I’m going to discuss our mobile app development process a bit further in today’s part 3 of the series, but I’m also going to give you a video sneak peek of the app as well.

Part 1 of "The Shanzai.com mobile app journey can be viewed  here.
Part 2 of "The Shanzai.com mobile app journey can be viewed  here.

Yesterday we left off discussing design and navigation aspects of the application. Today along with a video demo we’re going to talk a bit about monetization.



So along with the decision to include all of our full content in the app, we also decided we’ll try to monetize that content as well. Like the monetization of our online website content we’ve gone for a strictly advertising/voluntary option.

Using tools provided by Google’s Admob service (once its own independent company but now owned by Google) Android applications can easily add in mobile advertising much in the same way ads appear on our online site. 

Admob analyses your mobile content and decides which of its advertising inventory is appropriately matched to your mobile content and then displays an in-app drop down ad that hopefully you won’t find too intrusive. If there is no appropriate advert Admob allows the option to display your own “House” ads.  So in cooperation with some of our partners we’ll have those adverts display in the app as well, in the same manner as the Google’s ads. If you’ve seen in-app advertising in other apps you’ll be familiar with what I’m talking about.

We’ll also have some obvious (yet discrete) options in the content to download or visit other web properties that we’ve partnered or affiliated with. The options are clearly marked and boxed in so you’ll be well aware of what’s going on and whether you are interested or not on clicking this options.

This in app advertising allows us to justify including our entire recent stories in the app and will also give us some idea about how well targeted and enticing in-app advertising is. I’m really quite curious myself. It’s not often that I click on advertising and shop using my phone but clearly some people do.

Well that’s part 3 of the journey under our belts… we’ve got more coming on the road ahead including content planning and promotion of the app to discuss, so as always… stay tuned for more.

Part 1 of "The Shanzai.com mobile app journey can be viewed  here.
Part 2 of "The Shanzai.com mobile app journey can be viewed  here.

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