Google Starts Testing Mobile App Ads In The Google Play Store

Google announced this morning the launch of a pilot program which will allow mobile application developers the ability to advertise their apps directly within the Google Play store. These ads, which will initially be made available to advertisers already running search ads on Google.com, will also only be shown against Google Play search results. That is, they won’t just randomly appear in other sections of Google Play, like category pages or stuffed in the middle of Google Play’s Top Charts.
Instead, advertisers will be able to bid on ads that match a particular search query, like “hotel apps” or “coupon app,” for example.
Their mobile application would then appear at the top of the ranked search results returned from Google Play’s store, where it looks exactly the same as any other result except for the fact that it will be flagged as an ad via the small “Ad” button that appears under the app’s name.
As the company explains in a blog post this morning, its 100 billion-plus Google.com searches each month have improved content discovery for users and advertisers alike and now the search ads on Google Play will do the same for app publishers.
Specifically, the program will better allow newcomers and smaller developers the chance to compete and gain visibility in an app store that Google says now tops over a million applications.
Search Advertisers Are First To Test
There are few details being offered as to the program specifics at this time, because it’s only now entering pilot testing. For the time being, the ads will run just in the latest version of the Play Store mobile app on Android smartphones, not on tablets, or on the mobile or desktop web. And only a small number of consumers will actually see the new ads at first.
We understand that potential advertisers were identified automatically and invited to participate in the program via email, and those who chose to do so aren’t actually paying for their ads at this time. Rather, the pilot period is meant to allow the app publishers and users alike a time to test and provide feedback on a number of things, including the mix of ads, how keywords are targeted, how many ads are shown in the search results, and to what extent these Google Play ad campaigns will influence the Top Charts’ algorithms in the future, among other things.

That latter item will require careful attention, as an app maker buying app store ads could very easily boost their downloads at a rate that would otherwise push their app to the top of the  store’s charts. But that wouldn’t necessarily mean their app had grown popular with users, but rather that they had paid for the exposure and clicks. It will also be interesting to see how Google addresses click fraud in the new store, as competitors may try to eat through each other’s ad budgets.
We also understand that there’s no way for advertisers or users to opt into these trials at present. Google isn’t saying how long the program will be in pilot testing, nor will it give a broader time-table for a public beta or public launch. It also won’t confirm how many advertisers are in the initial pilot.
In addition, beyond being the means of selecting advertisers for the trials, there’s no connection between search ads on Google.com and those on Google Play at this time. It’s unclear if in the future, however, current search advertisers will be given preference to join the Google Play advertising program when it opens up to more participants.
Google’s Role In The Mobile App Age
It’s not surprising that Google is introducing mobile app ads into its app store ahead of rival Apple, given the nature of its core business. It’s actually a logical next step for the company in a world that’s increasingly mobile. After all, the move to mobile is becoming a threat to Google’s advertising business. According to data from Flurry, only 14% of the time users spent on their smartphones was in the web browser in 2014, down from 20% the year prior. And the web is where Google’s ads have traditionally appeared.
A number of tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo, as well as Google, have been targeting their mobile user base with ads that prompt users to download apps or re-engage with apps they already have installed. But Google will now be the first major OS maker that actually allows app publishers to advertise directly in its app store search results.

That being said, it’s worth noting that Apple, too, has experimented to some extent in this area. It has tested “ads” – if you can call them that – that appear against select search terms in its iOS App Store. These ads in the past have promoted Apple’s own products or features. For example, a search for “music” once showed a search result card for iTunes Radio before other results, and today a search for “maps” on the App Store points to Apple’s editorial collection of map apps. While not the same kind of “ads” that Google is rolling out, it’s clear that Apple also understands the value of being in that first position.
The question is now whether or not they’d also be willing to sell access to that spot, like Google is.
Also of interest, Google used today’s announcement of the Google Play ad pilot to offer an update on its payouts to Android app developers. At its I/O conference last year, Google said it has paid out $5 billion to app developers in year prior. Today, it says that number has climbed to $7 billion. While that’s still short of the $10 billion Apple recently announced, it does show that Google is closing the gap quickly when it comes to revenue.

