This is garbage guys…if you look at @chrisdaniel0421 posting history he is always trying to stir up negative comments about Airpush. Probably works for a competitor of theirs.
As everyone else in this thread is reporting, I have also clicked many Airpush ads and never get this stuff. The comments you’re posting are people confusing notifications for emails. I have tried advertising a dating app on Airpush once and they repeatedly rejected my creatives for being non-compliant with their TOS, so I know for sure they have strict ad approval procedures.
Gordonb please stop accusing people. I want to use airpush in my apps (But not at the cost of my users phone number being sent to advertisers).
If you look at my previous messages, I was asking Airpush representative how soon we can api with just app that doesn’t require TOS Dialog.
If you are not seeing any text messages or emails, that would be a function of country you live in too.
Please Stop accusing people who are not looking short cuts or quick money. I believe Android ecosystem need to be healthy for any of us to make decent money on long term.
I don’t think it is entirely fair to label people who want to get paid for their work ‘greedy’.
I’m not an App Developer but if I were, I’d most definitely be looking for ways to monetize my inventory the best way I could. I’d use the best networks in terms of eCPM, payments, support and quality.
A few weeks or rather a month ago, Push notifications could have been considered dodgy by some people. But now, users are very clearly informed and are given opt out procedures by all networks.
With everything being that easy and clearly explained, I hardly think anybody should be complaining. Don’t like the ads? You have the choice to 1) Not download/Uninstall the app 2) Don’t Opt In 3) Opt Out.
As far as the phone numbers being shared goes, I don’t think there is any real evidence of Airpush or any network doing it. Yes they state that they may share your information with third parties, but I hardly doubt they’d just give away your phone numbers to third parties.
However, to get the best answers, I think you guys should really speak to the networks you’re currently using and get clarification from them.
For those who are still questioning wether or not airpush share phone number or email with third parties, its already been proven they do. Some air push ads when you click them it will take you to a website with a form that is prepopulated with your email or phone number. This is how they share your info, its not like they are selling people email to spam companies. On the other hand this is all an illreputeable 3rd party would need to mine emails or phone numbers, you dont even have to submit the form, they already have it when peloading the form.
I think exactly like you. I didn’t study a computer science degree to end up earning penies, I want the best possible income. I know I would never put banner ads in my applications, simply because they suck in terms of income and are way more intrusive than notifications.
The star rating won’t feed you. Besides that, if you make a good application you’ll get 5 star ratings anyway, and only the ocassional “This is a virus”, “This is spam” kind of messages. In one of my most downloaded applications, I have mostly 5 star ratings (average 4.1), and very few “notification ad haters”. But that application is making me earn money, real money.
I spent hundreds of hours learning the Android API, and before that, thousands of hours learning computer science, so I think I deserve it.
If the day comes when people are willing to pay for the applications, I’ll be the first one to remove notification ads. In the meantime, I’m not even thinking about removing the ads, just because I won’t get the “ocassional” 1 star rating from an “El cheapo” user.
Hi guys,
I think both point of view have good points and I don’t think there is the correct answer.
I’m against notification ads and auto generated icons on home screen but as far as the users are able to disable them it’s fine.
I think it depends on the target of the specific developer.
If you are willing to pay bills just creating mobile apps/games then I think this ads are required unless you have million downloads.
I personally work as ASP.NET C# Developer for a company and I never think to pay my bills creating mobile apps/games for multiple reasons:
Android market is very competitive now and it’s very difficult to compete.
Indy developers have few possibilities to get the right visibility and only in rare cases (when the app/game is very good) you have that visibility.
Even if you get the right visibility you need to keep creating high quality app/game in a very small amount of time because users want always new things (especially games)
If you need to pay the bills you’ll not enjoy anymore because you get stressed by deadlines.
I treat my business seriously and I’m always trying to optimize the revenue coming from the mobile apps. But there are some boundaries I won’t cross. Not because of what I think about them as a user but because of their long-term impact on my business. Notification ads is a short-sighted strategy generating immediate revenue but it is a form of exploit after all. Google fights against it and optimizing your apps for this kind of revenue is a dead end. On my S3 running Jelly Bean I can disable notification ad from any app that tries to spam me with a single click. That’s built into new Android OS and that’s why notification ads are going to die. Not today, not tomorrow but soon. If anyone is thinking about mobiles apps seriously he or she should spend time trying to optimize for in-app experience and in-app ads and/or revenue stream from in-app purchases.
