PRESENTATION BY: SCOTT COREYREPORT BY: A . KHAN, V. SUBBARAJU, A .

MISRA, S. SESHAN

Mitigating the True Cost of Advertisement- Supported“Free” Mobile Applications

“Free” Applications

Consumers have grown accustomed to “free” applications supported by advertisements

Free versions of Angry Birds earns $1 million+ a month in advertisements

Total free apps downloaded 81%

Free apps in top grossing list 51%

Free apps in iTunes Store 63%

Free apps in Android Market 37%

Free apps in Blackberry World 82%

Data Traffic

Consumers data usage is growing exponentially

Many major providers now have metered data plans

Most devices have alternative connections that are free Wi-Fi Femtocell

CAMEO

Context-Driven Advertisement Modulator and Optimizer

The current “free” application model is unsustainable

Inexpensive and unmetered bandwidth is readily available

Advertisements can be prefetched during these opportune times

The advertisement served is context-dependent

Characterization of Mobile Advertising Traffic

Began with experiment using “free” apps on a Nexus One

Applications were tested with 15 minutes of runtime (30 minutes for “Friends” games)

Network traffic was recorded to identify and compare usage from advertisements or the application itself

Results

Non-negligible amount of traffic from each application

Usage varied based on quantity of advertisements

Math

Fruit Ninja – 5.61 Kbps on averagePlayed for 30 minutes per dayOn Verizon Wireless

Current data plan: $30 for 2GB per monthThe advertisements alone generate ~40MB of

traffic, roughly 56 cents of dataPaid version is 99 cents

Trending Upwards

Advertisements are getting larger, more interactive

HTML5 based ads are typically 5-20 times larger

Multiple applications can be running at one time

“Free” applications are not free!

Key Characteristics of Mobile Advertising

Combination of users profile and recent environmental context

Context

Network phone is connected to Ads for other carriers

Location Ads for city events

Applications used Ads for similar applications and same developers

Model of the phone Ads for newer phones

Mechanics of Advertisement Delivery

Advertisements were overlaid overtop applications

Most applications used multiple advertisement networks

Multiple connections were necessary Contact network Get XHTML or Javascript code Fetch actual advertisement

Back to CAMEO

Must predict likely future context of the user/device

Intelligently utilizing available alternative networks

Serving advertisements from a local cache

Compatible with existing deployments

Must reduce cost of current advertising methods

Interception Switch to CAMEO from connecting to outside

networksAdvertisement Generation

Must have cached appropriate advertisements in advance

Combination of cache manager, ad-prefetcher, and context predictor

Cannot distinguish advertising trafficCannot verify if correct advertisements were

provided

Clean-Slate Design

Application Modifications Can query CAMEO components directly Applications verify advertisements are received and

appropriateInfrastructure Modifications

Data prefetching can be done in a network-friendly fashon

Networks can provide additional information to enhance context

Opens up advanced possibilities of advertising