By: Unknown On 07:49

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Docker Launches Its Container Orchestration Tools

Last December, Docker previewed its plans to launch a comprehensive set of orchestration tools for its container platform and, starting today, developers will be able to download and use all of these tools.
Together, Docker Machine, Swarm and Compose are meant to make it easier for developers and system administrators to create and manage their portable applications on top of the Docker platform.
Docker Machine, for example, allows developers to quickly spin up Docker on a variety of cloud platforms, including Amazon EC2, Digital Ocean, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, OpenStack, RackSpace Cloud and most of VMware’s platforms. Getting started with Docker on those platforms doesn’t take more than a single command. Without Machine, this whole process would have involved a number of manual steps.
Similarly, Docker Swarm provides developers with a native clustering and scheduling solution. The company argues that this allows developers to scale a Docker-based application “with the application development life cycle from one laptop to spanning hundreds of hosts in production.” Swarm supports existing host discovery solutions like ZooKeeper, Consul and etcd. It also integrates with other third-party orchestration tools, including Mesosphere. Support for Amazon’s recently launched EC2 Container Service, IBM Bluemix, Microsoft Azure and Joyent Smart Data Center is coming soon.
When Docker first announced this set of tools, a number of critics argued that it was building tools that compete with existing companies in its ecosystem.
“The truth is, Docker as a platform is about enabling the ecosystem because its core value is in application portability,” Docker’s VP of Marketing David Messina told me, adding that Docker’s list of partners really speaks for itself. He also noted that nobody is forced to use Docker’s own tools. Its APIs are open, after all, and Docker’s own orchestration tools use them, too. The company likes to call this approach “batteries included but swappable.”
Featured Image: Ivan Mlinaric/Flickr UNDER A CC BY 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)0
SHARES0Share0Tweet0Share0000AdvertisementAdvertisementCrunchBaseDockerFounded2010  OverviewDocker is an open-source engine, launched and maintained by dotCloud, that automates the deployment of any application as a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container that will run virtually anywhere.Docker containers can encapsulate any payload, and will run consistently on and between virtually any server. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop will run at scale, …LocationSan Francisco, CaliforniaCategoriesDevelopment Platforms.

By: Unknown On 07:34

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Vurb Is Crazy Enough To Fight Google

AdvertisementGoogle Search was not built for mobile. It’s all about lists of web pages, but the small screen is ruled by apps. That’s why if Google launched today, it might look a lot like Vurb…which did launch today.
Vurb is a mobile search engine that pulls info from partnered apps like Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, and deeplinks you out to apps like Uber and Google Maps. Rather than send you clicking through links, it cobbles together critical content and contextual suggestions into saveable, shareable, actionable cards. You could plan a whole dinner-and-a-movie night without ever typing or going back to your homescreen.
Whether challenging Google on search is brave or just delusional, only time will tell, but Vurb is surely one of the most audacious startups I’ve seen lately. And since investors love big, risky bets, Vurb has $10 million in firepower Redpoint Ventures and some A-List angels.
What’s encouraging is that Vurb manifests in the West a trend that China is already demonstrating: the future of mobile lies in uniting fragmented functionality from across the app ecosystem into a centralized hub.

A Portal For Mobile
On the web, Google’s conduit model worked fine. Everything was an indexable website that served many functions, and Google could use PageRank to deliver you to the right one. It could show a list of links, and let you pop open multiple browser tabs you could quickly switch between or even show simultaneously. It was easy to multi-task. It searched for information, you aggregated the answers.
Mobile is different. Information is trapped in siloed, single-purpose apps and walled gardens. Everything is being unbundled. App discovery in the crowded stores is a mess. Opening multiple tabs is a chore and so is switching between them since you can only view one at a time. Multi-tasking is clumsy.
All the app-switching you have to do to plan a night out across fragmented, unbundled mobile apps

That’s why Vurb wants to aggregate the answers for you.
It has some strong role models out east. As Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans detailed, Chinese apps WeChat (social) and Baidu Maps (location) are thriving by “bundling multiple services into one app”.
Evans explains that “This changes the layer of aggregation” from a phone’s home screen launcher to a single, multi-purpose app. This relieves users from discovering, downloading, and opening every app they need information from.
Vurb wants to be the portal for mobile. Yahoo and AOL reborn to return order to the appsphere after The Great Unbundling.
 0 To 100 Real Quick
Vurb’s ascent to become a legitimate challenger to Google search started in 2011. By 2013 it had raised around $2 million from Charles River Ventures, CrunchFund (started by TechCrunch’s founder), Atlas Venture, and DCVC, plus angels like Max Levchin (PayPal, Drew Houston (Dropbox), and Naval Ravikant (AngelList). When Vurb came out of stealth, it took the grand prize in the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Battlefield 2014. That clout helped it raise $8 million more led by Redpoint.
Since then, Vurb’s been testing and pulling in users of its waitlist. To focus on mobile, the startup scrapped its full-featured web version. “Mobile search is totally wide open, because everything is gravitating towards usage of apps” Vurb founder Bobby Lo tells me. His goal became to determine “How do we create a more cohesive mobile experience around finding, planning, and sharing information?”
The Vurb team, including CEO Bobby Lo (second from left) celebrate their TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield 2014 win
Google has it’s own plan fix search, but it has to carry all its historic design baggage. So rather than completely redesign search, it’s focused on augmenting it with contextual suggestions through Google Now. For pulling in immutable facts and actionable info from your other Google products like Gmail and Calendar, Now works quite well.
But Google Now is editorially driven, so it will take time for its humans to learn how to deliver content about the long-tail of the web. It also doesn’t address saving and sharing searches. While Googling from home felt lack a natural solo experience, but on the go with mobile, search needs to be social.
Unlocking Mobile Search For Everyone
Today, Vurb opens its iOS app to the world with explicit support for searches of Places (restaurants, landmarks, stores), Movies, TV, Video, and Music. Events and shopping are two more verticals it plans to attack soon.
Here’s a run-through of what you can do with Vurb.