I predict that in years time it’s going to be very hard to generate any significant revenue from apps that rely on number of downloads/installs and not on the time spent within the app. Trying to swim upstream is seldom a good idea.
Oh, and one more thing. It doesn’t matter how long someone invested in education/learning/etc. No one ‘deserves’ anything just because of that. You can’t say that because you invested 10 years in learning martial arts now it’s OK if you use this knowledge to mug people on the street.
It’s the outcome of our work that matters. It either gives value to the users and can generate income in return or it doesn’t. We could all switch to writing viruses that would display ads (or just integrate some vir-push library for convenience ) just because we think we deserve being paid for all the hard work we put into our education. Most people won’t do it. But there will always be those trying to earn some money the easy way. Whether it pays off in the long term? I doubt that.
I agree that it will be harder and harder to make money from notification ads. I wonder if the new eula and opt outs are affecting the revenue that developers are seeing yet?
Probably not affecting it alot because the good thing about users is they won’t read and just click ok. I bet most users see the new eula’s and click ok just to use the app and don’t read and realize it is giving them the option to opt out of those annoying notifications. I think the new jellybean feature to stop notifications from any app will be more effective. But it will probably be 3 more years before jellybean or higher is the android version on the majority of phones.
I agree with Max. I’d rather build my skills, business and reputation slowly and make less money than go for the quick buck. It only takes one app to become a hit and get featured to make alot of money. Have there been any featured apps that had notification ads in them? Probably not. I’d rather spend time on one great app than tons of low quality ones to keep the notification gravy train rolling.
I can say I’ve had an android phone since launch day of the original G1 and have only downloaded 1 app that had notification ads (and immediately uninstalled it). And I don’t even look in the descriptions thoroughly to make sure they don’t have them. But I do only download high quality apps with good ratings. This leads me to believe if I want to aspire to create high quality apps that are popular among users that I need to stay away those types of ads.
no offence, but it seems that if someone have less than 100,000 app downloads then easily says “Well, I don’t care about $$$ from notifications, notification sucks” + some stuff about “reputation”, “serious business” and so on
We have all speculated a lot and we have been doing so for the longest time too.
Some thought Notification ads were near their demise months ago and some thought that the new TOS would end up killing. However, the truth is that they’re still around and people still use them. I have said this before and I’ll say it again. If Google had intentions to completely wipe out this Ad format, then we all know that Google doesn’t hold back when it comes to screwing people over. The slow torturous way is not one that matches Google’s mannerisms.
But anyway, notification ads will eventually be outperformed by other ad units that will earn more money.
And that is exactly what it is. Some developers make build apps because they like to do so recreationally or its somewhat a part time job and what not. And I can see why they don’t care much about ad units that will get them lower than 5 star ratings even if it means less money.
But then there are those who do this as a Full Time gig. People who have studied this for a long time or are self taught etc. But they rely on this for their income. And in that case, they obviously should get the very best value off of their product. Yes notification ads and Icon drops may attract some heat from users - we have all received all kinds of threats - but that would be the cost of business I guess. There are no free lunches in life.
That is kinda my point. My apps so far have not been successful and my first apps aren’t even that great (but I do have over a 4 star rating on all of my apps). But with each app I make I get better. So far I have made about $600 from my apps. If I chose to put notification ads in them I could probably have made $6000. But $6000 still isn’t alot. I’d rather keep working at it and make a great app that gets featured.
Look at mind and his word hero game. I’d like to see anybody that uses notifications in their apps put their most profitable app up against word hero and see which one makes more money. I remember when he first came here and was having trouble generating any income. He could have given up and put notifications in his game, but do you think google would have ever featured his app then?
True I could make great apps and never get featured and never make as much as I could with notifications. But in the end this is a hobby for me and I’d rather make great apps that users enjoy and not take advantage of them.
Most of you have seen through the subject of this post but I wanted to officially confirm that we do not, nor would we ever, include any ad types that weren’t explicitly described in our opt-in policy. Of course this includes SMS messages, which most people on this thread have came out to say doesn’t make any sense ethically or from a business perspective. We are continuing to be a leader in this industry and to help it mature.
Pathetic form or marketing if you ask me.
