iPhone app developers who choose to go the free route typically try to make money by placing ads in their apps. But now there are so many mobile ad networks competing to serve those ads that iPhone app analytics startup Mobclix is creating a mobile ad network exchange. App developers sign up with their ad inventory and ad networks bid for the spots based on age, gender, location, and other factors. The ads being served change automatically, based on which ad network is bidding the highest to reach the users of that particular app.
Mobclix wants to provide one dashboard for app developers to track and monetize their apps. It also lets advertisers buy across a variety of apps based on demographic, geo-targeting, and behavioral characteristics. The idea is to aggregate both apps and advertising to reach scale.
The exchange supports 20 mobile ad networks at launch, including Google, Yahoo, Jumptap, and VideoEgg.
One ad network that is missing, however, is AdMob. As perhaps the largest mobile ad network, AdMob’s absence is noticeable. But AdMob does not support the mediation layers required for Mobclix to talk to its servers. (If you are the biggest mobile ad network, it is not in your interest to make it easy for developers to switch). AdMob also offers its own quasi-exchange where app developers can swap ad inventory for traffic with each other.
In the end, app developers will go to wherever they can get the highest price for their ads, while advertisers will gravitate to the ad networks or exchanges with the most inventory. At this point maybe only an exchange that ropes together multiple ad networks can compete with AdMob.
Update: Despite the flame war going on in comments, I have confirmed that indeed Mobclix has signed up 20 ad networks to be part of its exchange. These include Google AdSense for iPhone (in beta), Yahoo Mobile Publishers, Jumptap, Quattro, Millennial Media, VideoEgg, Adconian, and Mojiva. Mobclix already had relationships with these ad networks as part of its existing ad yield optimization service. Moreover about half of the 3,500 iPhone app publishers who use Mobclix have already opted into the ad exchange program, making a collective ad inventory of 4 billion impressions a month available for bidding. Now it is up to the ad networks to start bidding for that inventory. At least one of Mobclix’s competitors has been floating the idea of its own ad exchange. Perhaps it did not like being upstaged.
Are you able to think that a normal guy is able to read two or three post without lost of control?. Why so many post in a day?
as long as none of these ad networks use *admob* to fill out the networks, that’s not a bad idea.
These guys are great and they will do very well!
I would have to respectfully but strongly disagree. I have used MobClix for a long time, but due to the complete lack of organization on their part I am looking to switch with my next app update. I would warn anyone considering signing up to talk to existing customers first and make sure that not everyone has had such awful experiences.
Specifically, features that were promised to be ready were not completed for so long that they must not have had any attention for months. Contacting anyone at the company is close to impossible; my emails don’t get responses and even phone calls don’t get answered or returned.
I love startups, but I know Silicon Valley can produce better than this.
This is COMPLETELY smoke and mirrors. TechCrunch– please do follow-up research here. These partners are NOT on board. This is total misdirection.
MobClix announced this to preempt what others are working on in the industry.
I followed up and stand by my post. See update.
No way in hell the Mobclix guys would make this up.
As someone that is a personal friend with the founder at Mobclix, I can vouch for his integrity and the integrity of their team.
They’re the type of people that truly want to bring true value to their customers by creating a great technology product (as oppose to the commenter above who relies on bashing their competitors and questioning the validity of the techcrunch writers).
The advertiser page won’t let me complete an order – really basic JavaScript errors in the page. FAIL!
Also, if they’re not partnered with AdMob, why is AdMob’s logo TWICE on the home page? And ng:moco’s app, StarDefense?
These guys are violating trademarks and have a broken site. How can they be trusted with advertising dollars?
Don’t believe the hype. This seems to be vaporware or sloppy reporting. My understanding is that very few, if any, of these partners are actually board and that nothing has been built.
It is not vaporware. Do you work for one of Mobclix’s competitors? See update.
This article is completely false. Techrunch, please email yahoo or google and you won’t be able to confirm any of this.
Google has confirmed they are a partner, as has every other partner I have checked with so far.
Techcrunch, please look into this story. If you do research you will find that Google and Yahoo know nothing about this. It’s fabricated
Nope, not fabricated. Both confirmed they are partners.
Techcrunch — you have GOT to look into the facts here about this article. What you’ve posted is sadly very misinformed. Google, Yahoo and the others you’ve mentioned know nothing about this. Just make a simple phone call/email and you’ll quickly discover this is totally false.
Except that I did that and it is completely true. FUD
Techcrunch — please take a closer look. I know at least one of the players you’ve mentioned that doesn’t know anything about this — i.e. they aren’t involved but you claim they are.
