Angry birds - taking more than just your time.....marketing
Battery life on smart phones is notoriously short, but when you consider there is more processing power in these devices than the computers that planted Neil Armstrong on the moon, or early Cray supercomputers which weighed in at over 5 tons, then it’s a small price to pay for such processing speed.
technology
However it does not detract from the fact as we depend more and more on these devices to stay connected and entertained, running out of battery within a day is extremely frustrating - but is it all this computing power that is to blame, or are there other feathered forces at work……
marketing
Birds
Birds
technology
The phenomenon that is Angry birds, over 700 million downloads and counting.
Free and paid versions, the difference – adverts
Free and paid versions, the difference – adverts
marketing
And there is the clue.
technology
Within the application is a third party mobile data aggregator and ad generator.
marketing
During gameplay this collects various information such as the phones location, operating system and version, all of which are then uploaded to a main server to then serve targeted ads during the gameplay.
technology
This process involves processing from the phone to perform these tasks, the activation of the GPS system to determine the location of the phone, data services to transmit and receive data and then the additional processing to render the adverts.
marketing
In fact over 70% of the applications power use is devoted the delivery of targeted advertising.
marketing
But before you reach for the delete button, Angry birds is not unique in this – using sites such as CNN, Facebook and in fact any other ad supported free games all activate similar processes to serve geographically tailored articles, transfer data to and from the phone - all of which significantly drain battery power and eat into your data allowance.
marketing
So, paying for these applications to remove the ads may actually end up costing you less in the long run.
technology
Monitoring mobile phone application power usage : http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/mzh/eurosys-2012.pdf
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