RICCHA CHADDA HOT NEWS

Richa Chadha cast in Shakeela biopic

Actress Richa Chadha has been roped in to play the lead role in a biopic on Shakeela, a 1990s' actress from Keralawho acted in several adult films in languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

The biopic will tell the tale of Shakeela from when she entered the film business at the age of 16 and traces her life journey from there. Shakeela became a popular figure in the film business at a time popularity was only for the men in the industry dominated by them.

"The film is the story of Shakeela, one of the most famous actors from Malayalam cinema from the 1990s who rose to a spectacular amount of fame. Her fans were spread across Asia and she earned fanfare as a woman which back then was unheard of," Richa's spokesperson said in a statement.

"The film's script was exciting and is a great story to tell and the story will make for a great watch for the audience. The preparations will begin soon and the film should be going on floors in end April or May," the spokesperson added. Being directed by Indrajit Lankesh, the film will go on floors in April and will release early next year.

Richa Chadha: Trolls should be ignored

Trolling has become an issue for many celebrities on social media whenever they express their opinion on any topic, but some Bollywood figures maintain that not paying attention is the best way to deal with trolls and maintain one's sanity.

"I think people who are trolling seek attention, so the best way to deal with it is to ignore it, The moment you are blocking the person (who is trolling) it does not exist. That apart if it is going out of the way, just file a report of abuse. Because they know that the more a topic trolled, it gets mileage and media talk about it. If you ignore, it will stop after a point," said actress Richa Chadha at the trailer launch of her upcoming '3 Storeys' which is set to release on March 9.

"Everyone has a right to express an opinion but without abusing anyone," she added.

Actor Pulkit Samrat said: "There is a difference between memes and trolls and I think people have forgotten about it. Memes is a humorous take on situation and trolls come with agenda. So we should completely ignore trolls, block those people who made dirty comments and abuse people on social media."

"I think even media should ignore these trolls because that is how those trolls are becoming topic of discussion. Therefore I think we should block them, ignore them and should not pay any kind of attention," said film producer Ritesh Sidwani.

This Rs 10.2 cr company started with a 12K camera

Meet Sandeep Maheshwari who runs ImagesBazaar that has over 800,000 Indian pictures making the largest stock of Indian images in the world.

When he was 13, Sandeep Maheshwari's father thought his son could do with a moped. So he bought the young fellow a shiny new two-wheeler thinking it would help him move around in Delhi, a city starved of a good transport system.

Little did Maheshwari Sr know that his son would actually make money out of the gift! On the first available occasion Sandeep rented out the moped to one of his friends who wanted to take his girl for a spin.

Within a matter of months, Sandeep was a star and became known to everyone looking for two wheels with an engine attached. The rate: Rs 50 per hour and the condition that the rider bears the fuel expenses!

It wasn't long before Sandeep not only recovered the cost of the moped but was also making money from it!

Later when his father fell on tough times, it was this entrepreneurial spirit that held him in good stead.

Sandeep dropped out of college and by the time he was 21 was earning over a lakh of rupees per month! Today, he runs Imagesbazaar.com, a stock photo company that has over 800,000 pictures making the largest stock of Indian images in the world.

Recently the 29-year-old entrepreneur received the 2010 Young Creative Entrepreneur Award from the British Council for 'his entrepreneurial skills through a perfect blend of a good idea and business venture leading to 'real' change'.

In an interview, Sandeep tells Abhishek Mande what this award means and the windows of opportunities it opens. He also speaks about the challenges he faced and how he overcame them.

What doors does the 2010 Young Creative Entrepreneur Award from the British Council open for your business?

As part of the award, I will be visiting the UK and meeting some of the top ad agencies and design houses there. I fly there sometime next month. This will mean a great opportunity for us to network and negotiate with prospective clients. And since I will be going via the British High Commission, I'm assuming it will carry some weight.

There were about 753 creative entrepreneurs who applied online for this and ours was among the half dozen firms that were short listed in the communications category. 

Was there any promise of investment in your company or was it just this trip?

The British Council, which gave out this award, will not invest in the company. But through the competition, it provided a lot of start-ups and small companies a platform to interact with some of the best-known venture capitalists and angel investors.

Among the judges were Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm and Managing Partner of Seedfund and Jai Vikram Bakshi who was representing the Indian Angel Network.

So it was a great opportunity for people who were looking for funding for their company.

Are you looking for funding?