FUD
This is really weird. I was looking at their website and they have Google, Quattro and other big ad-networks on it. Did you confirm with them their partnership on this exchange?
Also the site is not working, I would like to see the exchange working.
a friend of mine in the industry said this product launch is false. you should make calls/send emails to Yahoo, Google, etc. to confirm if they’re actually part of this exchange. i’m curious to see what their response is…
Found it odd that no announcements other than this about Google or Yahoo participating in this.
I hate to question legitimacy of this story, but have the facts been confirmed with any of the mentioned partners? I really hope you didn’t just take a press release from Mobclix and take it for gospel.
sigh
yes, confirmed. Mobclix is using Google’s and Yahoo’s APIs, so there wouldn’t be a press release for that.
Do they actually have any developers using them? They say they are the largest Mobile Ad Exchange, but no one even uses them and they don’t seem to have a product at all to sign up for.
Hello – I am Nitin Chitkara, VP of Business Development at Mobclix. We have been watching the comments on this post and want to clarify that our goal is, and always has been, to make developers lives easier and help them make money. The Mobclix Exchange and Yield Optimization platform offers a two-stage process to help maximize revenue:
· Stage 1: Developers can have advertisers bid on inventory, advertisers can buy targeted inventory after signing up on our advertiser page and then run a campaign using our Advertiser Estimation Tool. This is where the bidding occurs. This stage uses audience profiles and business segments built from our analytics data to ensure targeted high eCPM ads. We just launched last night, so not every network is using bidding yet but it is available and we expect more networks to use the feature in the near term.
· Stage 2: Any inventory that a developer has on our platform that has not been bid upon is immediately yield optimized across multiple ad networks to ensure 100% fill rate at the highest possible eCPMs. This optimization is personalized and uses specific real-time performance information to achieve the desired result: more money for the developer.
The combination of these two stages creates a platform where developers have the maximum opportunity to increase revenue. We also have server side architecture which offers several additional benefits, including the ability to import and support any ad network. Therefore, if a publisher is using ANY ad network self-service (yes, including Google beta or Yahoo!) and gives us their keys we can include them in the publisher dashboard for centralized reporting and help developers manage those networks. We’d be happy to tell you more about what we are doing and answer any questions you have – feel free to contact me by email at nitin [at] mobclix [dot] [com] or by phone at (650)-319-8302.
Sorry to repeat the obvious, but yeah, this looks like hot air to me – I think I would have heard if Google or Yahoo had signed up… Let’s see how MobClix respond…
I work in the mobile ad industry and I know for a fact that this story is very misleading. I can confirm that at least two (and would guess all) of the ad networks mentioned have in no way signed up for this.
If this were legitimate it would be a pretty big story in the mobile ad space and it’s really a shame that Techcrunch has created a complete scandal over some marketing hype and a web site redesign.
Wow. The comments so far have a common theme that’s going unchallenged as of this post. Sounds like vaporware to me.
I’ve heard from a very accurate source that this product launch and the partners mentioned are totally false. Erick, I urge you to check with Yahoo! and Google on the accuracy of those ad memberships as I have heard that they have never heard about their so-called partnership with Mobclix.
based on the wide response, it seems that this article may not be credible. Techcrunch, your reputation as an information provider is being questioned here . . .
I’m pretty sure this is fabricated. Please check the sources on this story to verify.
This story sounds fishy to me. How are we supposed to believe that MobClix actually has partners like Google and Yahoo on board? Techcrunch, please follow up with a fact check.
Techcrunch,
Can you verify these partnerships?????
yup, see update
I’m with everyone else on this thread. Mr. Schonfeld, better do some fact checking first — are these partners really on board? These Mobclix guys are just trying to get in ahead of the other competitors in this space.
Erik, like the previous comments said, I’m not sure how accurate this story is, I actually heard this very same idea from a competing firm.
Did the mentioned partners announce it as well?
To add one more voice to the already vociferous chorus, this is blatant vaporware. Just a small amount of research will show you that. Please verify this story.
looking at Mobclix’s website and reading the comments make the whole story sound shady. Techcrunch & @Erick – did you actually look into this company before publishing the story? I sure hope you did.
I find it hard to believe that Google and Yahoo would buddy up and there would be no concurrent release from them.
If there’s any validity to this story at all, I’d like to hear a follow-up rebuttal to all the comments above.
From what I have heard, this article is totally false. The author really should have checked his sources…
I have been using Mobclix since 2.0 and have been very happy with their eCPMs
I also use their exchange platform and have been using Quattro, VideoEgg, and Millenial..
I know tomorrow their new dashboard will be out.
Not sure why so many people here are trying to flame a company thats helping us developers!
