Glass developers prohibited from displaying ads, charging for software

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10812_3-57579762/google-glassware-developers-prohibited-from-displaying-ads

by MarkLy • 13 years ago

70 81 13 years ago

news.cnet.com

tibbon2• 13 years ago

I'm fine with this. Instead of a gold-rush, maybe people will only build things of value since they won't be motivated only by a pot of gold.

Anyone remember how bad many of the first iOS games were, because companies were clearly just shoveling together stuff in hopes of making bucketloads of cash? Actually, this is still what most iOS games are...

I personally still want to make software for it. At no point in my mind was I thinking about ads I could display or the money I could make. I just want to make software that assists me while I'm motorcycling. Looking to integrate that with an enhanced datalogger I'm building for my bikes that will just relay information via the REST api.

samstave4• 13 years ago

I came to post the same sentiment.

His approach will hopefully force developers to focus on useful utility rather than trivial novelty with the goal of extracting money from the first waves of users.

This should be upheld for two generations of the product. Figure out where glass can augment rather than distract and make those augmentation offerings so compelling that people will want to adopt glass.

dualogy2• 13 years ago

> His approach will hopefully force developers to focus on useful utility rather than trivial novelty with the goal of extracting money from the first waves of users.

Rephrased: "this approach forcefully prevents developers from making what people (sadly but quite apparently seem to) want". Aren't we here all about "making something people want" -- even if it turns out that the majority of people just end up "wanting" Angry Birds?

kybernetyk• 13 years ago

> His approach will hopefully force developers to focus on useful utility rather than trivial novelty with the goal of extracting money from the first waves of users.

Please explain to me how "you are not allowed to make money" will force me to create anything of real value to the end user?

In the best case you would end up with software that is the state of the linux desktop.

dualogy2• 13 years ago

That's all fine and dandy until Apple's iGoggles come along, generously allowing you to deploy commercial apps (perhaps for an initial "outrageous" profit-sharing of 50/50?) and bam, these iGoggles within a few months offer zillions of uses to the consumer at a similar price-point as Google's say "only" 100s of uses.

Right now, from the current state of our knowledge, Glass initially seems to cost upwards of a good laptop, with a severely limited-in-capabilities developer API and no way to charge for potentially highly valuable apps.

If the above parameters don't change, Glass may well be the first in this new market but maybe not the one to blow up a completely new mass consumer gadget market from scratch, like the iPhone did..

GhotiFish2• 13 years ago

Yah but actually choosing to USE apples iGoggles instead of a platform where you're not constantly baited and taunted by disingenuous assholes trying to exploit you for a buck, is frankly, insane.

This was the best move Google could of possibly made, I assumed Google glass was just gonna be another orgy of bait and switches like everything else right now in smartphones and tablets and the hilariously useless walled gardens people find themselves in. This actually has a chance of being a useful tool now. A useful tool!

Take money out and the only thing left is pragmatism.

I am very happy.

arrrg5• 13 years ago

Allowing people to not charge for apps is preposterous.

People who invested their time into making staff deserve to be able to charge for it. It’s awesome when people give something away for free but it’s also awesome when they dare to charge money for mobile software.

I really don’t understand this attitude of yours and others here that view charging money for apps as something negative. That’s just so absurd and counterproductive to me. We should, whenever we can, encourage people to charge for their apps what they deserve to be paid or else we will be buried under a mountain of freemium crap (and ads).

Samuel_Michon2• 13 years ago

Of course, prohibiting third party developers from displaying ads in Glassware won't necessarily keep Google from displaying some form of advertising, like including 'sponsored results' or 'shopping recommendations'. Google already has a dominant market position in online advertising, this policy will only strengthen it.

As for developers, perhaps they can make Glassware that requires users to sign up to a mailing list or paid service, or that requires users to promote products via social networks.

qompiler• 13 years ago

That's not allowed either, see https://developers.google.com/glass/terms

"No Fees. You may not charge end users any fees or collect any payments in order to download or access your API Client, or in connection with virtual goods or functionality of your API Client."

No ads, no data collecting and no fees in any form if you use the Mirror API. Maybe these rules won't be applied for Glassware that doesn't use the Mirror API?

Samuel_Michon2• 13 years ago

Fair enough, but I can imagine a scenario in which a user takes a picture with Glass, shares it on a social network, and the Glassware appends a message like 'Made with Supercoolapp, click here to download for your phone or tablet'.

k-mcgrady3• 13 years ago

I'm assuming this is just while the product is in testing? They can't really expect to get much software made for the product when it's released if developers have no obvious way to make money from it.