No, ImagesBazaar isn't looking for funding right now. I started with a camera that cost me Rs 12,000. Today ImagesBazaar has a turnover of Rs 10.2 crore annually.

What is the annual income of CEO of the ImagesBazzar (Mr. Sandeep Maheshwari)?

Sandeep Maheshwari is one of the fastest growing entrepreneurs of India. He is the founder and CEO of ImagesBazzar.

(A Venture of "Mash Audio Visuals Pvt. Ltd”.) the largest collection of Indian images.Imagesbazaar has over 1 Million images of Indian models with a network of over 12,000 photographers all over India. Without diving too much into his professional success, what makes him a lot different from other is that he is also a motivational speaker and is known for his ‘Free Motivational Life Changing Seminars’ to motivate and inspire the minds of the young.

There are no official reports which can tell about the annual income of Sandeep Maheshwari, but as per This Rs 10.2 cr company started with a 12K camera(Rediff.com), The net worth of his venture Image Bazaar was 10.2 crores in 2010, So we can make an estimation that the net worth of his company would have touched 90–100 crores till now (2017) because of his popularity among youth. His venture sell over images of worth INR 4,00,000 everyday.

Also, Sandeep Maheshwari don’t charge a single penny for his MOTIVATIONAL LIVE SESSIONS, and not even monetize his YOUTUBE videos.

Milestones and Awards

• Creative Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 by Entrepreneur India Summit
• One of India’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs by “Business World” magazine
• Star Youth Achiever Award instituted by the Global Youth Marketing Forum
• Young Creative Entrepreneur Award by the British Council, a division of the British High Commission
• Pioneer of Tomorrow Award by the “ET Now” television channel
• Apart from this, he has also been featured in almost all the leading magazines, newspapers and television channels such as The Economic Times, Indi a Today, CNBC-TV18, IBN7, ET Now, NewsX and more.

Google eyes advertising boost in China

google Inc will continue to invest in China, where it has a testy relationship with the government, with a focus on growing its fast-growing display and mobile advertising businesses, its Asia chief said on Tuesday.

In a brief telephone interview during a visit to Taiwan, Google's APAC President Daniel Alegre said the company sees opportunities in connecting China's businesses with potential overseas customers.

"We've never left China," Alegre said.

"We continue to have operations in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou; we have a thriving engineering centre, our sales infrastructure is something that we continue to grow, and the display, export and mobile opportunities are growing much faster than we had ever predicted."

Google moved its servers from China to Hong Kong in 2010 after a hacking attack that was widely blamed on China, saying also at the time it was no longer willing to censor search results. The issue became a political strain between the U.S. and China.

Google continues to run operations in China, though relations with the Chinese government remain strained.

Alegre said Google can serve as a platform for the vast number of small and medium enterprises in China to access global consumers.

There are also over 10,000 Chinese registered developers on AdMob, the mobile advertising platform that Google bought in 2009.

Google currently has more than 500 employees in China and it said it plans to keep the number stable at this stage.

Alegre was in Taiwan to break ground on Google $300 million data centre in Taiwan, its third in Asia after Singapore and Hong Kong.

The company expects the Taiwan centre to come online in the second half of 2013.

Advertisers refine mobile pitches for phones and tablets

 

Say you are in a strange city and need a hotel for the night. You pull out your phone, search for hotels on Google and see a nearby one listed at the top of the rankings, with a little phone icon that says, "Call." You tap it, reach the hotel and ask for a room.

And just like that, Google made money. That icon was a so-called click-to-call ad, and the hotel paid Google for it when you called.

As more of us have access to the Internet and apps through our cellphones and tablets, advertisers are looking for new ways to reach us there.

Some mobile ads remain just miniature versions of ads on Web sites, an echo of the early days of the Internet, when advertisers essentially slapped print ads online. But increasingly, advertisers are tailoring ads to phones by taking advantage of elements like their ability to track location, make a call, show maps with directions and add calendar alerts.

The stakes are significant for an industry that is still finding its way in the mobile world. Advertisers will spend a relatively small amount of money on ads on phones and tablets this year $2.6 billion, according to eMarketer, less than 2 percent of the amount they will spend over all. Yet that is more than triple what they spent in 2010.

"An ever-growing percentage of our ad buy is mobile because that's where the consumer is," said Chris McCann, president of 1-800-Flowers.com, which has run mobile ads urging people to call or walk into a nearby store. "It's the future for us."