I know for a fact.. that the Mobclix Yield Optimization has been working better for me over TapJoy and AdWhirl
Go Figure
I have been getting great eCPMS from Mobclix, with Millenial and Quattro
Will somebody from TechCrunch please respond to these comments?
Also note: the two ad networks in the “screenshot” are spelled wrong!!
They have “Quatrro” and it should be “Quattro”
They have “Millennimedia” should be “Millennial Media”
Who is supposed to believe that “screenshot”? Erick — please just make one or two calls to find out if there is ever a word of trust to this story. If it’s not true, dig deeper to find out why MobClix would make something like this up…
I have been turning off networks on the fly with Mobclix and the exchange has been working for me.
I am simple shocked and amazed by the amount of lies this company “mobclix” sends out. Who are these ad partners? This is really vaporware. I tried to sign-up as a developer and couldn’t. Tried to sign up as an ad network and it was worse. The sign up sheet is broken.
I saw them at a conference and thay claimed that they have over 70% penetration in iPhone apps. Are there are ethics left?
Google has never and will never allow aggregation layers to use their ads. This is a crap post. No research, completely paid by mobclix.
What a waste.
Interesting – then why have other companies in the space said the same things? “ahem”
TSK TSK – I guess comment flame wars are not past the web 2.0 crowd. Anyways – I’ve been a iphone developer with Mobclix since their launch @ techcrunch50 last year – and they’ve consistently provided the best service and the best ad inventory & I’d be happy to be a reference for Mobclix.
I’m from TapJoy, one of Mobclix’s Partners and we have been using them for some time now. They have a great analytics and advertising platform.
Our developers have been loving their performance.
Not sure why there are so many people here flaming Mobclix.
Ok, I’m the real Ben Lewis from Tapjoy (you can verify by my facebook account and that I know how to properly capitalize my company’s name) and I most certainly did not post that comment.
I’m not sure what’s going on with this article, but why would anyone want to impersonate me to make such a statement?
No Ben-
I am the real Ben Lewis.
Quite your moaning and all the fake posts that you have done today and yesterday.
-Ben
Google is an open platform and allows mediation layers – I use pubmatic and I have google adsense integrated on my website.
Wow.. have you guys’ seen the homepage of http://www.tapjoy.com or http://www.adwhirl.com .. the list AdMob, Google, and Mobclix..
Basically from these posts..your saying that ALL these sites are wrong..
People get a life..
I’m looking forward to see what Mobclix is doing very exciting stuff..
I would expect better reporting from you here techcrunch. Please do your research and post a correction to this story.
I actually use Millennial Media, Quattro, and a couple other ad networks on my iPhone app through Mobclix.
I run Quattro, Millenial Media, and a few others across my iPhone apps – i use Mobclix to switch between ad networks whenever I want.
Techcrunch, I think you should double check the facts here as this article contains many erroneous statements and is clearly vaporware marketing by Mobclix!
With such a broad selection, of ad networks, they have all chances to rock! Even without AdMob, but I’m sure they can work something out!
Just a quick reply: everything in your article is FALSE. Techcrunch, I would recommend checking your facts prior to posting something like this.
TC,
I think Nielsen would disagree that Admob is the largest. They were the first known, but Millennial Media is much larger in US reach.
Are you sure about your facts Mobile Truths? AdMob is the largest by far of the Mobile Ad Network, and both Quattro and Millennial would confirm that fact for you (since I know the CEO’s of both companies, I can assure you of that).
Mobile Ad sales guy. Mobile marketer just wrote a story. I think the CEO’s you mention, would not agree. To clarify, I said “US” reach. see article: http://bit.ly/lJnlN
Millennial is not the largest. That is patently false. They both used a rolled-up survey that manipulated the data in their benefit. Remember these are the same guys who had a counter on their homepage that was fake for their volume. Essentially they put up a script that just changed with the number. You really believe them after that episode?
TC,
I think Nielsen and the developers would disagree that Admob is the largest – Quattro is definitely the largest and has the most ad inventory.
You think wrong. AdMob serves over 7 billion impressions per month. They are the largest in every market on the planet, save Japan and they just hired a former Google Mobile GM in Japan to expand in that market aggressively.
quattro, largest? no way http://bit.ly/lJnlN the are a creative shop, and site rep firm, right?
Quattro is far from largest. They mostly do site representation.
Whether it’s 20 or 10 or even 50 does it matter? See http://ceaseadvertising.com
Even a million ad networks won’t do it or can we absorb yet another source of advertising?
Axel
http://xeesm.com/AxelS
Yahoo does NOT syndicate its advertisers to MobClix. Who is your source suggesting otherwise Eric?