We profiled Tap.me, an in-app advertising platform for iOS, shortly after their first round of funding, highlighting their early goals around adding value to a gamer’s playing experience.  On their 1-year anniversary of debuting their concept at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Tap.me returned to see if their hard work is headed in the right direction, celebrating with the launch of a new ad platform.  We’re excited about Tap.me’s new platform because of what it means for big data analysis.

A precedent-setting in-game ad platform, Tap.Me’s headed for swift expansion in the next twelve months.  Addressing the basic problems for current in-game advertising methods, Tap.me’s platform format allows for a more organic integration of advertising mechanisms within the gaming experience.  You may recall, Tap.me’s ads go along with gameplay, instead of disrupting with banner ads, demanding incentive action items and forced revenue streams.  Tap.me’s unique way of incorporating rewards into games becomes a part of the game development, story line and individual game goals.

Extending this to developers, Tap.me has opened up the beta version to their iOS integration library, as well as its web-based management tools.  iPhone and iPad developers now have a DIY solution for customizing the Tap.me experience into their games.  Tap.me co-founder and CEO Joshua Hernandez quotes some high engagement rates, 8-20% higher than competing advertising methods.  By giving gamers the added value of enhancing their game experience through these branded interactions, everyone comes out a winner.  Android support is in the works.

“We are the only company bringing to market the first mobile in-game advertising platform. Tap Me was designed and iterated from the ground up, working closely with game developers and advertisers in our closed beta,” Hernandez says. Because of this, our platform is light years ahead of the curve having discovered features that work and are demonstrating  extremely promising metrics – early user engagement rates are through the roof, as high as 50% in some games.”

An important part of Tap.me’s platform will be analytics, which gather metadata on game activity, just as developers have been doing for websites.  As Hernandez noted during an earlier chat, no one’s collecting data on running and jumping, a frequent game move and a skill users must develop for each game.  Having information on a single game action reveals advertising and rewards opportunities for game developers.  For instance, a reward could come in the form of earning a jump booster, giving you extra power and skill for gameplay.  Marketing is deeply integrated with user engagement on Tap.me’s platform, and the company feels it’s the way things should be.

What Tap.me does is take the trickster mentality out of advertising, lending itself to a wholly different way of interaction.  The mobile scene is an emerging opportunity for Tap.me, taking advantage of mobile devices’ unique physical and virtual structures.  Metadata collection is a nod to the web as we know it, while in-game interaction is an exploratory means of evolving the monetization of this industry.

In regards to current game monetization solutions, Hernandez feels it’s a “dumb way to do it. I say, no more products from companies that don’t fundamentally understand games. Let us solve this problem. what this will do from a data standpoint is allow us to optimize in the future.  Taking metadata from here lets developers see where to put in-app ads and purchases into their games.”