When it comes to ways to make money from online advertising, Google can never be accused of not being platform agnostic.
The search engine’s AdMob group has to date fueled more than 50,000 mobile applications on Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and HP’s webOS platforms, helping the company to 60 percent of the mobile ad market (most of it is from mobile search, a $1 billion business for the company).
Google hopes to boost that figure with a new platform: Windows Phone 7.
AdMob March 15 added a beta SDK for Windows Phone 7 to let developers of that newfangled Microsoft platform inject AdMob ads into their apps.
Windows developers, an intrepid bunch at a time when the jury is still out on whether the platform will take flight against Google’s own Android and Apple’s iPhone platforms, will be able to control what types of ads are shown and where they will appear in their apps.
The Windows Phone 7 SDK supports text and banner ads and offers post-click actions, including opening a Web page and linking to the Windows App Marketplace.
Application publishers can download the new SDK by logging into their AdMob account and adding a site type for Windows Phone 7.
Just so Android and iOS developers don’t feel left out by the newfound Windows love,
AdMob updated its iOS and Android SDKs with better HTML5 support for ad units.
Perhaps more importantly, AdMob is also supporting full-screen interstitial formats for Apple’s iPad and Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom.
Ads served on tablets, especially those of the interactive persuasion, are sure to be huge because advertisers have more screen real estate to work with.
Google said publishers can download the new Android and iOS SDKs by logging into their accounts and selecting “Get Publisher Code” from the manage settings option in their app.