VLM3• 13 years ago

In several ways its actually worse than that, you can't release an app showing other user generated content, because a spammer could result in serving up advertisements, which aren't allowed. So no apps involving communication with other people. Even worse you can't make an app capable of displaying any 3rd party internet content because the 3rd party might embed an advertisement.

So you're limited exclusively to content owned/licensed by the app developer. It can't involve social networking or user provided content in any way.

kami88452• 13 years ago

of course they will allow you to write an app that allows you to import your contacts and then interact with them.

gnaritas3• 13 years ago

> They can't really expect to get much software made for the product when it's released if developers have no obvious way to make money from it.

Sure they can, people don't just work for money, they work for notoriety or fun. Money is the most popular incentive, it isn't however, the only one.

k-mcgrady3• 13 years ago

That's true and there will probably be some cool software built for it but there is a limit to the amount of investment people will put into developing software for it for free. There will be people with great ideas who need VC backing to turn them into products but they won't be able to get it without an obvious way to create revenue.

The problem will be even greater for Google when another company (Apple or Microsoft presumably) comes out with a simliar product which runs incredible new software that just isn't feasible on the Google Glasses due to this policy.

mchusma• 13 years ago

This was my take as well. Surprised it took me so long to scroll down to find someone who agreed. This has limited predictive power of what glass will look like when in prime time.

kami88452• 13 years ago

>They can't really expect to get much software made for the product when it's released if developers have no obvious way to make money from it.

The Cydia Store disagrees.

I'm a software developer and I'd love to develop for ground-breaking new hardware like this.

pekk3• 13 years ago

You implicitly assume that it's better to have a larger count of apps ("much software"). Looking at current app stores, this isn't really true. Not only are most apps terrible or useless, but among the somewhat useful ones, most of them are copies of each other's functionality.

A hundred fart apps and ten todo apps might be 110 apps, but even taken together they aren't any better than just the best todo app.

arrrg5• 13 years ago

But encouraging free apps is such a backwards way of doing this. The free apps are (usually) crap, not the one you have to pay for!

VLM3• 13 years ago

I'm curious what if anything can be done given the ToS.

I have an android phone so I'm sitting here looking at my apps, at least the ones that I occasionally use, and thinking about glass.

I really want a geocaching app but the premium account at geocaching.com costs money so thats out. An ancestry.com account would be handy when I'm looking at paper records but that cost money so thats out. All the "personal assistant" apps would seem to be a natural fit, but again they all want money. Most game devs are not going to work for free. I cant use an evernote client because that costs money.

Dogcatcher would be awesome but the dev is probably not going to work for free.

Radarscope has the same issue as above, high res nexrad radar is cool but the dev isn't going to work for free.

Same problem with proweather alert.

Amazon.com mobile client, well I guess we can forget mobile shopping in general.

Unclear:

Amazon kindle is a pretty tough decision because there are free ebooks from amazon and its not a bad reader in general.

Runkeeper... the app works with the free account, in fact I'm not sure there is any difference between a free and paid account, at least from the app point of view, is there?

Chant got kicked off the play system for idiot neo-puritan censorship reasons but other than that would be OK.

Ambling books player... They do sell audiobooks, but I mostly listen to free libravox books, its far better than the libravox apps. On the other hand the "nice" version of the ambling player which I have cost a little money, not free.

Tunein radio cost money and the only purpose is to listen to stations most of which deliver ads as part of their stream. Some don't.

My credit union has an android app. Technically they won't open an account unless you toss $5 in a savings account, although they claim you own that $5 and will get it back at closure so I don't know if google would shut them down over it. It would be kinda interesting to get notifications everytime I (or someone else) does something with my account, or be able to see my balance if I'm paying at a store. (whoops edited to add the killer problem is the Goog TOS require full access to all features for all free downloaders, but I just realized my credit union only provides service to people in a limited geographic area by charter... so they'd have to give free houses in their area to anyone downloading the free app so they get full access to the system by opening an account, this is a killer problem which moves this and any other app like it to the dead zone)

What I could do:

I think the newsblur client works with a free account so although I have a paid account I think I'm OK.

Same deal as above with the dropbox client.

Baconreader, I guess thats OK. Its free, isn't it?

So for about $1500 I could use a newsblur client, baconreader, and maybe a couple others.

bengillies• 13 years ago

Indeed. Add to that the lack of camera access (among other things), and it leaves me wondering whether it's even possible to build something worthwhile.