Coming up with ads that exploit the smaller mobile screen requires inventiveness from many parties - advertisers; digital publishers like Google, Apple and Facebook that sell ad space; and mobile ad networks like Millennial Media.

"What we're trying to do is think about the on-the-go user," said Jason Spero, leader of global mobile sales and strategy at Google, which dominates advertising online and is far and away the leader in mobile advertising. "What does that user want when she's sitting in a cafe or walking down the street?"

A big challenge for the tech companies is that advertisers pay less for mobile ads than for those online, largely because consumers are less likely to make a purchase on their phones. Though people click on mobile ads more than on desktop ads, advertisers wonder whether that is because of what they call the "fat finger effect" accidental clicks on tiny touch screens.

And while users' actions can be tracked across Web sites online, it is hard to know whether someone sees a cellphone ad for an offline business and then walks in so it is difficult for advertisers to judge how effectively they are spending their money.

As Google sells more mobile ads, the average amount it earns from each ad has dived. Facebook's value on Wall Street was halved on fears that it was not making enough money on its mobile users. Apple's mobile ad network, iAd, has been slow to gain traction.

Despite the problems, though, there is evidence that mobile advertising is becoming a meaningful business, and in some cases a bigger business than online advertising.

Facebook executives said last week that in the third quarter, the company earned $150 million from mobile ads, 14 percent of its total revenue. Pandora reported that in the second quarter that ended in July 58 percent of its revenue, or $59 million, came from mobile ads. Twitter executives have said that on certain days, the social network earns a majority of its daily revenue from mobile ads.

Mobile ad networks, which show ads across mobile apps and Web sites, have created new and thriving businesses. The biggest are Millennial Media, Google's AdMob and Apple's iAd.

Google earns 56 percent of all mobile ad dollars and 96 percent of mobile search ad dollars, according to eMarketer. The company said it is on track to earn $8 billion in the coming year from mobile sales, which includes ads as well as apps, music and movies it sells in its Google Play store. But the vast majority of that money comes from ads, it said.

"Whoever does mobile best, they're going to be the next Google, so people are asking, 'Is Google going to be the next Google?' " said Chris Winfield, co-founder of BlueGlass Interactive, a digital advertising agency. "It still is Google's to lose."

Google and others have had success in taking advantage of the fact that mobile phones know a lot more about people than desktop computers do - most important, their location. And with a phone in hand, a customer is probably more likely to be ready to buy something.

People searching on a computer for jeans, for instance, most likely want to research styles and colors, while people doing the same search on a phone want the nearest place to buy a pair, said Mr. Spero at Google.

In addition, Google has benefited from the fact that one main way people use Google on phones is to search for nearby businesses, a prime source of advertising. Thirty percent of restaurant searches and 25 percent of movie searches are done on mobile devices, according to Google.

One of Google's most successful mobile ad types is the click-to-call ad. After running these ads, Starwood Hotels' mobile bookings grew 20 percent in a month.

Google also shows ads on the mobile version of YouTube, including video ads like movie trailers before YouTube videos. If someone watches the movie trailer, Google makes money.

The company has also hinted that it could show ads through other services like Google Now, which sends unprompted alerts to cellphones. It coaches advertisers on how to do things like build mobile Web pages.

Larry Page, Google's chief executive, told analysts this month that thinking about mobile ads versus desktop ads is the wrong approach.

"We want a seamless experience that goes across mobile, desktop and TV, and that's what we're building," he said.

Pandora, the Internet radio service, is second only to Google in mobile ad revenue, according to eMarketer, which predicts it will bring in $229 million in mobile ad revenue this year from both audio and on-screen ads.

An audio ad, for example, told Pandora listeners to tap the screen for the location of the nearest Whole Foods and a sushi lunch special. StubHub, the online ticket marketer, recently ran an ad on Pandora's app. Those who clicked on it received reminders for coming concerts to their cellphone calendars.

Gaining traction in mobile advertising is particularly critical for Facebook; 60 percent of its users log in on phones. But making the transition to the small screen has been a challenge: most Facebook ads appeared on the right side of the Web page, so there was nowhere to show them on a mobile device.

That is one reason Facebook started running ads in the newsfeed, like sponsored stories, which are notices that a friend likes a certain brand. It is also starting a mobile ad network to show ads on other cellphone apps, based on things Facebook knows about a user, such as what they like and where they live.

