T ruth in Advertising: The Hidden Cost of Mobile Ads for Software - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
T ruth in Advertising: The Hidden Cost of Mobile Ads for Software Developers Jiaping Gui (jgui@usc.edu), , Stuart t Mcil ilroy, , Meiy iyappa pan Nagapp ppan an, , Will lliam iam G.J. Half lfond ond This work was supported by NSF
ruth in Advertising: The Hidden Cost of Mobile Ads for Software Developers
Jiaping Gui (jgui@usc.edu), , Stuart t Mcil ilroy, , Meiy iyappa pan Nagapp ppan an, , Will lliam iam G.J. Half lfond
This work was supported by NSF Grant No. CCF-1321141 to the University of Southern California
Win-win
Hidden Costs
Revenue
Prevalence
2
Performance cost
processing power Runtime responsiveness
3
Energy cost
Users may be aware of battery limitations, but they do not have any way to isolate and evaluate the energy cost of ads within apps More recharging cycles
4
Network cost
5
Maintenance effort
Maintenance effort
Update on main functions of the application Update on ad functions and other functions
6
Impact on the ratings
“Annoying full screen ads every time you run the app. Uninstall” Good app ratings and reviews are essential for the success of an app in the marketplace.
7
Research Questions to Quantify Hidden Costs
RQ1: Performance cost RQ2: Energy cost RQ3: Network cost RQ4: Maintenance effort RQ5: Ratings impact
8
Users Developers
Distimo ranking
user rating user reviews # downloads
Jan 2014 10,750 apps Aug 2014
Top 21 subject apps
Evaluation Overview - Subject Apps
9
App Selector Workload Generator Ad Removal
Evaluation Overview – Subject Apps
App Name Category # Versions # Reviews
SofaScore LiveScore sports 39 1158 4.72082 7Zipper communication 19 699 4.66026 Guess The Song trivia 40 3426 4.62825 Podcast Republic news & magazines 39 1723 4.58928 Smart Booster - Free Cleaner tools 22 1258 4.50653 The Best Life Quotes entertainment 31 784 4.42554 3D Sense Clock & Weather travel & local 20 399 4.42509 Polaris Navigation GPS travel & local 29 960 4.41557 Radaee PDF Reader productivity 21 587 4.41044 Player dreams music & audio 40 693 4.40827 Translator Speak & Translate travel & local 22 1024 4.38482 Pixer social 27 599 4.36689 Restaurant Finder travel & local 24 464 4.35366 Lomo Camera photography 20 942 4.33325 Arcus Weather weather 30 513 4.32317 Smileys for Chat (memes,emoji) communication 16 613 4.32011 VLC Direct Streaming Pro Free media & video 25 868 4.28025 Drudge Report news & magazines 20 1317 4.24225 Public Radio & Podcast news & magazines 21 671 4.2379 English for kids learning free education 21 90 4.13483 Followers For Instagram social 17 1337 3.75924 10
Evaluation Overview – Ad Removal
With ad No ad
11
App Selector Workload Generator Ad Removal bytecode rewriting
Complete Repeatable Long enough
Evaluation Overview - Workload
12
Criteria
App Selector Workload Generator Ad Removal
With ad No ad
top tool: 1s interval
Approach
Resident Set Size (RSS)
CPU utilization (%) Memory (K)
13
Evaluation
Mean 56% Median 48% Mean & Median 22% CPU: 6%~84% Memory: 3%~27%
14
Increase with ads
M1 M3 M5 M7 M9 M11 M13 M15 M17 M19 M21 Apps Average Performance Cost of Ads (%) 20 40 60 80
Evaluation
Response time: 7% longer for event handler with ads
15
Increase with ads
workload workload With ads No ads
Monsoon Power Monitor
Sampling 5KHz
Approach
16
Mean 16% Median 15%
M1 M3 M5 M7 M9 M11 M13 M15 M17 M19 M21 Apps Average Energy Cost of Ads (%) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Max 33% Min 3% Six apps had an over 20% increase in energy consumption
Evaluation
17
Increase with ads 2.5 hrs 2.1 hrs 1.7 hrs battery baseline average worst
HTTP, TCP Metrics:
Approach
18
Median 90%
Evaluation
Median 97% Bytes: 4%~100% # Packets: 5%~100%
16/21 apps, over 80% network traffic due to ads
19
Increase with ads 0.24MB
3 mins $0.017 2 hrs/day $20.4/mon
M1 M3 M5 M7 M9 M11 M13 M15 M17 M19 M21Average Network Cost (%) 20 40 60 80 100 120
Releasei Releasei+1
Different multisets of ad related calls
VS
App versions
Approach
20
Mean 23% Median 22%
Evaluation
10 apps: higher number of ad related changes
M1 M3 M5 M7 M9 M11 M13 M15 M17 M19 M21 Apps Percentage of Releases (%) 10 20 30 40 50
Jan 2014
5 releases GMA
Aug 2014
GMA: Google Mobile Ad Networks
21
20,125 Reviews
Performance Network Energy Ad complaints Annoying full screen ads every time you run the
…
Approach
22
2,964 reviews
Evaluation Over 50% apps
0.003 stars
5.04% 3.28%
It is sufficient to change the ranking!!!
23
M1 M5 M9 M13 M17 M21
Apps Percentage of Complaints (%) 5 10 15 20
Evaluation Overview – Subject Apps
App Name Category # Versions # Reviews
SofaScore LiveScore sports 39 1158 4.72082 7Zipper communication 19 699 4.66026 Guess The Song trivia 40 3426 4.62825 Podcast Republic news & magazines 39 1723 4.58928 Smart Booster - Free Cleaner tools 22 1258 4.50653 The Best Life Quotes entertainment 31 784 4.42554 3D Sense Clock & Weather travel & local 20 399 4.42509 Polaris Navigation GPS travel & local 29 960 4.41557 Radaee PDF Reader productivity 21 587 4.41044 Player dreams music & audio 40 693 4.40827 Translator Speak & Translate travel & local 22 1024 4.38482 Pixer social 27 599 4.36689 Restaurant Finder travel & local 24 464 4.35366 Lomo Camera photography 20 942 4.33325 Arcus Weather weather 30 513 4.32317 Smileys for Chat (memes,emoji) communication 16 613 4.32011 VLC Direct Streaming Pro Free media & video 25 868 4.28025 Drudge Report news & magazines 20 1317 4.24225 Public Radio & Podcast news & magazines 21 671 4.2379 English for kids learning free education 21 90 4.13483 Followers For Instagram social 17 1337 3.75924 24
Summary
Median relative costs of ads
CPU: 56% Memory: 22% Energy: 15% Bandwidth: 97%
Developers need to expend more maintenance efforts on ads!
25
Ad complaints affect app ratings on the app store!
jgui@usc.edu jgui@usc.edu
Trut uth h in in Adv Adver ertisi tising ng The he Hid Hidde den Cost n Cost of
Mobile Ads Ads for
Softwar are e De Develop eloper ers Jiaping Gui (jgui@usc.edu), , Stuar Stuart t Mcil Mcilroy, , Meiy Meiyapp ppan an Na Naga gapp ppan an, , Wil illia liam m G.J .J. . Half Halfon
26
Evaluation
Generalizing RQ 1-5 for four apps with two other mobile ad networks
GMA: Google Mobile Ad Networks AMA: Amazon Mobile Ad Networks MMA: Mopub Mobile Ad Networks
27