Evan Ratliff, near his offices in Brooklyn, runs The Atavist Magazine, which last month shut off its app and decided to publish only on the web. (Photo : Benjamin Norman for The New York Times )
Web publishers are starting to suffer for the widening rivalry between Apple and Google, and this is not unconnected with the latest business models adopted by each - catching web publishers in the crossfire and straggling them in-between the two tech giants.
Apple is fast expanding into apps for mobile devices, while Google favors a faster web service that allows for ad displays, but the fallout of these marketing strategies is fast hurting web publishers who rely on both apps and ad displays to earn revenue.
Apple makes the bulk of its money from mobile devices that depend on apps created by its community of app developers, and Google relies on faster web service substantiated by advertisers to generate revenue, but their aggressive moves and marketing rivalry is starting to sweep the carpet off the feet of web publishers who need Google's faster web for visibility as well as Apple's apps to target loyal customers.
Most businesses spend huge amounts of money to create business websites and optimize them for visibility (gaining customers), while also spending another portion of money to develop special apps that loyal customers can download into mobile devices to be able to access quality content/services. But the rivalry between Apple and Google is forcing several businesses to sacrifice one for the other under strict business decisions.
Evan Ratliff runs The Atavist Magazine, but just last month he decided to shut down The Atavist app and publish only on the web - because he repeated the same task for the web for the app as well, with no real reward to justify doing both at the same time.
Mid-last month, Apple implemented a feature that enabled users to block ads from showing on their mobile devices - hurting web publishers that generate revenue from the display of such ads; but Google responds it is going to start deranking websites that use pop-up screens to promote apps as from next month - something some analysts regard as "app blocking."
"The App Store and apps have transformed what people do with mobile devices and have revolutionized the entire industry," an Apple spokeswoman said. "Our incredible developer community has created over 1.5 million of the most innovative apps in the world, and they have earned over $33 billion on the App Store. Whether iOS users choose apps or the web for enjoying content, they will have a great experience."
And Google sort of responded by disclosing that "People want content to be fast, discoverable, and accessible. Both apps and the mobile web are important to publishers and we're investing in both."
"We're spending more time thinking about what Google and Apple are going to do than when we were just doing desktop publishing," said D.L Byron, publisher of Bike Hugger. "They can change on a dime and pull the rug out from under you, like when Google cut off news feeds and Apple decided to allow ad blocking."
