Google AdMob Comes To Windows Phone 8

Google this week launched AdMob—an SDK developers use to build ad units into iOS and Android apps—for Windows Phone 8 for the first time. The release happened just as Google ads started showing up in the Promotions tab in Gmail for Android.

The Windows Phone 8 SDK for AdMob is in beta mode, and it shows—and Google knows it. The Google Ads Developer Blog says right up front that, unlike its iOS and Android counterparts, this SDK does not have ad network mediation, nor does it support DoubleClick for Publishers, Search Ads for Mobile Apps, or MRAID.

What it does have is all the basics: the ability to create banner ads from code, embed banners in XAML files, display full-screen interstitial advertising, and get reports about successful and failed ad impressions. The SDK will indeed scroogle directly with Microsoft's native developer SDK pubCenter.

Google's timing on rolling out multiple advertising expansions and refinements is interesting. In late August, the company activated a brand-new (not modified, but brand-new) search algorithm called Hummingbird. However, Google didn't announce this massive change until late September, probably because it wanted to observe the results while the public remained more-or-less unbiased.

It turns out Hummingbird is making the whole Internet smile, which makes right now an optimal time to administer the bitter pill of truth that Google's "free" products require ad support. We at SlashGear call this "smart politics.

SOURCE: Google Ad Developers Blog