Twitter has inserted ads labeled "promoted" in its newsfeed from the beginning. On advertisers' behalf, Twitter can show ads only to people using mobile devices, like ads to download a mobile app.

Samsung showed an ad just to people using its Galaxy Note device, directing them to search and download Android apps for the phone.

Next, these companies must figure out how to persuade advertisers to spend more than 2 percent of their budgets on mobile devices.

"It's reminiscent of the Web in 1996, '97," said Michael Moritz, an investor at Sequoia Capital who financed companies like Google and LinkedIn. "People weren't interested in ads, and prices were low. But advertisers don't have a choice.

Facebook lets users limit data shared with apps

San Francisco:

Facebook introduced new features on Wednesday that let users limit how much personal information they share with third-party mobile apps, a move meant to quell privacy concerns as the social network seeks to become a top entry port to the Internet.

In recent years, Facebook Inc has successfully encouraged a growing number of third-party app makers to allow users to log in with their Facebook identity rather than, say, by entering an email address or creating a dedicated account.

The result has been an influx of valuable data for the world's No. 1 social network, but concerns have also mounted about third-party developers gaining access to private information.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said at Facebook's developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday that a new version of Facebook's log-in tool, called "log in anonymously," would let users control what information they allow third-party apps to see. He told developers the tool would let users feel more comfortable about logging into apps using Facebook.

"By giving people more power and control, they're going to trust all the apps that we build more, and over time use them more. And that's positive for everyone," said Zuckerberg.

The revamped log-in screen will let users select which personal information stored on the social network, such as an email address, birthday or items that they have "liked" on Facebook, can be accessed by any particular app.

The user's names and gender will remain visible to the app.

On Wednesday, the social network also rolled out a new service to distribute ads across a network of mobile applications, opening the door to a new source of revenue.

The service, which has been in the works on for some time, allows mobile-app makers to insert various ads within their software, with Facebook sharing advertising dollars with the developers.

"This is really the first time that we're going to help you monetize in a serious way on mobile," Zuckerberg said.

Facebook faces tough competition in the active mobile ad network market. Google Inc's AdMob service already allows advertisers to distribute ads to mobile apps, while Twitter Inc said on Tuesday that its MoPub ad network can reach 1 billion mobile users.

Twitter's MoPub, which serves as an advertising management tool for app publishers, will allow mobile apps to feature ads for the Facebook audience as well as other networks, the two companies said.

Facebook began testing a mobile ad network with a limited number of advertisers and mobile app publishers in January. It plans to expand the number of app makers that can use the service, although it did not provide a time frame for when the system will become broadly available.

The new mobile ad system, dubbed the Facebook Audience Network, will leverage Facebook's more than 1 million advertisers and its own ability to target users based on their traits.

Facebook generates the bulk of its revenue from ads that appear on its own Web pages and within its own mobile app. By distributing ads across a constellation of independent mobile apps, Facebook effectively expands its advertising space, opening the door to more revenue.

To get access to the extra ad space, ad networks typically share the revenue with their partners. Facebook will share most of the ad revenue with apps makers, as is standard in the industry, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Reliance Jio, Airtel Discounts Look Great, but How Long Will They Last?

We discuss Reliance Jio’s rumoured Republic Day offer, which offers up to 50 percent more data per day for prepaid customers. Gadgets 360’s telecom expert Ravi Sharma joins host Pranay Parab to talk about how long these discounts are going to keep flowing and whether it makes sense to be on postpaid anymore. We begin by talking about details of the Republic Day offer from Reliance Jio and all the plans that are available as part of that offer. We mention all the price changes in 2017 that Reliance Jio saw and then talk about the elephant in the room - postpaid. Will postpaid users be getting the same benefits from Reliance Jio? Listen to the podcast to find out what we think.

Next we talk about competition from Vodafone and Airtel, and how much the price of voice and data has decreased since 2016. We talk about whether Airtel’s competing packs, and whether we can expect the prices of prepaid packs to fall further. Then we discuss the caveats of Jio’s constant discounts, whether you will have to cancel your existing plan to get the Reliance Jio Republic Day offer, and once again, what postpaid customers need to do to get these offers. 

Finally, we talk about the saga of Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone discounting their prepaid data packs, and how long this will continue. We mention their average revenue per user, how telcos could try and raise their revenue and whether they need find things to improve in their service as opposed to cutting prices constantly, and whether the market cares much about that.

