WTI: Android attracting developers and advertisers
Agus Hamonangan
downsizing at the end of 2008, she surrendered her employer-issued
iPhone and bought an Android phone instead. "And," she said, "I got on
the bandwagon."
Eighteen months after Mezias hopped on the Android "bandwagon" —
Google's then-new mobile operating system — and began learning the
software, she has four smartphone apps available for download in the
Android Market. "I can't say I'm making a ton of money on it," she
said, "but I am getting a lot of interest in my résumé."
With sales of Android-powered smartphones surpassing Apple's iPhone
for the first time in 2010, an Android-powered Google TV built by Sony
to hit the market late this year with a whole new set of app
possibilities, and the potential for other new devices ranging from
tablet computers to cars, the Android bandwagon is suddenly a heady
ride — for developers, advertisers, smartphone manufacturers and other
members of the Android "ecosystem."
Android's explosive growth is benefiting developers who find
themselves in more demand and who make money when someone pays to
download their app, or who get revenue from advertising that runs in a
free app.
Manufacturers such as HTC are seeing their brand awareness boosted by
its Android phones, and ad exchanges are serving more ads over Android
phones. The Palo Alto-based mobile ad exchange Mobclix says ad
publishers spent more money on the
Android platform in the first half of 2010 than they did in all of 2009.
Google said in late June that about 160,000 new Android smartphones
are being activated each day — for advertisers that equates to nearly
two new sets of eyeballs every second — up from about 100,000 a month
ago. There are now 60 Android-powered devices available in 49
countries, and the number of apps is growing by 30 percent each month.
For early adopters, that growth means their early bets on Android and
Google are paying off.
"We wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond," Steve Brown, the
CEO of San Francisco-based Snaptic, said of his company's decision to
enter the Android market early instead of trying to push into the more
crowded iPhone app market. "But it's turning into an ocean."
Snaptic has seen more than 4 million downloads of its three most
popular free Android apps, which include a compass and a notetaking
app called 3banana, and says it is seeing a 20 percent monthly growth
in downloads. Brown said the growth also means his competitors are
proliferating.
"I've been in markets that were not growing, and when you are in one
that's growing every day, the whole energy level changes. Stuff
happens
every day. You're in a race. You can see your competitors and what
they are doing," Brown said. "Every day there are more downloads than
the day before, and what that does is everybody has this feeling that
things are happening — there is this constant sense of urgency."
Another beneficiary of an early bet on Android is the Taiwanese
smartphone manufacturer HTC, which built the first four Android
devices and makes premium Android phones like Sprint's Evo 4G.
"You are investing a lot of money, a lot of resources and a lot of
effort into something completely unproven," said Keith Nowak, an HTC
spokesman, who said the partnership with Google has boosted HTC's
plans to raise awareness of its brand with consumers. "We saw a lot of
potential, but there are graveyards of failed smartphone OSes out
there."
With about 70,000 apps, the Android Market still offers only about a
third as many apps as the more than 200,000 in Apple's App Store. The
Android marketplace is also different in that the majority of the apps
are free, while most in the Apple store come at a cost. While
developers say the ability to make money through advertising or paid
downloads has not yet matched iPhone, the gap is shrinking.
"Somewhere last fall, the developers I was talking to, they were
starting to make money from advertising," Brown said. "When you are
making a few thousand dollars a month from advertising, that's a
living."
The surge in advertising spending on Android — Mobclix says it grew 23
percent between the first and second quarters of 2010 — is also
attracting developers who before were focused exclusively on the
iPhone.
One of those is Garrett Dodge, co-founder of Appetyte, a San Francisco
development company that makes an iPhone app called Fido Factor, a
sort of Yelp for dogs that features user-generated listings of
dog-friendly restaurants, parks and other services.
"Until recently, we didn't think there was the same kind of adoption
and use of Android apps as iPhone apps, and therefore it wasn't
attractive enough to invest the resources" to offer Android apps,
Dodge said. But he's now looking for developers to produce an Android
version of Fido Factor, as well as versions of a new music app for
both Android and iPhone that Dodge hopes will transform how people
interact with music in public venues.
"We're kind of at that tipping point of Android's growth," Dodge said.
"I think the problem now is that the Android developer supply is
outstripped by the demand, particularly for developers that have a
track record."
Dodge is not alone in seeking experienced Android developers. David
Cao, organizer of the Silicon Valley Android Developers meet-up group,
has been increasingly hearing from recruiters looking for good Android
programmers over the past three months, including companies like
Google, LG and Samsung. One indication of the community's growth is
Cao's meet-up membership — it has mushroomed to more than 1,400, from
several hundred a year ago, and is attracting about 200 new members a
month.
For Mezias, 43, deciding to learn Android software has been a great
career move. One of her paid apps, "Alarmoid," can schedule an Android
phone to go silent at times so you don't get those pre-dawn calls from
the East Coast. A free app, Joker, delivers new jokes to a smartphone
each day.
"I'm feeling the effects (of Android's growth) because I bought in
early," she said. Indeed, a few minutes after completing an interview
with a reporter at a recent developer meet-up in Mountain View, Mezias
got an e-mail from a team of researchers at Stanford University who
plan to use Android smartphones for health research. It was a job
offer. She has accepted.
Mezias said that having friends at Google helped her see, even back in
2008, what Android might become. "It made sense to me to go into
mobile. Mobile seemed to be ripe. You didn't have to be a visionary to
see it coming," she said, "but I like to think I have good instincts."
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Agus Hamonangan
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