Expert: Shahid - 7/6/2011

Question
QUESTION: Hi Shahid, could you possibly lead me to a source that will help me obtain a mobile ad serving platform. How do companies for like Admob or Buzzcity gain access to these servers? Do they just build them ground up or outsource the development to software companies confidently. Would you happen to know any software engineers who are capable of developing this platform? Any advice would help, thanks.

ANSWER: Hi Navi... whoa, your question is out of my expertise, but I will try to give you some direction. Companies such as AdMob have a lot running to be successful, so it may be best for you to let me know your objective. Guessing by the rapid developments in Mobile Applications technology and a host of mobile platforms, I'd guess that companies such as AdMob have their own development team. I personally don't know anyone who has worked on this, but can give you direction on how one can possible design such as software.

Mobile Phone providers such as Apple, Nokia, Samsung, etc. release Software Development Toolkits (SDKs) that you can use to create your own Apps for their platforms. Application developers use this to design their own apps, which consist of many components, some of their own or some that can be imported from external sources.
Eg: You may make a software to show a list of eBay or your own Brand's products. However, the component for which the user makes payment, may be from a Financial institution that you downloaded and attached to your app.

In such manner, companies such as AdMob create Plug-ins that have the code to display banners in a mobile application, and contact their servers to get updated ads and to update your revenue logs. Thus the original mobile app creater worries about his own app, and the plugin that he downloads from AdMob contains the code that manages the Ads.

Hope this answers your question.

Shahid

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: It's great to gain brief knowledge from how the system works, thanks. Admob was acquired by Google so yes they probably do have their own development team. Yes once you gain traction in the industry then of course its easier to hire you own employees but I was wondering how they managed to get their technology set up in the start up phase because not every start up has a lot of resources to work in the beginning. I'm just looking for the technology/software platform that will allow me to serve Advertisers ads on Publishers app/mobile sites. I'm trying to find software companies in India that I can outsource too? Thanks!

Answer
Hi Navi. Do you want to allow interested customers to advertise on your own apps, or set up a business such as AdMob? Do remember, AdMob itself took four years to break even, and the software is the easy part. One more thing to consider is, there were fewer platforms and probably simpler means to program when AdMob started.

By my reckoning, it would take a good developer perhaps 2-4 weeks to design a software for your needs, once you have a well defined business process. Once you make the software for one platform, porting it to another should be at best 1-2 days each. Technically, you would need:
1) A Browser control that displays the ad web page or picture from the mobile end (2-4 days development)
2) A server side application that identifies which app is calling it based on some Database Management, where you keep track of each mobile using some sort of ID and use that ID to log how many minutes has the ad been showed, or number of clicks the user has done, etc.

The logic for the second part is the most challenging part and determinant of your company's success. You can read about the many complaints regarding this in the case of AdMob.

Google probably bought AdMob because, Google has good experience and business logic/execution plan when it comes to Advertising. They can simply use AdMob's Technical expertise and replace the existing logic with their own.

Once again, technically it is a very simple software that any person with a good knowledge of Mobile App Development can perform. Although your challenge is to find someone who can do more than one or all the available mobile platforms.

Shahid