Especially given Google's own statements saying that pictures/video are the (current) main use case (that they've discovered so far).

jeffasinger• 13 years ago

I haven't read through the API super carefully, but I believe that you won't be able to write your own camera app, but you could certainly interact with the camera, by having the user share to a contact that you create/

msabalau• 13 years ago

Possibly, based on the apps demonstrated at SXSW, one is allowed to create free (and advertising free) Glass apps that provide some sort of access to content or services that you separately charge for: a New York Times subscription or sending a note to a premium Evernote account.

Not that I'd spend any time on such efforts in the absence of clarity from Google on this point.

EthanHeilman9• 13 years ago

This is extremely smart on googles part.

* Why not ads? Everyone is worried that glass will just be a billboard held half an inch from your eye. Most of the jokes and AR gone wrong videos are exactly this. No one wants to pay 1500 for a device that shoots ads directly into your eye.

* Why make all the software free? First, you get people that are building software for fun rather than as a business. There is a long track record of this producing great software (hobbyist is not a dirty word in the world of software). Second, with a new device people are often unwilling to risk buying new software (or lots of new software) for something that might not pan out. Free is a great way to encourage people to explore and google glass is about exploring the space of AR rather than defining it. Third, it avoids the whole freeium crap that is chocking the android market. I was looking at pushup apps and it took me half an hour to find one that didn't require that I pay, look at ads or sign up with facebook despite there being a large number of "free" apps (free as in expensive). If I could find a version of the google play store in which the software didn't have ads and didn't have an absurd number of "pay 2.99 for the non-crippled version" I would use that store exclusively.

App development as get rich quick scheme is not a sustainable software development ecosystem. It sets all the wrong expectations.

It may seem counterintuitive but I trust free, ad free software (free as in beer) more than software that has a monetization strategy. Part of it is that software with a business angle tends to be SAAS since they have money for servers to store and compute on my data, whereas free/ad-free software tends to be a local app (it appears that Google glasses is not allowing local apps).

workbench2• 13 years ago

> Why not ads?

Because Google will be controlling and profiting off them presumably

EthanHeilman9• 13 years ago

No one is paying 1500 USD for a monocle that displays ads directly into their eye. Maybe 100 USD, maybe free. My android phone doesn't display ads outside of the apps, why would glass be any different?

yasth• 13 years ago

It doesn't avoid freemium it just means that the points/memberships have to be externally purchased. You just can't charge for the app.

Anyways I'd be shocked if there weren't quite a few freemium apps. The limitations of the API and the device mean that there will be a lot more work done serverside. That costs money.

App development as a paid endeavor is a very sustainable ecosystem. I doubt anyone is going to target a pool of a few thousand potential users and plan on getting rich, but there are bills that have to be paid. Especially in the world of local services one often has to pay for datasets (say a database of ATM locations and the fees they charge for an app that showed you what your options were).

EthanHeilman9• 13 years ago

>It doesn't avoid freemium it just means that the points/memberships have to be externally purchased. You just can't charge for the app

Yes, this is a good point.

I wonder if google would consider this a violation of the ToS since someone could offer an app that does not work at all except if you pay for a membership somewhere else. This would be equivalent as charging for an app but doesn't violate the letter of the law. I imagine google would probably decide on a case by case basis.

>App development as a paid endeavor is a very sustainable ecosystem.

It is a sustainable ecosystem for companies that have funding and know what they are doing but at the moment there is no doubt that a gold rush is happening is the mobile space. I think this gold rush has helped these platforms significantly, but I don't think developers are thinking rationally about their chances of actually producing a successful business(supply > demand). Once this correction takes place I expect that many app stores will suffer from a lack of new development which will hurt the public's expectations.

DominikR• 13 years ago

What exactly is the problem with charging 2.99? You make it sound as if it was unethical to charge money for a product that someone has spent months to develop/advertise.

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

It's not unethical, but allowing paid apps can attract people only interested in making money, not making good apps.

pc862• 13 years ago

WRT your second point, are you implying that people will be more likely to spend $1500 on Glass because there are not paid applications available for it?

EthanHeilman9• 13 years ago

They will spend $1500.00 on glass because there are good applications developed for it that they get out of the box (glass with no apps is useless, glass with good free apps is better value than glass with good for-purchase apps). The $1500.00 should be a package deal which includes software and hardware.

* Would people be as likely to buy an ipod if itunes cost an additional $2.99?

*What about if you had to buy an OS with your computer even if it was only $29.99?

Packaging is a powerful marketing concept. I would expect that google is probably paying some developers to create useful apps.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

> WRT your second point, are you implying that people will be more likely to spend $1500 on Glass because there are not paid applications available for it?

