I've dropped API development

[googleadwords_hack]

I dropped API development.

The economics for me don't work with the quota system. I have a media
company and thousands and thousands of advertisements from thousands of
customers running on the internet among a network of a dozen websites.

Reselling adwords ads to my existing advertisers would have been a nice
feature for me and good for my customers. But there is no way to get
such a system launched under the quota system. Initially, I would need
to create or offer Adwords to my customers, but I have no way to price
it since there is no dollar value for a quota point and no way to find
out. And if I offered it for free, I would simply run out of quota
points and not be able to guarantee that any individual ad would run -
my customers wouldn't go for that and I wouldn't want to offer it.

I have posted about this previously and I have had limited email
conversations with Google employees, but apparently there is little
interest in 5 figure ad purchases. Maybe if I were a million dollar
buyer of advertising I would have gotten a different response. As it
is, I have turned off all my campaigns in my automated Adwords account
and instead used that money to purchase a small competitor, giving me
the same traffic boost for less money.

Luckily, my competitors face the same hurdle and none of them appear to
be working with an Adwords API integration (that I know of).

I actually dropped development more than a month ago, but I visited the
API forum today to see if the quota system had been modified, but
clearly it's the same unfathomable bizarre hurdle it was before.

When I can price the automated creation of an Adwords Advertisement I
will restart development.

[Robert]

I'm thinking also about dropping my two Adwords API projects. I'm sure
that one of these programs would get 5 stars on download.com and 5 cows
on tucows.com, but I see no way to release it (see
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/a8ba4ddfa44a4654/c5fe3bce836a9488#c5fe3bce836a9488).
Perhaps I can finish my projects some days, but I'm sure I will not
start a new project based on a "free" Google API - There is no free
lunch.

I need at least one year to create a good program - and then I have to
sell it to more than 5 or 10 customer. This is not possible or allowed
with the current TOC, account linking & developer token.

Robert

Vulnerability note: My Adwords API client is a Windows software. This
client needs my developer token, MCC email & password (hard coded) and
the clientEmail (enterd by user). So every cracker can reverse the .exe
file and get my MCC account data. So a cracker could get a copy of for
example AdwordsDominator and get full access to all the thousands of
Adwords accounts of the AdwordsDominator users and create millions of
free ads or fetch the credit card infos. Solution would be a user token
instead of a developer token, see
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/8ad8ec6d228489f3/a04fc07b4799109d#a04fc07b4799109d.

[jake1568]

Two points, one, partner with someone to offer the service to your
clients and two, the new quota system (rolling out today) might help
you. BTW, we do 7 figures a month spend with Google and get close to
the same response you get, so don't sweat it.

[Shane O'Grady]

New quota system? What's this?

[Peer Jakobsen]

Don't you mean that they will go public about the new quota system
today?
It should not roll out before june.

jake1568 a écrit :

[jake1568]

Yes, correct. It will enable everyone to "control" usage, but forces
some UI changes too.

[Jon Tara]

OK, so will somebody fill us peons in on the details?

Obviously, there was neither a rollout nor an announcement. So, as
usual, yet another delay.

But I'd like to know what's coming so I can decide whether to pursue
API development or not.

I have two interests:

- developing some software for my own advertising. Currently, I don't
have enough quota to do beans with this.

- developing a test server/caching server to help others minimize API
usage. This seems a good bet if Google continues as they have, but
doesn't manage to alienate ALL of their API users.

Without knowing what direction things are going, it makes little sense
to pursue either of these.

[Andy Scrase]

Please, Google, tell us what is the roadmap for the Adwords API.
If it's got no future, then we need to know so we can get on with our
lives.

Currently, I've got several customers banging on the door for our
API-dependent product.
If we can't deliver, then we need to know asap.

Thanks for any info ....