The digital media industry often talks about how much influence, dominance and power entities like Google and Facebook have. Typically, the focus is on the huge amount of data and audiences these companies reach to tout.
But both of these companies have more under the surface to strengthen the grip of these companies, both app developers and publishers. In fact, Software Development Kit (SDK) integrations are an important factor in why these monolithic companies have such a prominent presence.
For reference, an SDK is a set of software development tools, libraries, code samples, processes, and guides that help developers build or improve the applications they create. Through a digital marketing lens, SDK provides application analysis, insights on campaign testing, detailed information, location details, monetization capabilities and much more.
In the case of companies like Google and Facebook, pigeons have the ability to provide insights with this information and access to it. While it provides developers and publishers with useful capabilities together, it also perpetuates the factors that contribute to their perceived monopoly positions – and the disadvantages of encouraging competition. Google’s Admob SD has been integrated into almost all (90%) ad-monetized Android apps, according to data from Statista.
Additionally, Facebook listener network SDK contains 19% of all Android applications worldwide using mobile ads. It is worth noting that the SDKs of alternative “top” ads outside of these two players are used less than 13% of the time in Android applications. As the application ecosystem expands rapidly beyond the boundaries of mobile, app developers and publishers will benefit greatly from identifying economical and secure ways to adopt more SDKs.
While there are many SDKs available in the market today, a few key factors contribute to the overall dominance of Google and Facebook. The most basic is the reach of the organization concerned and the notoriety of the industry. But a big component here is the lack of resources and time application developers. As the application ecosystem expands rapidly beyond cellular boundaries, application developers and publishers can reap huge benefits by discovering economical and secure ways to absorb additional SDKs.
