David Harper’s Different Things

Please consider lending a hand to Darla Mack and her family.

David Harper
Founder, Winksite

Paypal Donation Link: http://tinyurl.com/26f297

From the McNeil Family Support Group set up by Debi Jones at Facebook.

The blogosphere is often called a community, and communities have always stepped forward to care for their own in a time of need. A long time blogger in the mobile industry and mentor to new and beginning bloggers is Darla Mack, the Mobile Diva, known in real life as Darlene McNeil.

The McNeil Family is facing a very difficult winter. Darla’s husband, Duane McNeil, was struck by car while walking and is unable to work for several months and recently Darla underwent surgery which makes sitting at the computer for hours extremely painful. The family needs our help.

Facing mounting medical bills and loss of income in the absence of insurance, the family is struggling to meet the most basic of expenses. Pictured are Duane and Darla along with a photo of their three boys: Duane, Jaden and Gattis.


Paypal Donation Link: http://tinyurl.com/26f297

MobileCamps bring together mobile enthusiasts, explorers and professionals to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility. Nokia Nseries is sponsoring. I’ll be at all three so…

…if you would like to meet up this would be a great opportunity. Email me if you like.

Follow the links below for venue and RSVP information.

October 28th
MobileCampLA
(Free In-N-Out Burgers will be served for lunch from 11:30-1!)

November 3rd
MobileCampSF

November 10th
MobileCampNYC2

Cheers,
David Harper
Founder, Winksite

Re: AdSense for Mobile: Google has competition, I’m making bank with AdMob

Russell writes:
“Wow! A few days ago I noticed my earnings from Google’s mobile ads were starting to taper off around $30 a day, so I decided to flip the switch and start showing AdMob ads again so I could compare what the results would be like with my recently increased traffic. I literally changed one line of code, and everywhere where I had been previously showing Google AdSense, I began showing AdMob ads. POW! I more than doubled my income per day - not only is the eCPM higher in general, but the click through rate is 7%…, which is crazy high. I’m not sure what exactly the difference is - but obviously Mowser users like AdMob ads better - either what they’re advertising, the targeting, how they’re formatted or something.”

Winksite’s take…
We were testing ads from both networks using Winksite’s advertising preferences (publishers can switch between displaying Google & AdMob ads with one click.) After staring at a great number of these ads we observed the following:

Google AdSense Ads

• All text ads are separated from page content with horizontal lines before and after the ad.
• All text ads show a URL after the ad copy.
• All text ads display an “Ads by Google” tag.

AdMob Ads

• WML-based text ads show [AD] at the beginning of each ad.
• iPhone-based text ads shows “Ads by Admob”. Ad is placed within a box with curved corners.
• XHTML-based text ads ONLY display ad copy. No defining box or lines. No “Ads by Admob” tagline.

Now unless I misread AdMob’s recently released Mobile Metrics Report it appears a good number of AdMob’s impressions are served to phones that display the XHTML-based text ads (based on Admob’s worldwide and regional “Top Ten Handset Models” list.) As these ads can be misinterpreted as a link on the page (unlike the other flavor ads across Google and Admob) it’s likely that this could account for the performance Russell is referring to above. I don’t know if this is intentional by design or an oversight. I also don’t know enough to comment on the differences as to what each network is advertising or how effective their targeting is. What I do know is that AdMob provides publishers with granular approval of the ads to be displayed. Nice.

(Disclaimer: We’re big fans of publisher-focused services.)

– David Harper