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Hi, I'm Kenneth. I’m a Swiss transplant in San Francisco. I’m
an angel investor, and an engineer at AngelList & CSC. Previously, I was co-founder of
FreshPay and the architect behind Chartboost. When I'm not working, you
can find me either photographing some remote corner of the world, or hacking
away on an ever-changing side project.
I believe Jobs is an idealist product visionary who wants the best for Apple and for its customers. But he’s lost his ability to manage his own image, and thus the image of the company. Apple’s PR department is in charge of manipulating how the company is perceived, but their efforts are being drowned out by the live-wire personality at the helm of the ship. Jobs needs to quiet down now and let cooler heads speak. No more arrogant, terse email replies. No more defensive press conferences. No more snarky interview quips. Just chill out and try to get your groove back.
At his best, Steve Jobs is a brilliant, inspirational spokesman for the company. At his worst, he is the pompous winner who begs to be taken down a notch. Jobs is the kid who, having been celebrated for the A+ exam grade, reacts by chiding his classmates: “You all are a bunch of idiots.” Fans lose their faith, detractors gain momentum. This guy’s in for a rough victory.
Jobs and his culture and mentality is increasingly becoming a burden on the company and its customers. While I still use and love Apple products, I no longer love the company. I think of Jobs as a “douchebag” and of Apple as a misguided company that cares more about its ideals than its customers. I can no longer call myself an Apple fan, and that saddens me.
I’ve been running iAd on relatively high traffic since day one. Here’s how – for me – it’s been performing, and how it breaks down against competing ad networks.
First, the good. The eCPM is amazing. Some dude reports getting $150 eCPM on his first day on iAd. While this is mind-blowingly high and in no way representative of the average on the network, eCPMs can be expected to be quite high. My eCPM averages $10-$15, which is quite good.
Of course, we have to put these numbers in perspective. We cannot do a 1-to-1 comparaison with competing networks. Another important factor to consider: Most competing ad networks refresh their ads every 30s. iAd does it every 3min. Thus, for the time it takes iAd to display one ad, another network gets to show 6.
For a fair comparaison, we need to adjust the eCPM. Taking the above into account, let’s divide the number by 6 to get something we can compare to networks that refresh every 30s. The resulting figure isn’t really an “effective cost per thousand impressions,” but rather something more like an “effective cost per 500min of ads being displayed.”
Compared thusly, the eCPM on iAd is only worth about $1.60-$2.50. While still quite high, this is nowhere near the mind-blowing figures that have been thrown around.
Last thing to consider: fill rates. They’re are appallingly low. Though this seems to be slowly improving, they remain below 10%. Compare this with most other non-premium networks which often get you 100% fill rate. A solution would be to run iAd as a first option, and fall back to another network for failed requests. Also, I would suggest keeping the ADBannerView around even when not displayed, leaving it to refresh in the background and once it does return an ad, displaying it.
I’m sure the fill rates will improve over time, and that iAd wil become a worthy competitor over time. Right now though, the reality is iAd generates less revenue than my previous first option, Google AdSense for mobile.
Update: Greg Yardley rightly calls me out on mistakenly stating Apple’s figures included their 40% cut. Article updated accordingly.
So this steady stream of hardworking and talented people has made America the engine of the global economy and a beacon of hope around the world. And it’s allowed us to adapt and thrive in the face of technological and societal change. To this day, America reaps incredible economic rewards because we remain a magnet for the best and brightest from across the globe. Folks travel here in the hopes of being a part of a culture of entrepreneurship and ingenuity, and by doing so they strengthen and enrich that culture. Immigration also means we have a younger workforce -– and a faster-growing economy — than many of our competitors. And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.
[…]
And while we provide students from around the world visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities, our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or power a new industry right here in the United States. Instead of training entrepreneurs to create jobs on our shores, we train our competition.
This is an issue that important to me. As a Swiss citizen, trying to integrate myself into the Silicon Valley culture, I am acutely aware of the deep problems in US immigration law. I am here under an F-1 student visa, which will eject me from the country once my studies are over.
This summer, I landed an internship at Tapulous (now Disney). I had to go to great lengths just to get approved by the government’s bureaucracy. For argument’s sake, imagine after the internship is complete they’d like to keep me. Because my visa does not allow for permanent employment, I wouldn’t be able to accept. I would have to apply for an H-1 visa, which would require me to leave the country while waiting for months (or maybe even years) for the process to be complete. All of this setting aside the fact that H-1 requires a completed bachelors degree, which – were I to drop out of school to take the opportunity – I would not have.
If, hypothetically, I were eligible for the visa; its fine print puts a great burden on the employer, making me an unattractive prospective employee. The employer would have to sponsor me, spending a great deal of money on application and lawyer fees, all on the uncertain hopes that my visa gets approved. Additionally, they have to prove that they could not find a suitable employee who is a US citizen, with documentation showing that they interviewed other candidates and that none were fit for the position.
All of this makes it very hard, or even impossible for me to start a career in Silicon Valley. I believe – if I may say so – that I would be an asset to the US economy, rather than a burden. Preventing me from being a part of this great country – which, even with all its faults, I love – makes no logical sense.
Cristina Cordova, who, for two days, was a coworker of mine at Tapulous:
Those concerned about privacy are not whining about change or ads or the fact that we can’t figure out those messy privacy settings. It’s not about some ‘right to privacy’ or reckless college photos that some are praying will just go away. It’s about the relationship we all hold with Facebook. It’s no longer a trusting one.
What makes me uneasy about Facebook’s recent privacy fiascos isn’t what they’ve done with my personal data. I don’t feel like they’ve done anything wrong with it, so far. It’s that I cannot trust them not to in the future. If Facebook decides to screw me over, there is nothing I can do about it, and I don’t trust them to have the moral decency to care.
Interfaces and experiences I encounter everyday from my coffee cup to my computer, the desk it sits on, to the chair I sit on are all underdesigned. I know this because I rarely pay them any mind at all — except, of course, on the rare occasions when they don’t work how I’d like.
It’s unfortunate that failures in a design tend to be more noticed consciously than successes. That’s because when something’s succeeding, good designers don’t want you to notice the thought that’s gone into making it. Like Michael Caine’s performance, you should be immersed in the experience, not its delivery. Whether it’s to communicate a message or facilitate an action, design should never get in the way of itself.
At its core, design is about helping you achieve your goal, and making the process as pleasant and easy as possible. Decoration and eye candy should never get in the way of that.
Roger Ebert on our constant quest for stimulation:
There’s such a skitterish impatience in our society right now. The national debate is all over the place. Talking points take the place of arguments. Think up a snarky name for someone, and you don’t have to explain any further. The oil spill is in Day 40 and enough, already. We’ve been there, done that. In some circles it has become Obama’s fault, not for any good reason but perhaps because that breaks the monotony.
Something has happened. Do we even know it has happened? We look out from inside our brains. We notice differences in things. But how can we notice a difference in the brains that are noticing them? One reason meaningless celebrities dominate all of our national media is that they are meaningless. They require no study, no reading, no thought. OMG! Heidi is leaving Spencer! OMG! Russell Brand is a sex addict! OMG! Matt Lauer never dated or slept with Alexis Houston, and all that time he didn’t know Alexis was a man! OMG! Top Kill has failed! WTF. ROFL.