Android TV Gets Support for Phones as Game Controllers: Google at GDC 2015

In what seems like an attempt to stake claim to the living room, Google announced at Game Developers Conference 2015 (GDC 2015) a new API for developers known as Nearby Connections. With this, developers can build a link between Android tablets or phones and screens powered by Android TV.

This will allow the connected Android phone or tablet to display on-screen controls while the game itself will run on Android TV, allowing for a big screen experience without the need of additional console hardware or separate controllers.

Nearby Connections will be available in an soon to be released update to Google Play service. Beach Buggy Racing, an upcoming racing game has the feature baked in. Using Nearby Connections, up to four users can play the game on Android TV using their Android phones as controllers.

In addition to this, the US-based company stated that its AdMob platform will allow for native ads. What this means is, game makers can choose ads to display in their games that match the game's user interface allowing for a less jarring experience for end users. Right now this feature is in limited beta.

Also announced is in-app purchase house ads beta. Aside from being a mouthful of a name, lets developers track which users have a higher probability of spending on in-app purchases. Accordingly AdMob users can push text or image ads prompting them to make a purchase. Audience Builder is another new addition which lets developers create lists for different audiences and customise ads for each.

While all these updates reaffirm Google's focus on consolidating its position as the largest mobile platform, it also highlights the need to ensure cross compatibility across what many still perceive as a fragmented hardware landscape. It's something of a crutch. Despite Android's prevalence, the platform doesn't monetise as well as it should, something Google is aware of. Whether Android's monetisation potential can come close to iOS' with the renewed efforts however, remains to be seen.

Google's Ad Network for Apps Quietly Becomes Huge Growth 

Google makes ads show up in more smartphone apps than any other technology company. That is the core of a resurgent business for parent Alphabet.

Google's ad network unit has posted three straight quarters of year-over-year double-digit sales increases. The business is nearing $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1.27 lakh crores) in annual revenue, making it as important to Google's top-line as its hardware, cloud computing and app store groups combined.

For years, the star of the network was Google's AdSense, which delivers ads to websites in exchange for a cut of ad revenue. But as consumers migrate from desktop computing to mobile, momentum has shifted to AdMob, Google's mass-market tool for third-party apps, and DoubleClick for Publishers, its higher-end mobile software.

Google has lured app developers from competitors by lowering commissions and simplifying software. And it is increasingly satisfying advertisers with hot new formats such as video.

Advertisers are taking notice. Alex Hewson, managing partner at M&C Saatchi Mobile, said the London-based ad buying agency has used AdMob for years, but only recently has it become the "top supplier."

"They've engaged big developers and done that well," Hewson said.

But it has come at a cost. Google is growing by giving app and website creators a bigger chunk of ad sales. In last year's final quarter, Google's portion fell by $33 million compared to the year-earlier period even though overall network revenue rose $559 million.

The company is feeling the heat. Alphabet shares dipped 5 percent after missing profit estimates this month.

"They are chasing top-line growth and beating the competition by losing margins," said Brian Wieser, a senior analyst with Pivotal Research, a New York City firm that provides stock guidance.

Top player
Still, Google's strategy is winning customers. Google gives developers about 70 cents of every $1 it collects from ad buyers, compared to 50 cents to 60 cents at some competitors.

The high payouts, coupled with Google's entrenched relationship with millions of advertisers, has turned Google into the main revenue source for many apps. Purchases of in-app ads nearly tripled last year compared to 2016 on Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager, used by advertisers with the biggest budgets.

Over 1.1 million Android apps include Google's ad software, double from a year ago, making it by far the fastest-growing and most widely used ad service, according to research firm MightySignal. Google's iPhone market share is only slightly behind.

The biggest choice for many app creators is between Google's AdMob and DoubleClick. It is not clear which is growing faster because Google does not provide that data.

AdMob, which was designed specifically for mobile, tends to attract ads promoting apps and smartphone services. Google bought AdMob for $750 million in 2010, beating a bid from Apple.

Google needed technology fresher than AdSense to deliver in-app ads, according to Sissie Hsiao, who leads the company's apps business.

"Just taking our web stuff and slapping it on wasn't going to be a sufficient strategy," she said.

Chinese app maker Cheetah Mobile turned to AdMob last year, shifting focus from Facebook's Audience Network. Google paid better and offered more ads, said Vincent Jiang, chief financial officer for Cheetah, which has 589 million monthly users for its games and a popular memory-clearing app known as Clean Master.

