Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

We discuss the transition of AI-native applications toward ad-supported monetization models. Among other things, we cover: Whether AI-native apps will follow the mobile gaming trajectory by adopting hybrid monetization models to reach massive global audiences How the high operational costs of AI inference necessitate a move toward ad-supported tiers to maintain sustainable profit margins Why the g...

The Prosperous Society is a three-hour, four-part series by Eric Seufert of Mobile Dev Memo that explores the political economy of artificial intelligence, grounded in the liberal tradition of the Western canon. Framed as an extended response to John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society , which serves as the intellectual foil for the series, The Prosperous Society makes the case that AI is...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by  Garrett Johnson  and  Shunto Kobayashi , professors at Boston University who have co-authored a paper titled  "Can privacy technologies replace cookies?  Ad revenue in a field experiment. " The paper quantifies the impact of Google's Privacy Sandbox on publisher revenue, user experience, and market competition through a field...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Olivia Kory , the CMO of Haus , to discuss the recent $1BN investment in AppsFlyer by Meta, Google, Unity, and Moloco, and the shifting landscape of mobile measurement it portends. We explore the strategic motivations behind major ad platforms banding together to ensure measurement neutrality and how the industry is moving toward more sophi...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Venkat Prabhu , Director of Product for Shop Campaigns at Shopify, to discuss the platform's evolution into a comprehensive marketing operating system for eCommerce merchants. We explore the major announcements from Shopify's Spring Editions , specifically focusing on how the platform leverages commerce data and AI to simplify adver...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Peter Stuart , the co-founder of Velora , an AI operating system for specialist publishers. Peter returns to the podcast to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in journalism and to explore how editorial teams are integrating these tools into their daily operations. Among other things, we cover: How AI tools like LLMs can effectivel...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Adam Epstein , the co-founder and CEO of Gigi , to talk about Amazon’s strategic advertising advantages. Among other things, we discuss: The value of Amazon’s deterministic identity spine, which spans ninety percent of US households Whether Amazon can successfully transition its e-commerce data dominance into non-endemic categories like aut...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Danny Frankel , the founder of Punchup Live , a digital platform and ticketing ecosystem built for stand-up comedians. We explore how the economics of content distribution and audience building are being fundamentally rewritten. Danny provides a unique perspective on the shifting landscape of social media, the rise of clipping farms, and th...

The Prosperous Society  is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency. In  Episode 4 , the conclusion to the series, I outline the AI-enabl...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Julian Togelius , a professor of computer science at NYU and director of the NYU Game Innovation Lab . We delve into how games serve as the perfect sandbox for AI development, the potential for generative tools to revolutionize production workflows, and how the future of play might involve infinite, procedurally generated worlds that adapt...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Phil Black , one of the co-hosts of the Game Economist Cast , a podcast dedicated to game economy design, and a consultant with Game Economist Consulting . Previously, Phil held game economist and analytics roles at Amazon Games, DICE, and Scopely. Phil is also a panelist on the This Week in Games (TWIG) podcast . Phil joins me on this epis...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Andrew Lipsman to discuss the evolving landscape of agentic commerce and retail media. Andrew is an independent analyst and consultant who runs the Media, Ads + Commerce blog, which covers the retail media landscape. Prior to this, Andrew held roles at eMarketer and comScore. This is Andrew's third appearance on the podcast. In our conv...

The Prosperous Society  is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency. In  Episode 3, I make the case that artificial intelligence stands t...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Dan Taylor , the Vice President of Global Ads at Google. We discuss the profound impact of generative AI on search behavior and the technological evolution required to support the next era of digital advertising. Among other things, we discuss: How the shift from keyword-based search to conversational intent will redefine the core mechanics...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Ben Sperry , a senior scholar at the International Center for Law and Economics , to explore the shifting landscape of social media litigation. We dive deep into recent court rulings in California and New Mexico that challenge the historical protections of Section 230 by focusing on product design rather than hosted content (see a recent pi...

The Prosperous Society  is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency. In  Episode 2 , I argue that the Western political economy treats co...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Felix The , SVP of Product and Engineering - Advertising at Unity, to discuss the inner workings of Unity's Vector product and the strategic integration of engine-level data into the advertising ecosystem. We explore how Unity is rebuilding its machine learning infrastructure to provide more granular predictions and better performance f...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by  Christina Augustine , the COO of  Bloomreach , to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-enabled personalization in digital marketing and e-commerce. We explore how the shift from predictive models to generative agents is fundamentally changing how brands interact with consumers across multiple touchpoints. Among other things, we dis...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by  Michael Komasinski , the CEO of  Criteo , to explore the rapidly evolving landscape of agentic commerce and the critical role of recommendation systems in the AI era. We delve into how Criteo is positioning itself as a commerce intelligence layer for AI assistants and the technical distinctions between large language models and purpose-bui...

On this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Joost van Dreunen , the CEO of Aldora, an adjunct professor at NYU, and the author of the SuperJoost Playlist blog as well as the book One Up . We dive into the profound impact of generative artificial intelligence on the video game industry, exploring the immediate market reactions to new tools and the long-term implications for creative p...

The Prosperous Society is a podcast series by Mobile Dev Memo that articulates an AI Bull Thesis for the digital economy. It argues that the pervasive application of AI to the digital economy will be broadly economically expansionary, leading to increased individual prosperity, expanded consumer choice, and greater human agency. In Episode 1 , I argue that AI production tools will catalyze dramati...

In the latest installment of the MDM Mailbag series, I speak with Matej Lancaric , a well-known mobile gaming user acquisition consultant, a co-host of the two & a half gamers podcast , and the author of the Brutally Honest blog . As a reminder: MDM Mailbag episodes center on a guest Q&A, with questions sourced directly from the MDM community. Matej and I discuss a wide variety of topics o...

In this episode of the podcast, I discuss the long-term effects of brand advertising with Carl Mela and Ross Link. Carl Mela is the T. Austin Finch Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Duke University and one of the leading academics in the field of quantitative marketing and consumer choice. Ross Link is the CEO of Marketing Attribution, having previously served as the President of...

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Rishabh Jain , the CEO and co-founder of  FERMÀT Commerce , an eCommerce advertising optimization platform. I invited Rishabh back to the podcast to discuss OpenAI's recent announcement that it will bring advertising to ChatGPT . Among other things, we cover: The commercial potential for ads in ChatGPT. OpenAI's decision to launch ChatG...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Karl Stillner , the CEO and co-founder of BrightCanary , an app that allows parents to glean insights from their children's digital activities. Note that I am an investor in BrightCanary through Heracles Capital. In this podcast, we discuss the challenge of protecting children from digital harm. Among other topics, we cover: The concerns that parents...