Apple's App Store Hot Streak; Facebook's TV Fixation

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Appy New Year

Since Apple launched the iOS App Store in 2008, developers have made more than $86 billion on the platform. Of that, $26.5 billion was made last year, a 30% jump over 2016, according to an Apple news release. The company touts enhancements in iOS 11 that have “been making app and game discovery fun and easy.” When it comes to promoting those apps, App Store promotions are the highest-priority marketing channel, developer surveys indicate. Apple appears well positioned to extend its hot streak in mobile revenue.

Attention Curve

“The attention curve for Live TV isn’t that different than the non-skippable mobile ad curve,” writes Mark Rabkin, Facebook’s ads and business platforms VP, in a blog post. He says people skip away from TV commercials so quickly that, per Facebook research, only half of TV spots would meet MRC viewability standards (two continuous seconds with at least 50% of the ad in view). Facebook’s knows unlocking TV ad budgets is key to its future growth, so perhaps it’s no surprise to see it lay out its vision for video ads in this context. Business Insider has more.

Traffic Jam

Publishers are favoring Google AMP over Facebook Instant Articles. AMP sends 42% of external web traffic to publishers, surpassing Facebook as the top third-party traffic source on the web, according to analytics firm Parse.ly. Publishers prefer AMP because they think Google is more aligned with their needs and strategies, whereas unpredictable tweaks to Facebook’s news feed algorithm have often rattled media companies. “Publishers need more information from Facebook,” Alex Skatell, founder of political news site IJR, tells Digiday. “They’re only giving us part of the story.” More.

Pay To Play

The Google search engine may be banned in China, but its finding a way into the country through an unlikely route: the burgeoning e-sports market. On Friday, Google invested $120 million in Chinese esports streaming platform Chushou, which lets users live stream competitive mobile games. The platform has 800 million streamers tuning in to 250,000 streams per day. Chushou is only Google’s second investment in a Chinese startup, after it participated in a $75 million funding round for AI startup Mobvoi in 2015. Fortune has more.

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