Google's DoubleClick ad tool, meanwhile, requires customisation to maximise revenue. Companies with many websites and apps use it to integrate ads that they sell on their terms.

Argentine developer Etermax SA moved its well-known Trivia Crack game and another app to DoubleClick from AdMob last year and plans to shift three more this year, according to Tomás Cavanagh, business planner for Etermax.

"They grow fast all the time and their user interface is easy to use," Cavanagh said of Google.

Simplicity has attracted advertisers, too. They now can eliminate a manual task and instead rely on Google to automatically resize video ads to a fit any phone.

Competitors can do little but grumble. Google overcame US antitrust scrutiny to buy AdMob, and calls for breaking up the company's ad machine have not gained traction in Washington.

Abhay Singhal, chief revenue officer at InMobi, an AdMob competitor, said Google is not necessarily "the best game in town, but put any product into Google's huge ad pool with that muscle and it will drive huge penetration."

Next steps
Financial analysts expect Google's profit to keep eroding as ad buyers gravitate to apps, where Google says developer deals remain costly. Cowen & Co analysts estimate Google to give developers nearly 80 cents on the dollar by 2023.

Staffing up in Asia and Latin America, the next big growth markets for mobile advertising, could cost Google as well.

Advertisers also want Google to make technology upgrades so they can better monitor where their mobile ads appear.

Hewson of M&C Saatchi Mobile said he has told Google, "It can't just be, 'We're Google. Trust us.'"

Google Announces New AdMob Features To Expand Support For In-App Purchases

Google is announcing a number of updates today to its AdMob mobile ad platform — the most-requested ones, according to Jonathan Alferness (Google’s direct of product management for mobile ads), are integration with Google Analytics and ads for in-app purchases.

Alferness said that after Google acquired AdMob in 2010 and started integrating it with Google platforms including AdWords, there was a lot of “mundane migration work” to do. Now, however, that work is done and Google is ready to make some bigger upgrades.

The broad theme of these changes, as laid out in a blog post, is getting AdMob ready for the “second app economy.” The company suggests that the first app economy was “focused on paying for apps up front,” and we’re now entering “the era of free apps and incremental payments.”

What that means for publishers and developers, Alferness said, is an increasing focus on the value of an audience, not just its size. And Google aims to provide more insight into that value with the aforementioned Google Analytics integration, which will allow developers to see all their monetization data, particularly data related to in-app purchases, from within AdMob.

And one way that developers can act on that data is through the new ads, which deliver targeted promotions for in-app purchases to a segment of their audience. Alferness said some developers could have “hacked the house ads functionality” to do something similar with AdMob’s existing products, but that was “nowhere near as elegant” as the new units.

Other additions include ad network optimization and live CPM, which collectively allow AdMob to look at the most up-to-date pricing data from ad networks and from Google’s other ad sources, and then request an ad from the highest-paying source. And Google has released its App Developer Business Kit, with data and tips about how developers can make money.

Google will also be discussing the announcements today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (if you’re not there there, you can watch the livestream), including an AdMob-focused session at noon Pacific.

NEW MONITISATION RULES FOR ADMOB[FOR CREATORS AND DEVELOPERS]

Google Launches New Analytics, Monetization Tools For Android Game Developers

oogle today announced a couple of new tools for game developers on its Android platform. These include new analytics to help developers better understand in-game player behavior, as well as a number of new monetization features through its AdMob platform. Google also launched a new game-centric Nearby Connections API for Android TV, its nascent smart TV platform.

On the analytics side, Google’s new Player Analytics, which will roll out in a few weeks, is meant to help developers get a better grip on what their players do inside a game. In addition, this new report also looks at how much players are spending and what their churn rate looks like. The tool also makes it easier for developers to track average revenue and sessions per user. Google says BombSquad tested this feature and used the data it gathered to more than double its revenue per user — but then, Google wouldn’t use a game that lost users and revenue during the beta test as an example, would it?

On the monetization side, Google is launching native ads, house ads and a new “audience builder” tool. Just like native ads are slowly taking off in the publishing world, Google hopes to bring a similar experience to games. These new ads will be styled to “match the visual design of the game” — so you basically won’t immediately realize that you’re looking at an ad (which has long been the Holy Grail of advertising now that we’ve all learned to ignore it). This feature is currently in limited beta.