From the homescreen, you can search across all Vurb’s verticals or swipe to start browsing in a specific one. Say you searched for a movie like 50 Shades Of Grey. In-line on the search results, you’ll see IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and MetaCritic scores trying to warn you the film is awful. Tap through anyways, and you’ll get a full, rich media card with details about the film, showtimes, recent news, cast and crew info, video trailers, reviews, and options to deeplink to pages about the movie in other apps.
Tap through showtimes and you can bounce into Fandango to buy tickets. Once Vurb knows what theater you’re going to, it can contextually offer up suggestions of nearby restaurants, from fancy-pants bistros to holes-in-the-wall. Each eatery’s Vurb card can show reviews, an option to book through OpenTable, and deeplinks into Uber and Lyft to instantly call you a ride with the restaurant pre-populated as the destination.

All along the way, any card you come across can be saved into a “Deck” for later reference, and each card or deck can be quickly shared with friends. A swipe left reveals a friend selector that delivers mobile web links to the card or deck, plus an in-line image of it, so Vurb helps people without its app too.
Recipients can even like or comment on plans sent to them to help finalize a night on the town. Shoot friends a deck with a few movies and restaurants, and you have a full night laid out. Vurb hopes people will follow friends, tastemakers, and influencers and view the to check out decks of recommendations they’ve made public.
The Age Of Context
Lo beams that “It’s very different than traditional search with 10 blue links.” He knows it’s still a long shot, but is happy to take a swing for the fences. He says “VCs don’t want a 3X return. They want a 100X return otherwise this is a failure as an investment.”

To return that money, Vurb has plenty of opportunities. With search results comes the option for sponsored placement. And with developers pouring cash into app install ads on platforms like Facebook, Vurb could charge to suggest them for different tasks.
Lo concludes that the Internet started with the age of surfing the web through portals to browse one’s way to information, before evolving to search where we went to find information. Now Vurb wants to catalyze the next phase, the age of context, where information comes to you.

By: Unknown On 07:19

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Apple Took 89% Of Q4 Smartphone Profits With Android OEMs In A Race To The Bottom

Google’s Android has gobbled up market share world wide, now accounting for over 80% of all smartphone shipped globally. But when it comes to actually making money, Apple is eating all the profits as it continues its focus on premium devices. Today Strategy Analytics said that Apple in Q4 last year accounted for 89% of all smartphone profits, equating to $18.8 billion, with Android taking only 11%, or $2.4 billion.
The blow for Android is softened only slightly less so only by the fact that other platform players like Microsoft, Blackberry and Firefox seemingly made no profit at all.

The figures given here relate to profits generated by handset makers, not the services ecosystem and potential profits made by app publishers and others. Overall, smartphone profits were up 31.4% compared to the same quarter a year ago.
When it comes to who is performing best among Android OEMs, the results reveal growing competition for Samsung.
Neil Mawson, research director for Strategy Analytics, says the “three big profit drivers” for Android are Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi.
“Samsung is the Android giant that delivers most of Android’s smartphone profits worldwide,” he tells me. Mawston says the company is not breaking out exact shares, except to say that “Samsung accounted for well over half of all Android smartphone profits globally in Q4 2014.”
As a point of comparison, in 2013, Samsung accounted for 95% of Android profits. That was a time where there was significantly more parity between Apple and the Korean handset maker both in terms of unit sales and revenues, with Apple accounting for “only” 57% of profit at the time.
The bigger picture seems to be that Android handset makers are in something of a race to the bottom at this point: the markets that are driving growth in smartphone adoption these days are emerging economies, where consumers are price sensitive. That’s leading to the production of a number of models that are pushing down the average sale price for devices, which long ago dropped below the $100 mark.
Apple may have missed the boat (so far) when it comes critical mass in market share in these developing markets, but it has more than made up for it by making a killing in places where it is strong. China is one such crossover example. While there is clearly a market for lower-cost and Android devices, Apple has been posting record sales in the country, reporting sales of $16 billion in the country in Q4. (China is not — yet — however overtaking Apple’s sales in markets like the U.S.)
In the world of smartphones, Android’s gains do not equal Apple’s loss. But Android’s gains might translate into Android losses down the line, Strategy Analytics notes.
“Apple’s strategy of premium products and lean logistics is proving hugely profitable,” Mawston writes in the report. “Android’s weak profitability for its hardware partners will worry Google. If major smartphone manufacturers, like Samsung or Huawei, cannot make decent profits from the Android ecosystem, they may be tempted in the future to look at alternative platforms such as Microsoft, Tizen or Firefox.”Featured Image: Ismagilov/Shutterstock

