“Android and iPhone users […] will also experience BlackBerry’s ad content in the form of mobile takeovers starting the week of March 25. Those mobile takeovers will fill your screen with what looks like a BlackBerry 10’s, demoing a specific feature like its photo ‘Time Shift’ capability that allows you to scroll through several captured options for each face in a picture.” Yes. BlackBerry is going to run ads that hijack your entire smartphone’s display. Sigh.
I’ve seen the “BlackBerry keyboard challenge” and tried to take it – you’re trying to out-pace the computer, and they rely on you making a typing error (e.g. “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” rather than “jumps”) and having to correct it, while it will of course have the whole thing correct. I’ve tried their keyboard and it’s OK but not a patch on SwiftKey (which learns your typing habits, and that phrase is not a common one of mine), although probably better than iOS’s ancient keypad.
Geez, I’m glad I’m not using a phone OS built by an advertising company, ’cause surely they would make an even gnarlier experience for me, right?!
This reminds me of iAds launch keynote, when they demoed being able to interact with ads that appeared and they would… take over the whole screen to give you an immersive shopping experience.
The ad would expand if you clicked on the ad. Far different.
So this is really newsworthy? I guess if you’re going to post something about Blackberry that the rules of this site say it can only be negative.
Edited 2013-03-24 19:08 UTC
These kind of ads happen all over the web, and especially in free mobile apps, rim is hardly the first to do it, and your right, its not really newsworthy that they are.
If Thom had spent 1 minute googling he would have found this:
The ad, which promotes the U.S. launch of the Z10, won’t open automatically, but will instead only take over the screen when a user clicks on it. Frank Boulben, BlackBerry’s chief marketing officer, says the ad — via Phonevalley — will come in different forms, including banners and in-app units. “Let’s say you are exposed to a BlackBerry 10 link,” Boulben says. “You click on it and it will take over your screen and, for instance, show you the BlackBerry 10 keyboard and at the end ask ‘Does your smartphone do that? If not, visit blackberry10.com.'”
So no, the ads wont “hijack” the screen.
Uh, when I click an ad, I don’t expect my ENTIRE DISPLAY to be hijacked. That’s not okay, in any way, shape, or form.
Edited 2013-03-24 21:13 UTC
Nonsense, of course it is. It’s what expected to happen when you *click the ad*. Obviously you’re clicking it because you’re interested in the offer so having the ad expand to the whole screen is a non-problem. If you don’t want that to happen, don’t click the ad.
Are you also opposing full-page ads in magazines and newspapers?
How is this different from the ads in various Android aps?
Or iOS, or Windows Phone, or anyone else. Various advertising platforms do this, and developers use them because they yield higher eCPM and encourage a higher CTR than other types of advertising.
Interactive ads are really lucrative, and guess what, people actually interact with them.
Edited 2013-03-24 19:44 UTC
I have never seen an ad take over my smartphone. Ever.
That’s because you are currently using a Windows Phone, am I correct? I can’t speak for iOS, but go back to Android and you’ll see full screen ads hijack several apps, mostly games but some productivity apps too.
I don’t recall any full screen ads when I used my WP7 phone, but I get them all the time on my Nexus.
And you won’t see them now either, unless you click on the ads.
If they did this on my phone, it would make me want to actively avoid buying their products… not like I wanted to buy their shit anyway. But there’s got to be enough mouth breathers out there who respond to this kind of advertising, to make it worth their while.
Fortunately, I use AdAaway, so the company formerly known as RIM can take their ads and go fuck themselves
“Mouth breathers” don’t usually go for advanced business devices like BlackBerry phones.
Nothing new here. If you install the “wrong” apps, you’ll get spammed. Sad part is usually there are no alternatives.
I don’t think we can blame Blackberry for using advertisement that app developers have put in place. Only solution as i see it is don’t install ad-infested apps.
… in the source article does it say that the ads will hijack the screen? Or did you just make that up?
If that where the case user certainly wouldn’t spend 4.2 minutes on average trying it out.
Edited 2013-03-24 20:37 UTC
Between my hosts file (updated by AdAway) and Adblock Plus in my Firefox, these ads won’t bother me any. I feel bad for you motherfuckers who aren’t using ad blocking.
Thom’s an admitted Windows Phone fanboy and is letting that bias effect his reporting. You expect that on some tech sites but I guess here is no different now.