“In-App Purchase House Ads,” the second new feature, allows AdMob to predict which of your users are mostly likely to spend their hard-earned cash on virtual goods because you’ve made it impossible for players to finish your game without it in-app purchases so you can show them customized ads for promoting those in-app items. This feature is now in beta and will roll out to all AdMob users in the next few weeks.

The last new AdMob feature is the so-called “Audience Builder.” While that sounds like a tool for building audiences, it’s actually a “powerful tool that enables game developers to create lists of audiences based on how they use their game.” Using that, developers will be able to customize their games for different kinds of users.

Google Expands Its App Promotion Business With “Universal” App Campaigns And New Media Partnerships

Google announced today a number of new tools and updates designed help app developers better promote their applications across Google’s own network, as well as measure ad performance across a broader set of networks and grow their revenue.

One new product, called Universal Ad Campaigns, is being specifically aimed at smaller developers or those who are new to advertising with Google. This allows developers a simplified way to set up an app promotion that runs across all of Google, including Search, Google Play, AdMob, the Google Display Network and YouTube.

The move is meant to leverage Google’s scale to challenge competitors, like Facebook and Twitter, which also offer app install ads that can be targeted to reach particular demographic or interest groups.

With a simplified setup option that will be available in both AdWords, as well as directly in the Google Play Developer Console which is where app developers manage their apps, campaigns can be quickly created without requiring that developers input a lot of information.

As Google product manager for Google Play Ellie Powers told us, Google wants to make it as easy as possible for developers to say “here is my money and this is what I want to pay per user,” and then let Google handle things for them.

Using Google’s new analytics reports for Play, developers will now also be able to see where their traffic is coming from, analytics from their app listing place in the Google Play store and other metrics in one place to see how well their campaigns are working.

Typically, it takes a lot of work to create the campaigns, but now, developers only need to enter details about how much they want to spend, the audience they want to reach, and what the ad will say. Google then handles ad creation and bidding in order to maximize the ad’s performance across all of these networks.

Universal Ad Campaigns will launch in the “coming months,” Google said, but didn’t provide an exact timeframe.

This new tool was pre-announced at this morning’s Google I/O developer conference, marking the first time Google has ever made a mobile ads announcement during its keynote at the event. This highlights mobile’s growing importance to Google as it continues to shift its core business to better serve the needs of native app developers in a world where consumers are increasingly spending time using apps instead of browsing the web.

Media Partnerships

In addition, Google also said it’s making it easier for established developers to measure ad performance through partnerships with over 20 ad networks, including inMobi and Millennial Media. With another forthcoming tool, Mobile App Install Campaign Attribution, Google Analytics for Apps customers will have more ways to see how well their ads are working and which networks are providing the best value.

Previously, Google Analytics customers could track the performance of mobile app install campaigns and get information about the lifetime value of an app’s users on both Android and iOS (which is now out of beta). Today’s news regarding data integrations with the ad network partners will allow developers to see metrics, including lifetime value and retention across more networks, and will soon offer the ability to “postback” conversions to referring ad networks to better optimize traffic, says Google.

Google also announced the ability to integrate app install and event data from third-party measurement partners into AdWords, including Adjust, Appsflyer, Apsalar, Kochava, and Tune — a change that Google says will increase measurement accuracy between different AdWords trackers.

Aiming To Be A Cross-Platform Solution

Combined, the idea with the new releases and updates is to make Google a more complete solution for an app developer’s business, and follow on previous announcements focused on helping developers acquire and engage app users. Yesterday, Google said that Search will now also feature content from iOS applications in addition to Android, allowing consumers to surface information from apps and even open them directly from Google Search.

As Google’s Jason Titus told us earlier this week, the company also wants to use this year’s I/O to stress its support for cross-platform development and today’s announcements are a good example for this. “We think there may have been a misconception that we weren’t supporting iOS that much,” he said. “We are trying to make sure that is clear and that it’s easy for developers to incorporate everything from analytics to AdMob into their iOS apps. We want to be a cross-platform solutions for folks.”

Today’s announcements about app ads come at a pivotal time for Google’s business. Google’s share of the worldwide mobile ad market fell to 38.2 percent in 2014, says eMarketer, down from 46 percent the year prior. Meanwhile, Facebook increased its share from 16.4 percent to 17.4 percent last year as global mobile ad market expanded more than 50 percent to $42.63 billion in 2014.