By: Unknown On 07:04

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Are You Ready For The Barcelona Meetup?

 Apple Took 89% Of Q4 Smartphone Profits With Android OEMs In A Race To The BottomWe’re less than a week away from the Pitch-Off in Barcelona and we’re excited to see you. If you’ve purchased tickets already, good for you. They are a rare commodity. If you haven’t then you’re kind of out of luck because the event is sold out. Special dispensations may be made if you contact us but I doubt we can help.
If you didn’t make pitch-off the cut, do not fear: just find us at the event and tell us a little about your startup. We’re happy to take cards and follow up.
Here are the contestants for the pitch off. They will have two minutes to pitch and four minutes of questions from TC Editors and a local judge. The winner will get a table at TC Disrupt Startup Alley in New York and the runner-up will get two tickets to the event. The contestants are:
Fueloyal
Kompyte
Avegant
Swytch
rendeevoo
Hirestack
EveryLayer
FACEmeeting
canguroencasa.com
Note: the event is sold out. We’re expecting an amazing turn out. I hope you bought your tickets early.
Date: Tuesday March 3, 2015
Time: 19:00 – 22:00. Pitch-off at 20:00.
Details: With open bar and tapas/snacks between 19:30 until 21:30 CET (last round).
Location: Ailaic, Passatge Utset 14, we will team up with the Dutch Mobile Networking Event that is the host.
Cost: €5.50
BUY TICKETS HERE
Thanks to the kind folks at DutchMobileNetworking this year’s Barcelona Meetup And Pitch-Off will be amazing. It’s great to have such a responsive and understanding partner. That said, they are handling all the sponsorship and still need your help. Please email myself at john@techcrunch.com or Caroline at caroline at dutchmobilenetworking.com.
Sponsors
Gold Sponsor

Vserv is a leading mobile marketing platform that delivers smart data led results to marketers, app developers, telcos and data partners. Powered by its award winning market first technologies, the company drives engaging mobile experiences for the emerging billion mobile internet users. Founded in 2010; Vserv has 500 million+ unique user profiles and a global footprint with offices across USA, UK, South Africa, India, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines & Vietnam.
Drinks Sponsor

ExoClick is a self-funded start-up launched in 2006 by CEO Benjamin Fonzé which he now runs with his brother Adrien (COO). Based in Barcelona, Spain, ExoClick is an innovative global ad network serving 125+ billion geo-targeted ads a month to web and mobile advertiser/publisher platforms via its proprietary software. The company is currently ranked as the 5th largest ad network in the world by W3Techs and is the only Spanish company to be ranked three times in the Deloitte Fast 500. ExoClick is also positioned at number 11 in the Top 20 Best Workplaces in Spain in the category of companies with between 20-49 employees (PYMES).

Backed by Andreessen-Horowitz, Samsung, Intel and others, BlueStacks is the leader in Mobile Marketing Automation. Started in 2011 and based in Silicon Valley, the company has offices in London, Tokyo and Beijing. BlueStacks’ App Player software enables any mobile app or game to run on PC. Pre-loaded on Lenovo and Asus computers, App Player recently crossed 85 million downloads worldwide.

Estrella Damm
Dutch Mobile Networking Event & Place
On Monday 2nd of March the networking event accommodates 300 Dutch-speaking visitors from the telecom industry that have access through a controlled guest list. The majority of the DMNE visitors are C-level decision makers in the procurement of telecom services, software and hardware. Besides the traditional successful networking event (Monday 2nd of March) DMNE offers visitors a place where they can retreat during event days. It is also possible to organise your own event here in consultation with the organisation. Registered visitors can also attend round table discussions and presentations from this location. Content (like trend updates) from the Mobile World Congress can be followed through the channels of mediapartners Executive-People and Dutch IT-Channel through news feeds, interviews and video updates.
Would you like to sponsor our event? Please contact Caroline at caroline[at] dutchmobilenetworking.com. She has helped organize the entire event so far and is handling the food, drink, and jazz (!!). We look forward to seeing you!

By: Unknown On 06:49

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