Mobile app consumption is on the rise, but it's left app developers stumped when it comes to reeling in a profit from their creations. Plenty of startups have popped up offering monetization strategies to fix the issue -- and now, popular platform StartApp plans to tackle the monetization conundrum by releasing in-app ads in 3D.
Sometime around 2011, U.S. mobile app usage surpassed web browsing -- and now it's starting to take over television. Consumers spend 127 minutes per day using mobile apps, up 35 percent from just last year. They now spend only 70 minutes per day browsing the Web -- a 2.4 percent decline from 2012.
Although mobile app usage is increasing, entrepreneurs and developers still struggle to turn app downloads into cash. Gartner has predicted that, by 2016, users will download 309 billion apps, with 93 percent of them completely free. Monetization has become tougher than ever, but StartApp's technology is already ensuring app developers can use their talents and still make ends meet.
StartApp's latest release, 3D AppWall, gives in-app ads new spunk -- and promises a visually-appealing ad strategy that users won't be able to ignore. A new report from Juniper Research finds that in-app advertising spending across all mobile devices will hit a whopping $7.1 billion by 2015, up from $2.4 billion in 2012 -- making the release of 3D ads timely on StartApp's part.
StartApp took the mobile world by storm last year when it announced its technology had been downloaded more than 800 million times in just two years. The startup, founded in New York City in 2010, offers a mobile search engine and in-app advertising to help developers monetize. When users download an app integrated with StartApp's technology, a new search icon appears on their home screen. When they use that icon to conduct a search, StartApp and app developers cut a profit. The technology can now be found on one out of every five Android devices, making it the largest independent search distribution network in the Western world.
All research points to a heavy increase in mobile usage and advertising within the next few years, and brands that don't adapt stand to miss a key opportunity to reach customers. Ensuring these apps return a profit will be key for developers as brands make the switch to mobile platforms -- and StartApp stands to have a major impact on the way they do business.