PayPal announced this week that it has hired the former head of Uber’s advertising unit to lead a new PayPal Ads division. From the WSJ: PayPal has hired Mark Grether, who formerly led Uber’s advertising business, to lead the effort as senior vice president and general manager of its newly-created PayPal Ads division. In his new role, he will be responsible for developing new ad formats, overseeing sales and hiring staff to fill out the division, he said … PayPal in January introduced Advanced Offers, its first ad product, which uses AI and the company’s data to help merchants ..read more

SKAdNetwork 4.0, an update to Apple's native app install attribution framework, was introduced two years ago at WWDC 2022. SKAdNetwork 4.0 represented what I saw at the time as a total overhaul of the tool, addressing many of the functional flaws of SKAdNetwork 2.0, the point release that was launched ahead of Apple's App Tracking […] This content is only available to subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to view this content. If you are not a subscriber, subscriptions start at just $8.99 per month. The post Why did SKAdNetwork fail? appeared first on Mobile Dev Mem ..read more

Last week, Google announced at its Google I/O product showcase that it has introduced a new feature called AI Overviews within Google Search for all users in the United States. AI Overviews are an implementation of what Google calls the Search Generative Experience, and they present users with brief, derived responses to certain queries, delivered […] This content is only available to subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to view this content. If you are not a subscriber, subscriptions start at just $8.99 per month. The post AI Overviews and the future of Google Sea ..read more

My guest on this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Ari Paparo, a prominent entrepreneur and thought leader within the digital advertising ecosystem. The impetus of our conversation is a newsletter that he published several weeks ago for Marketecture in which he asked, Did it have to be this way?. From that piece: After reading this, you’re forgiven for thinking that the web is dead. Not dead yet, but certainly in decline. Media companies have pivoted to CTV. The NY Times makes more money from games than news. The advertisers are finding more of their customers on retail sites ..read more

Netflix made three substantive announcements at its upfront event yesterday: Netflix reaffirmed at the event that 40% of new users in the 12 countries that support the ad-supported tier choose it, although this isn't a new metric: Netflix revealed the same in its Q1 2024 and Q4 2023 earnings. This 40% number is touted as […] This content is only available to subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to view this content. If you are not a subscriber, subscriptions start at just $8.99 per month. The post Netflix’s ad-supported tier is ARPU dilutive. Enter proprietary ad t ..read more

Microsoft announced at the Bloomberg Technology Summit last week that it will launch a web-based store for mobile gaming consumables in July. From Bloomberg (emphasis mine): Microsoft Corp. will launch its own online store for mobile-game consumables in July, creating an alternative to Apple Inc. and Google’s app stores and their fees ... The browser-based store will debut […] This content is only available to subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to view this content. If you are not a subscriber, subscriptions start at just $8.99 per month. The post ..read more

My guest on this week’s podcast is Trung Phan, a popular X (Twitter) personality and a host of the Not Investment Advice podcast. Trung popularized the “short-form deep dive” content format on X following its introduction of long-form posts and has developed a for posting infotainment style content that often goes viral. In our conversation, Trung and I discuss: How Trung’s background as a comedy screenwriter contributed to perfecting his voice on social media; How the social media landscape has arguably been redefined since COVID; The substantive changes that have occurred on X since Elon ..read more

Meta unveiled new generative AI tools for creative production at a press event yesterday, including the ability for advertisers to generate full image variations. These image variations are currently informed by an advertiser's existing creative, but Meta has indicated that it will allow advertisers to generate new variations through text prompts "in the coming months." […] This content is only available to subscribers. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to view this content. If you are not a subscriber, subscriptions start at just $8.99 per month. The post Meta Shops, Shop A ..read more

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Lazar Radic, a Senior Scholar for Competition Policy at the International Center for Law & Economics and Adjunct Professor of Law at IE University. Our conversation focuses on the EU’s Digital Markets Act and the broader competition regulation landscape. Among other things, we discuss: A brief survey of the most meaningful recent new competition laws and investigations; The DMA workshop process; The EC’s announced investigations into three gatekeepers following the conclusion of their workshops; The designation of iPadOS as a gatekeeper; H ..read more

An almost certainly apocryphal parable from the terminal stage of the Soviet Union goes like this: Joseph Stalin, in poor health and cognizent that Nikita Khrushchev would likely succeed him as the Secretary of the Communist Party, summoned Khrushchev to a meeting. Stalin presented Khrushchev with two sealed letters and told him that they contained insights into leadership. Khrushchev was instructed to open the first letter when conditions became dire, and the second if that happened again. Khrushchev eventually encountered challenges and opened the first letter, which read: “Blame everythin ..read more