He has some hate for Blackberry as though they did something personally to him.
Edited 2013-03-24 23:56 UTC
While i usually agree with Thom, I think his critique is misplaced here. But I’ve never noticed him having anything against Blackberry. Rather on the contrary.
/Uni
Hijacking screens is the best way to alienate your potential customers and make them look elsewhere. Perhaps they should have taken the money they gave Alicia Keys and given it to an agency that has a clue on how not to infuriate people.
I do not, ever, install apps with ads. If your app is paid and has ads, I won’t use it. If it’s free and I like it but has ads, then you’d better offer a way for me to buy the app and remove the things or guess what, your app goes in the trash no matter how much I like it. I do not tolerate advertising on my devices, especially not in apps. Ever.
Nothing is more infuriating than installing a “free” app and finding out it’s ad-ware. Ad-ware does not equal freeware! Developers should know the difference and not misrepresent their products.
Oh, they know the difference. What are they going to do though, put a big banner in their app description saying: “Hey, install this so we can feed you ads and I can get money!”?
How about simply replacing replacing the word “free” with “Ad Supported,” “Trial Version,” or whatever is most accurate and honest?
Do they not show ads in the screen shot? That’s usually what I look for to check for ads.
Developers hate ads, but users, especially on Android, hate buying apps. Ad SDKs are ugly, slow, and no dev likes taking up their own real estate with Ads. I always die inside a little whenever an app has to have ads.
Every app is different though and sells different, so ads are usually my last resort. Sometimes hiding functionality behind time trials or feature trials are good enough and an appreciable amount of people convert from trial to full.
The hidden advantage of Advertising is that the payout thresholds are likely lower so you get paid with more regularity. Sometimes app store sales can take time to settle (Credit cards, Mobile carrier billing, etc.) which can delay payment by 2-3 months.
This is a retarded summary.
Also, repeat after me: ads are good. Why? Because they allow site owners to offer you ungrateful SOBs quality content for free.
Source: I run some sites that were doing really well before the recession solely on advertising money and I hired a lot of talented people to write for them. When the advertising market crashed hard in my country in 2009 I was forced to lay off a lot of people and close said websites.
Hope you like your paywalls, because that’s where all this is heading.
I don’t much mind, to be honest, so long as the content is good and the price is fair. Better than serving me ads from a third party server that I did not wish to access especially if I have no real idea what’s actually being downloaded until it appears. The number of malware infections I’ve seen from supposedly legitimate ad services (mostly flash, but some js or Java exploits too) might surprise you. If paywalls are what it takes to get rid of this shit, so be it especially when you also factor in the skyrocketing data caps and corresponding plans. These goddamn full image ads already hog enough of our already limited mobile bandwidth even when you don’t click on the bloody things, and a hell of a lot of home ISPs are beginning to institute caps as well.
Then let’s hope you’ll put your money where your mouth is … and there will be enough like you who will do the same, because it’s not possible to have it both ways.
Actually as a content provider I’d like nothing more than not to have to deal with the shitty ad agencies and focus my efforts on website enhancements and great content.
Yeah. From an app dev POV, people forget that the app is $0.99 cents, not $10. You’re asking a lot for a relatively small sum of money from developers.
So when developers go the extra mile to make an app free upfront, other monetization strategies must be used.
Well, that’s probably why all the top Android games are about collecting coins to unlock power-ups that help you collect more coins to unlock even more expensive power-ups etc … that is until you crack and just pay for the god damned coins.
Edited 2013-03-25 16:08 UTC
Yeah, unfortunately that’s the direction things are going in. Microtransactions for in game currency. I do think its still good that you can earn the points without paying, for those that don’t like pay to play.
I would much prefer to be able to charge 3.99 or 4.99 an app and do away with advertising and IAPs in general. I was pleased when the Windows Store set $1.49 as the baseline, not $0.99.
I also have had more luck selling higher than $1.49 with the Windows Store, people are more inclined to buy at those prices than even compared to WP.
I’m also considering things like using In App Purchases to do 1year subscriptions to receive real time notifications from the app, since this is a cost burden on me, maintaining a cloud service to handle the notifications.
There are a lot of different ways people can go with monetization before resorting to ugly ads, I hope developers exhaust everything possible before uglifying thier apps with ads.