They are more likely to buy Glass if the cost of apps for it are already bundled into the costs of paid web services, so that buying glass gets you the benefits glass provides for those web services with no additional hassle.

Irregardless2• 13 years ago

So we can expect a bunch of half-assed software with no support? Awesome.

At least with paid apps we have a reasonable expectation of customer service and timely updates. Google's customer service is largely nonexistent, which they justify by pointing out that their products are "free". Even with products like the Nexus 4, their support was awful [1]. Simple things like updating order statuses were somehow far beyond their capabilities. With free software and Google hardware, I can't even imagine the nightmare one would have to endure to get help resolving a Glass issue.

[1] http://phandroid.com/2012/11/19/nexus-4-fatal-flaw-google-cu...

TazeTSchnitzel2• 13 years ago

>So we can expect a bunch of half-assed software with no support? Awesome.

Actually, I'd expect a lot of hobby projects. So far from half-assed (possibly very good), but yes, unsupported.

cdata• 13 years ago

To provide some anecdotal defense of Google here, my Nexus 4 was damaged and required replacement. I called a phone number that was easy to find on the Play Store website and spoke to a human without being placed on hold for longer than a few seconds. The human listened attentively to my problem, and promptly issued instructions for their RMA process. I had my replacement phone two days later.

As a consumer of Google's software - as both a developer and end-user - I have experienced Google's legendarily bad customer support first hand. Having said that, I think it is an injustice to suggest that it applies to all things Google now and in the future, and I have a first hand experience that suggests that they are trying to improve this experience for consumers of at least some of their products.

Irregardless2• 13 years ago

That's good to hear -- I own the previous Nexus and skipped the Nexus 4 mostly because of the customer service complaints. Still, it will take a lot more stories like yours to repair that aspect of their reputation, especially for people (like me) who highly value customer service and don't buy anything without a warranty.

Also, that doesn't address the other side of the problem, which is the potential lack of support from Glass application developers. What happens when Glass OS 2.0 is released and half your favorite apps break but the devs have no incentive to update them? This has happened to me several times even with paid apps in the Android store, where the devs have actual cash motivating them to get an update out quickly.

It's a little naive on Google's part to assume people will create AND maintain tons of useful, quality applications just out of sheer enjoyment or the goodness of their hearts.

roc3• 13 years ago

> "So we can expect a bunch of half-assed software with no support? Awesome."

I'd rather expect we'll see a bunch of data collection and notification apps for services (ad-supported or freemium) that are primarily consumed elsewhere [1]: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Breaking News, Dropbox, etc.

Nothing about 'free client'/'no ads' necessarily says 'not monetize-able'.

[1] Frankly, the Mirror API doesn't seem capable of much more than that anyway. All you can really do is push notifications and supply a prompt whereby users can send you pictures and video.

onemorepassword• 13 years ago

"At Google we believe that open systems win."

Just quoting the Google marketing department.

nhangen• 13 years ago

This really limits my enthusiasm for traveling to NY/Chicago to pay $1500 for this device as a glass explorer.

pekk3• 13 years ago

Let's face it, you weren't in the market anyway. And $1500 won't be the final price point if it goes over well. The point of this is to push the technology more than to satisfy people who expect it to be exactly like an iPhone.

Disclosure: I utterly deplore the effect that this will have on society if it does take off

logn• 13 years ago

They probably want to drive user adoption and show developers they can make money harvesting personal data.

ignostic• 13 years ago

No ads. That makes sense - I don't want to see ads that close to my face when struggling to read an already-tiny screen.

As a customer... the "free" line is upsetting and confusing. I would like to pay for good apps instead of relying on hobbyists adding their idiosyncratic-use-case features rather than the features I want.

This sounds like a rule made by a programmer/dev. I have to imagine it'll change once the device is available widely to consumers.

dragonwriter5• 13 years ago

> As a customer... the "free" line is upsetting and confusing. I would like to pay for good apps

You will be able to, buy paying for non-free web services that provide no-additional-charge Glass apps. Glass isn't designed as a standalone app platform, and the features it exposes to apps don't really encourage apps that are independent of some broader service that is also used on a non-Glass device.

OGinparadise• 13 years ago

Leave ads to Google. But those aren't ads, they are useful (to Google's bank account)

Let's see: How should a serious developer or company make money for putting resources to develop Google Glass software? Not everyone has Google money to be able to wait for the rest to go bankrupt and then fill it with ads or raise prices. Good software, in most cases requires good programmers that got "mouths to feed"

Glass developers prohibited from displaying ads, charging for software

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