Warning: Don't go to vserv.mobi

[Jo nas]

Hello,
I just wanted to warn you that vserv.mobi does not count requests correctly. For that I have proofs. If you want I can post them here.
I recommend anyone NOT to go to vserv. They cheat!

Greetings,
Jonas

[jo...@jdiligence.com]

Can you write up your proof and blog it somewhere so people can check the methodology of your experiment.

[Jo nas]

Ok, so here is the screenshot of the stats from the vserv panel:

as you can see the requests dropped when they enabled mediation. I wrote the post here because they denied for 3 weeks that the requests are dropping. To give you an impression on how the normal conversation is with them, here is a skype chat log where i just censored the names:

so finally, yesterday, the told me it's because of the codenameone integration of vserv. 

But the structure of any conversation with them is the same they deny/promise things get better and nothing happens.

And of cause you don't get much revenue as they are a very bad ad network (at least outside india).

See what other developers wrote about them:

http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/advertising-networks/1711-anybody-try-vserv-mobi.html

(I'm gruelfin in this thread)

vserv has a very bad fill rate outside india (out of 5 requests they serve maybe 1) AND they pay way less for the few requests served: you get like 30 cents for 1000 fullscreen interstatial ad.

Other ad networks have a higher fillrate AND pay much more for the requests served, see here:

http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/advertising-networks/1013-10-000-full-screen-interstitials-per-day-what-shouldi-earning.html

The first example is from someone that makes 12 dollars for 10,000 requests and is unhappy with it. From vserv I get like 1 dollar for 18 000 requests, so vserv is way worse than the bad example.

The problem is that with codenameone you cannot experiment with ad networks. You are kind of locked in to using only ad networks that codenameone supports. The disadvantages are:

-No admob, no leadbolt, no new startapp, etc.

-The codenameone startapp implementation e.g. is nowadays illegal in the Play store. 

-The MoPub integration never worked (at least for android).

-Inner-active is reportedly bad: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/codenameone-discussions/inner/codenameone-discussions/QSbjLins9zE/5sweoniQcrQJ

So because I'm using codenameone I'm bound to vserv and I don't earn money with them. Had I known this before I'm not sure if I still developed with codenameone :-(

These problems are known for half a year now and nothing ever changed.

Besides that I really like codenameone and it runs quite good, but the monetization part using ads is really bad...

[jo...@jdiligence.com]

OK. Thanks for that. That affects something a prototype game I was about to port to CN1. I was planning on a free ad funded version and paid ad free version. However, the ad version seems pointless if this is the case.

Why though is it not possible to integrate other networks, even if it means writing a custom component? I had to do this with a J2ME app i.e. write a component for the ADs because CN1 did not support the method out of the box.

[Jo nas]

If you can write a custom component for cn1 it might work. 

I asked about this possibilty already here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/codenameone-discussions/admob/codenameone-discussions/1HEb5LsVkbY/eXTPS89un6YJ

Ian made a component but didn't respond here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/codenameone-discussions/admob/codenameone-discussions/TvVg02WaucI/a_IyLX0iXBAJ

To an admob integration Shai said: "We had Admob integrated historically but their integration didn't work properly, if you have suggestions for a specific alternative network that provide cross platform API's for us to work against we are open to suggestions."
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/codenameone-discussions/admob/codenameone-discussions/tG1XD6vRihU/UUYmFO50NR0J

and "Admob/Adsense is problematic to integrate on all devices and Google has limited partnership options." here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/codenameone-discussions/admob/codenameone-discussions/AQaTFZ-S2KM/b2F0Za7Uo1cJ

So my conclusion is that it might be possible but not easy if Shai/Chen have problems there (and I consider them to be very good programmers). Also such a component might not be platform independent.

Maybe Shai or Chen could give an opinion about this, too.. 

[Shai Almog]

We did try to integrate MoPub to resolve this issue but it proved to be much harder than we had originally anticipated.
Unfortunately not a single one of our pro or enterprise users finds this issue important so its really hard for us to dedicate the amount of time required to resolve it. We agree its important which is why we spent a lot of time working on MoPub integration despite the lack of interest from the big ticket customers.

If you have concrete suggestions, code contributions etc. We'd be very happy to help.

[Jo nas]

I know that you do you best, Shai. And thank you again for your great work&support!

Strange that no pro/enterprise user needs to have a proper ad network...

I would go pro but in the last 4 months my app generated more than one million requests and so far i got like 40$ from it and there are 60$ outstanding.. So it'll be a financial risk for me to got pro and I dont' have any spare money (this is actually the reason why I'm stressing on this)..

Jo: Please tell me when you get something working, but don't expect revenue from vserv.. As I said, for ~1.000.000 requests they pay 100$.

[Shai Almog]

Sure, just so I'm clear. I wasn't "hinting" that you should upgrade, just explaining where our time was allocated.
Frankly, I'm not exactly sure we would be able to fix it promptly even if you do upgrade to pro.

[Steve Hannah]

The problem is that with codenameone you cannot experiment with ad networks. You are kind of locked in to using only ad networks that codenameone supports. 

