Kered.org/Blog » other

Ad Revenue for A Small Free WebOS App

derek — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:22:02 +0000

When I first considered submitting an app (Where’s My Car?) for the Palm Pre / Palm Pixi, I was somewhat turned off by the $50 app submission fee (even for free apps). This is a hobby for me, and I don’t really like the idea of paying money to give my work away for free.

So I looked into putting an ad on my app to potentially recoup the submission fee, but I was unable to find any meaningful data regarding how long it would take, which left me on the fence as to whether or not it was worth the hassle. Of course, this lack of public data is not that unexpected, as most companies doing this for profit would consider this a trade secret, but it was still disappointing. So I justified to myself paying it as the cost of an experiment with a civil benefit: Hopefully by publishing these numbers I can help either encourage or discourage future hobby developers as to whether or not it’s worth it to them to submit their own hobby apps.

Anyway, here are the numbers from ~24 hours after release: (AdMob is the advertiser)

Downloads: 7687
Ad Requests: 11,491
Ad Impressions: 11,456
Fill Rate: 99.70%
Click Through Rate (CTR): 3.26%
Estimated Revenue Per Thousand Impressions (eCPM): $1.11
Total Revenue: $12.68

I will post updates to this entry as I pass other timeline milestones. (one week and one month, at least) I’m very curious as to if this will be a sustained daily trend, will grow, or if this is a one-day newness peak that will drop off a cliff tomorrow. :)

BTW, I strongly encourage other hobby developers to publish their numbers as well. (or even share with me privately or anonymously) I would love to compare against a larger data set.

Daily total download counts: (recorded here because I don’t yet know how detailed Palm’s monthly reports are) 3/10/2010:7687, 3/11/2010:10242, 3/12/2010:11196, 3/13/2010:12057, 3/14/2010:13013, 3/15/2010:14019, 3/16/2010:14783, 3/17/2010:15422, 3/18/2010:15961, 3/19/2010:16786, 3/20/2010:18310, 3/21/2010:19843, 3/22/2010:20988, 3/23/2010:21729, 3/24/2010:22323, 3/25/2010:22848, 3/26/2010:23390, 3/27/2010:23783, 3/28/2010:24264, 3/29/2o1o:24776, 3/30/2010:25179, 3/31/2010:26339, 4/1/2010:26902, 4/2/2010:27249, 4/4/2010:27890, 4/6/2010:28501, 4/7/2010:28896, 4/8/2010:29300, 4/9/2010:31018, 4/11/2010:32683, 4/12/2010:33536, 4/13/2010:34230, 4/17/2010:36201, 4/26/2010:40149

Downloads for Public Radio: 3/27/2010:2904, 3/28/2010:6109, 3/29/2010:8514, 3/30/2010:10250, 3/31/2010:10641, 4/1/2010:11017, 4/2/2010:11321, 4/4/2010:11871, 4/6/2010:12309, 4/7/2010:12602, 4/8/2010:12872, 4/9/2010:14108, 4/11/2010:15511, 4/12/2010:16154, 4/13/2010:16655, 4/17/2010:18245, 4/26/2010:21467

UPDATE: Version 1.3.0 is live as of 3/19/2010.

WEEK 1 STATS:

Well, it’ll probably eventually make enough to cover the submission fee, but not likely to be a real revenue generator. :P

Wedding

derek — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:39:57 +0000

Marrying Lingyan has been the most wonderful, exciting experience of my life.

Here are some wedding photos.

Daily caffeine 'protects brain'

derek — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:12:36 +0000

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.

The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

W00t! =P

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7326839.stm

Boob Tube

derek — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:46:03 +0000

So in my oh-so-finite free time, I’ve discovered two new TV shows that are both unique and well written, and I thought I’d share…

Dexter is about a serial killer (protagonist) who graciously kills only other murderers. Sounds cliche when I put it like that, but it’s the best saga-drama I’ve seen since BSG. My sister-in-law introduced me to it, oddly enough. Curiously (in the sense of the writer’s take) he’s not motivated by humanitarian concerns, simply survival by staying under the radar. Lots of dry sarcasm, which if you know me you know is the cornerstone of my sense of humor.

The second is Breaking Bad, where a chem teacher decides to go into the meth business to pay for the chemo for his stage-3 lung cancer. I was literally tearing up watching the last episode. (I’m a sucker for drama involving family/marriage problems, what can I say)

“But Derek, you’re a poor college student…and you buy Showtime?” Hardly. I’ve abandoned Tivo, even my Myth box, for Miro. It auto-downloads new TV shows as they come out for you. Read about how to set it up.

Let me know what you think.

Northern Illinois University

derek — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:23:31 +0000

People kill people. Guns just make them more efficient.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/15shoot.html

Site/Company Launch

derek — Sun, 20 May 2007 01:53:32 +0000

Hey everyone, allurstuff.com is finally up! For those of you who don’t know about it, this started with an idea last summer (that idea being “craigslist sucks”), was the motivation for me to seek my PhD at UTD, and something I’ve put a lot of myself into these past 8 months. So please, go, use it, and for pete’s sake let me know what bugs you find.

Also, I want to say thanks to those who tested for me (esp. those who were unabashed in their criticism), and of course to my investor.

Enjoy,
Derek

P.S. Obviously there isn’t much data available yet other than the real estate information I’m pulling dynamically, so if you’re just checking it out for the first time I recommend searching around Plano, TX for say “house with pool”.

Someone messing with Bill?

derek — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:31:53 +0000

Apparently tomorrow Bill Gates is going to show off some new “Vista Compatible” hardware during his CES keynote. I don’t normally follow such things, but I I saw a cool looking photo set on Cnet. And one of them was this:

Toshiba’s Portege R400, also to be shown off by Gates Sunday, will be among the first PCs to include a SideShow auxiliary display, one of the new hardware features supported by Windows Vista.

WTF? I think someone at Toshiba is having some fun at Microsoft’s expense… This is certainly in homage to the original (and iconic) Apple Macintosh ad:

I can’t imagine this was an intentional move by MS. Congrats to whoever sneaked this by legal/marketing.