Get Advertisement on Your Windows Phone App

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

One very common way to generate revenue in phone application is through displaying advertisement. This is one of the very effective approach for free app to generate side income. Currently there are only limited number of mobile advertisement supported on Windows Phone 7. Thing is even worse because I live in Malaysia which lot of mobile advertisements did not support for my country.

Using Microsoft Advertising SDK might sound the most easiest way to put some advertisement on your Windows Phone application. But very unfortunately only limited number of countries is supported in  Microsoft  Advertising pubCenter. I only able to found Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, United Kingdom and United States for the country or state option when registering an account for Microsoft Advertising pubCenter. Although they claim they will support more counties in the future, but I bet there will be still a long time until it reach my country.

Next, I found Smaato who they claim supported in many countries and many different platforms that include Windows Phone 7. Well, they did have a very well documented SDK for Windows Phone 7, but supported in many different countries is a question mark for me. Every time my application request an ad from Smaato, it always return an error for me which is ‘no ads available’. At first I though this error is because they haven’t get my account ready yet but after some research, I found out that this error mean there is no ad available for the combination of device/location/category. There is very high chances that I won’t get any ad in near future with Smaato for Windows Phone in my country. If I can’t even get any ad, how can I generate any revenue through advertisement then? It might be work for you, but definably not me.

Lastly, I went through a post on the forum that some one manage to port AdMob SDK to Windows Phone platform, so I decided give it a try. AdMob is one of the popular choices ad provider for Android and iOS platform which had taken over by Google. Although AdMob main page did not mention anything about Windows Phone, but they already had an official SDK for Windows Phone platform (which is in beta currently). Sweet! You need to register an account first before you can see the SDK for download. It is pretty much simple and easy with just a few line of code to get the ad on my app. You can found how easy through the tutorial here.

Since AdMob is the only option for me, then I left no choice but use AdMob only. Hopefully there are more mobile advertisement company support Windows Phone and my country as well in the future.

 

[Update] This post is outdated, check out my latest post here instead.

 

by Ooi Keng Siang (Microsoft Student Partners) via Ooiks’s Blog

Imagine Cup 2010 – Internet Explorer 8 Award

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

For those who participate Imagine Cup and developing something related with the web, here got another good news! The Internet Explorer 8 Award. Your team stand a chance to grab away addition 5000USD beside the big prize at Poland. It is not just one but up to 6 prizes!!!

The requirement is fairly simple, your team need to create a website that utilize Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search that is compatible with Internet Explorer 8. If your team is creating something relate with the web, why not have a little modification and stand a chance to grab those cash?

Interested to know more? Visit Internet Explorer 8 Award

The rule and regulations for this award can view from here Internet Explorer 8 Award – Rule and Regulations

by Ooi Keng Siang

http://imaginecup.com/Downloads/DownloadableDocuments/Awards/Imagine%20Cup%202010%20Internet%20Explorer%208%20Official%20Rules_and_Regulations.pdf

Develop Software Application to Send & Receive SMS

Posted on by Ooi Keng Siang

After knowing our team project, some of my friends interested on how to develop a software application to send and receive SMS, just like the one in our project. I have been explaining to them the way I know and the advantages and disadvantages of each way. I guess keep on repeat explaining to each of my friend when they ask was not a good way, so I plan to share it through my blog post. I guess this knowledge is very useful for those who want to join upcoming Imagine Cup because mobile penetration rate is very high compare with internet access.

 

Basically, I know 3 way of sending and receiving SMS through application.

 

SMS Server Toolkit

This toolkit is develop by Microsoft Research Lab India that allow application to send and receive SMS through Windows smartphone (require at least Windows Mobile 5.0).

Advantages:

  • Easy to configure for .NET application.
  • Build-in easy to use function (Example: bulk SMS using Excel)
  • Free.

Disadvantages:

  • Lack of documentation to setup.
  • Only support .NET language.
  • Required a Windows smartphone.
  • Limited number of SMS can be send and receive at the same time.
  • Maybe buggy.

Link: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/2bdeb3c6-9945-4804-a9bc-0d53704d35da/default.aspx

 

SMS Lib

A free java base library that allow application to send and receive SMS through GSM modems capable phone (Most mid-end and high-end phone nowadays are GSM modems capable phone).

Advantages:

  • Support Java and .NET language. (.NET part is still in beta).
  • Require only mid-end mobile phone.
  • Free.

Disadvantages:

  • Hard to understand the setup document.
  • Function call is not easy to understand at the first try.
  • Limited number of SMS can be send and receive at the same time.

Link: http://smslib.org/

 

SMS Service Provider

You can purchase a SMS service from provider like WebSMS2U. You can send SMS by connect to their service through HTTP call.

Advantages:

  • Easy to setup (No setup require actually).
  • Send and receive large number of SMS at the same time.
  • Suitable for all kind of languages.

Disadvantages:

  • Require internet access.
  • Not free and require to pay for the service (expansive for low-budget project)
  • Required a web server if you want to receive SMS (A web server with domain name, not localhost).

Link: http://www.websms2u.com/

 

I Hope this information can be helpful for those who are developing software application that utilize SMS functionality.

by Ooi Keng Siang