Early last year, Google rolled out a new monetization method for developers to take advantage of in their apps. The woefully non-descriptive "rewarded products" allowed for things like watching videos to get in-game currency or extra lives — you get the idea. For simplicity, it was built right into the Google Play Billing Library, but Google has just announced that it will be deprecating the feature on April 21st, 2020, about two months from now.
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Even though YouTube has long become a multi-million-dollar business, individual creators can sometimes still end up struggling when they rely only on the built-in ad revenue (SnazzyLab's Quinn Nelson has a great explanation on this, if you have an hour to spare). Google sees these problems and is looking for ways to help YouTubers diversify their income. At VidCon, the company announced that it adds multiple tiers of Channel Memberships, extends Super Chat with purchasable stickers, and adds new native merchandise options.
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Instagram has announced new features that are intended to enhance the experiences for the 500 million daily active users of its Stories feature — one of these features is available right now while the other may take some time and adjustment to get used to. The social media platform is also building a new way for users to browse and buy the clothes their favorite influencers are wearing.
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In this day and age, it's easy to be cynical about the games industry, advertising, and the general state of a lot of consumer technology. Google has magnanimously decided to help Android game developers increase monetization opportunities by offering means to re-capture wayward players and keep paying ones happy in ad-free bliss. How, you might ask? Two ways: using ads to draw people back into a game and by using machine learning to only serve advertisements to those deemed less likely to buy in-app purchases.
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How to go about bringing in revenue is a problem Facebook has failed to solve in the four years since it acquired WhatsApp. The world's most popular messaging app cost roughly $22 billion, but other than a brief experiment with charging an annual 99-cent subscription fee, there has been no clear plan on how to monetize the service.
The company's reluctance to serve advertisements to its now 1.5 billion users is admirable, but it looks like that could change starting next year. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are plans to show ads in the Status section of the app.
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I've noticed that there are two kinds of people, generally speaking, when it comes to app purchases. Those that consider a couple bucks towards a new app no big deal, and those that wait until the last minute, if ever, to drop a few dollars on a "Pro" version or IAP for a full app. Personally, I jump at the chance to disable ads, add additional features, and support independent developers. But, even I can acknowledge that it depends on how much an app costs.
Spending a quick buck on a new app is no big deal, but I've got a psychological barrier somewhere around $3 where an impulse purchase suddenly becomes worth deliberating.
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Snapchat, not long ago an ad-free platform, is preparing to ramp up the promotional content. In a series of industry-targeted announcements, the company has detailed several initiatives that will inevitably result in users seeing ads more frequently than they do now.
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We here at Android Police have a thing for Pushbullet. You could even call it a crush. Not everyone on the team uses it, but we and many of our readers agree that it's a solid service. You get to send text, links, images, and notifications from one device to another with minimal effort.
But the persistent question remained: How was Pushbullet going to monetize the service? Now we know. The company has rolled out a new paid plan costing $5 a month. Folks who already know they're hooked can save money by paying $40 annually instead.
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The Czar has spoken. After his anointment as Google's Senior Vice President of Products last October, which put him in charge of Chrome, Android, search, ad technology, Google+, Maps, social, commerce and infrastructure, Sundar had been operating in incognito mode, occasionally letting loose a few tidbits of information, like Inbox' deployment to Apps users. In a recent interview with Forbes, the man behind most of the things we talk about here on Android Police has answered some interesting questions regarding his vast portfolio of products, tried to put an end to a few concerns, and remained mum about other issues.
The most intriguing section of the interview starts when Google+ is addressed.
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The CloudMagic Android app is capable of managing multiple email accounts from a single location, and by indexing your messages on its servers, it can provide significantly faster search results than much of the competition. The experience is free, but now the company has unveiled how it plans to make money going forward—by encouraging power users to sign up for a pro account.
Premium plans unlock features that will not be provided in the free version, such as support for unlimited accounts, syncing preferences across devices, downloading attachments in the background, and remotely wiping your data.
CloudMagic has priced its pro plan at $4.99 a month, but as usual, people who are looking for a longer commitment can save $15 over the course of a year by spending $44.99 upfront instead.
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