I just want to comment on this one point because it is wrong and defeatist.  You are a software developer.  Codename One provides you mechanisms to implement HTML5 components, native components, or pure Java components on top of the CN1 stack.  You are *not* locked in.  If you run into missing functionality, you have the ability to just implement it yourself.  You don't need to rely on the (very busy) CN1 development team to implement everything for you.

Steve

[Jo nas]

Hey Steve,

you are right. I'm not locked in, this was the wrong word. I just have my doubts that i can write such a component that works platform independent. And for sure it's much harder to do this than to just integrate the ad sdk that almost every network provides for e.g. native Android development. This is what i meant by 'locked in'.

Let's agree on that it's _much_ harder to experiment with different ad networks than it'd be with native coding. E.g. even Shai and Chen tried hard to make MoPub/AdMob work and failed so far..

[Steve Hannah]

Let's agree on that it's _much_ harder to experiment with different ad networks than it'd be with native coding. E.g. even Shai and Chen tried hard to make MoPub/AdMob work and failed so far..

I don't think it is _much_ harder.   Just take it one platform at a time.  If you were to go with your suggested "easier" alternative of creating separate native apps for each platform, you'd have to implement one platform at a time anyways.  I took a quick peek at the Vserve android docs and it looks pretty straight forward for implementing in CN1.  Keep in mind that it is _much_ easier for you to implement an API for your own purposes than it is for Shai and Chen to try to adapt it for everyone's purposes because they have many more considerations to make.  I.e. you can use a quick and dirty approach to get the job done.  They can't.  

Therefore, just because Shai said that something was difficult to implement CN1-wide, doesn't mean that it will  be difficult to implement with a more narrow scope (such as your project).

-Steve

 

On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 5:45:30 PM UTC+2, shannah wrote:

The problem is that with codenameone you cannot experiment with ad networks. You are kind of locked in to using only ad networks that codenameone supports. 

I just want to comment on this one point because it is wrong and defeatist.  You are a software developer.  Codename One provides you mechanisms to implement HTML5 components, native components, or pure Java components on top of the CN1 stack.  You are *not* locked in.  If you run into missing functionality, you have the ability to just implement it yourself.  You don't need to rely on the (very busy) CN1 development team to implement everything for you.

Steve

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[Jo nas]

ok so what would be a good starting point to fix the implementation for mopub ads for the android version of my app?

On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 6:23:48 PM UTC+2, shannah wrote:

Let's agree on that it's _much_ harder to experiment with different ad networks than it'd be with native coding. E.g. even Shai and Chen tried hard to make MoPub/AdMob work and failed so far..

I don't think it is _much_ harder.   Just take it one platform at a time.  If you were to go with your suggested "easier" alternative of creating separate native apps for each platform, you'd have to implement one platform at a time anyways.  I took a quick peek at the Vserve android docs and it looks pretty straight forward for implementing in CN1.  Keep in mind that it is _much_ easier for you to implement an API for your own purposes than it is for Shai and Chen to try to adapt it for everyone's purposes because they have many more considerations to make.  I.e. you can use a quick and dirty approach to get the job done.  They can't.  

Therefore, just because Shai said that something was difficult to implement CN1-wide, doesn't mean that it will  be difficult to implement with a more narrow scope (such as your project).

-Steve

 

On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 5:45:30 PM UTC+2, shannah wrote:

The problem is that with codenameone you cannot experiment with ad networks. You are kind of locked in to using only ad networks that codenameone supports. 

I just want to comment on this one point because it is wrong and defeatist.  You are a software developer.  Codename One provides you mechanisms to implement HTML5 components, native components, or pure Java components on top of the CN1 stack.  You are *not* locked in.  If you run into missing functionality, you have the ability to just implement it yourself.  You don't need to rely on the (very busy) CN1 development team to implement everything for you.

Steve

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[Steve Hannah]

If it were me, I'd start with finding out what the issue is (i.e. what's wrong with it now).  Then I would check to see if this is something that can be fixed in the open source core of CN1 (some things are not open source... you'd have to check).

If this is something that can be fixed in the core, then do it there.  If not, then start from scratch with your own implementation.

https://github.com/mopub/mopub-android-sdk/wiki/Getting-Started

Some instructions in their getting started guide show you GUI instructions for eclipse.  Just identify what they're doing and then do it in a way that makes sense in the CN1 dev environment.  E.g. When the tutorial shows you 5 steps that amount to adding 3 jars to your project, you know that you need to create a CN1 library and add these jars to the android native folder, etc...

If you're new to the API, then it can be beneficial to do a trial run on a pure native app (could be a hello world app) just to get your feet wet.  Once you understand the SDK, then adapt your working native code into a CN1 library.

Steve

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[Shai Almog]

Many active devs have the 9USD basic subscription so you can see the full code and see how little code is closed if at all.
We don't have closed code, what we have is generated code that we need to place in the bootstrap code. If you ask us about it we will usually just list what we have when possible although anyone with a basic account can usually figure this out by sending a source build.

[dite...@gmail.com]

Hi why my adspot and app is with status inactive in vserv.com? What i do to set in active mode,because i have request but no have earnings?