and provided some suggestions to the CEO/Founder of the parent company.

What they seem to be doing is this:

  1. Build a social profile of people by scraping facebook/twitter/web/etc. They have spent the last few years doing this (NSA style!)
  2. Classify each profile with around 250 ‘indicators’ … eg: ‘likes chocolate’ (my own made up indicator)
  3. Use their SDK to … errr… ‘acquire social information’ from a device
  4. Link the device to the social profile like this:

set 1: { device identifier, other information }
set 2: { other information, indicators }
Now if you do the equivalent of an SQL JOIN, you get:
new set: { device identifier, indicators }

This is very valuable. This information is now effectively anonymized and they can sell this information to advertizing companies on a subscription basis.

Imagine you were a chocolate seller. You are bidding for impressions on a RTB system (like MoPub’s). All you see is the device identifier + misc other info. HOWEVER, you subscribe to the Appayable service, and so you know the owner of this device likes chocolate. So for this impression only, you might choose to bid 5 times what you normally would to make sure the chocolate lover sees your chocolate advert!

App developer gets more per impression = happy
User sees advert for something they like and the advertiser does not get their personal information = happy
Appayable provides valuable info and gets paid = happy
Ad buyer gets higher CTR and more product sold = happy
Google… not sure what they will think… since previously they were the only ones who had access to all this information and could do this sort of targeting.

It is the missing link in ad targeting. Their parent company is backed by Nielsen Group (Nielsen - What People Watch - What People Buy) which is very well known and respected in the industry.

So… that is what I got out of the phone call. It could be all wrong… or not. I just wish Appayable would spell this out on their website so they look more legit. Right now, their website could be construed by a paranoid person to be a shady ‘we will rape your device and sell your personal information’ company…

@Mind, thanks for helping out with a great overview of our technology.

@Magnesus, if you would like to discuss our platform in more depth, I’d be happy to address any of your concerns here (a public forum), via email (keith [at] appayable [dot] com), or on a call (email me to setup a time). As any one of our thousands of developers will tell you - based on first hand experience - none of the publishers in our community have ever had an app blocked. I do not necessarily appreciate you making these statements, as we are very focused on being transparent in our model and in-line with any industry regulation or current legislation. Looking forward to speaking.

@Pharaoh, thanks for your interest in Appayable. I’d be more than happy to answer your questions here, but feel free to contact me directly as well (keith [at] appayable [dot] com).

1. Would you please elaborate on your payment model and please share some real numbers from your current developers.

  • Appayable’s parent company, eDealya, has established partnerships with Nielsen and other market research firms, agencies, businesses, brands, and DMP/SSPs we license our data for multiple purposes.

The only data collected is the device fingerprint, other applications installed, as well as the social media accounts identified on the device. However, we immediately anonymize the data and do not store any identifiable information in our database. The reason we do not require location, usage, or browsing data is a result of our algorithms ability to characterize an individual based on their recent tweets or updates. We use Natural Language Processing and pattern matching to identify audience segments for our data partners.

From a simple Twitter handle (only publicly available information - no login or oAuth used here) we can identify 250 attributes through our algorithms. These attributes represent static demographic information (i.e. age, gender, income, etc.) and dynamic attributes (i.e. planning a vacation, upcoming birthday, returning to school, and other life-events) that affect a consumer’s buying behavior through shifting his immediate need.

2. Is it region related , do You accept all users from All over the world or not ?

  • As far as revenue, it depends on the value of the data. Different audience segments are more or less valuable based on the data partner. We cannot project anticipated revenue. However, I can say that the average app with 100,000 has seen earnings of roughly $450 per month. Our top developers have been remitted over $8,000 each since our launch in April 2013. All this without interrupting your users - so please see the added value here.

3. Do you show EULA ?

  • Out Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are displayed before signing up. Nearly all permissions are optional for the developer to include on their own volition. Any user can opt-out of our service via a URL. If you want more information, I am happy to review each and every clause included in our policies and even recommend best practices for yourself, as the publisher.
  1. What is your supported payment methods and schedule ?
  • We currently only support payments via PayPal. However, as we continue to grow we hope to support additional methods in the future, including bank transfers (as those are most requested by our current publishers). Payments are remitted on the first Monday of each month if the balance due exceeds $50.

Happy to continue the conversation.
KP

I think you miss-read that one. Having looked at the jar file, I did not see anything that would display a EULA.

It is my opinion that failure of the developer to show their own EULA (which includes terms covering the capture of personal information) will result in an app that is NOT Google Play policy compliant. I don’t see this being spelled out on the Appayable website. It should be.

@mind, it is being added to our Signup page as we speak. It will be on this page, displayed, and required to be agreed to, prior to creating an account: https://dev.appayable.com/signup

You missed it again. The EULA is not needed on your website… each app that uses your SDK needs to implement its own EULA… if it does not, then the user has not explicitly agreed to their private data being captured and the app is not compliant with the Google Play policy (at least, that is how I read the policy!)

Exactly my point.

Just as we state in our ToS that our JAR file is not to be decompiled, we also state (and are now adding to our signup page to be even more explicit) that the developer/publisher must include in their own Privacy Policy and/or in their description on an App Store, a disclosure of what data is collected, how it is collected, why it is collected, and with whom it is shared - so the user is aware.

That is exactly what the previously shared text states.

You realize nobody reads those … right ? :slight_smile: