Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Alfred Succer , the founder of Nova Nuggets , which provides private, end-to-end secure operating environments for AI applications. The topic of our conversation is sovereign AI, or the importance of controlling the environment on which AI-based applications, but especially chatbots, operate. Among other things, we discuss: The definition of a...

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Francesco D'Orazio, the President and Chief Product Officer at Pulsar, an audience intelligence and insights platform. The topic of our conversation is the use of AI to develop an understanding of a product's existing audience for feature planning, marketing, and optimization. Among other things, we discuss: How AI is being applied to a...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Jonathan Moffie , the Head of Agentic Product at Magnite , the largest independent SSP. Moffie joined Magnite when it acquired Streamr.io, which he founded, last year. The topic of our conversation is the application of generative AI to creative production for CTV. Among other things, we discuss: How GenAI is currently being used for ad production for CTV...

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Amanda Engelman , Shopify's Director of Product for Advertising. The topic of the episode is the recently announced Shopify Product Network , which allows merchants to insert recommendations for products they don't sell into their own storefronts, sourced from other Shopify Merchants. But don't call it an ad network! In our discussi...

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Peter Stuart , the founder of Velora Digital, which publishes Velora Cycling , a new media outlet focused on the sport of cycling. Velora Digital has adopted an AI-first philosophy and integrates AI tools thoughtfully and fundamentally into its publishing process. I've known Peter since we both studied at University College London many ye...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Anindya Ghose from NYU and Vilma Todri from Emory University about their recent paper, The Impact of Visual Generative AI on Advertising Effectiveness , which is available in pre-print. In the paper, Anindya, Vilma, and the other authors assess the performance efficacy of three types of ad creative: Creative entirely crafted by humans; Creative crafted...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is  Rishabh Jain , the CEO and co-founder of  FERMÀT Commerce , an eCommerce advertising optimization platform. Rishabh most recently joined the podcast in June for an episode of the MDM Mailbag . In this episode, Rishabh and I discuss the impact of chatbot discovery on eCommerce sales, including over Black Friday. Among other things, we speak about: The cur...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Mikołaj Barczentewicz , a professor of law at the University of Surrey and the author of  EU Tech Reg , a blog dedicated to following developments in the EU regulatory machinery. In this episode, Mikołaj and I discuss the digital omnibus package that was recently proposed by the European Commission and which aims to reform and simplify, among many other t...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Simon Whitcombe , the Vice President, Global Business Group at Meta. We discuss Meta's Business AI and the Meta AI business assistant, both of which were announced ahead of this year's AdWeek. I unpacked the potential of these tools to help advertisers cross the "ad-product divide" in Can Meta cross the ad-product divide? ; in this episo...

In this episode of the podcast, which is a companion to ⁠ Affiliate links, personalized ads, and chatbot revenue optimization ⁠ , I discuss the need for OpenAI to discover a scalable, durable revenue model, given its status as the avatar for artificial intelligence as a transformative economic and social force. I then make the case for why personalized, conversion-optimized advertising is a superi...

My guest on this episode of the podcast is Luca Fiaschi , a machine learning expert who previously held executive data science roles at MistPlay, StitchFix, and HelloFresh. Luca is now a Partner for the Generative AI vertical at PyMC Labs , a consultancy that specializes in the application of Bayesian methods to business problems and which maintains the open source PyMC library for Bayesian statis...

The sixth installment of the Mobile Dev Memo mailbag features app monetization expert Sylvain Gauchet . Sylvain formerly served as Babbel's US Director of Revenue Strategy and now works with a number of subscription apps on revenue growth as an advisor and fractional executive. Additionally, Sylvain runs the  GrowthGems newsletter , for which he scours the internet for valuable content related...

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Daphne Tideman , a product growth expert who runs the Growth Waves newsletter . The topic of our conversation is "zero-to-one growth": the tactics developers can utilize to validate and optimize their product to ultimately enable scaled user acquisition. Among other things, we cover: The purpose of early audience validation How mone...

In this week's episode of the podcast, I speak with Kate Minogue , a fractional CPO and advisor for consumer and ad tech companies. Kate also runs the AI Leadership Lab , an AI leadership course. Previously, Kate worked in marketing measurement at Meta. This episode is the fifth installment of the MDM Mailbag series, in which I bring experts onto the podcast to answer questions fielded from th...

My guest on this week's episode of the podcast is Dan Pantelo , the CEO and founder of Marpipe , a platform that enables eCommerce companies to build dynamic product ads. In our conversation, we discuss: The necessity of exhaustive creative experimentation in eCommerce advertising Whether and how advertisers can create an effective feedback loop between advertising creative and product design...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with The Wall Street Journal 's Tim Higgins about his new book, iWar: Fortnite, Elon Musk, Spotify, WeChat, and Laying Siege to Apple's Empire . iWar traces a series of campaigns launched against Apple's control of the iOS App Store, including those from Spotify, Epic, Meta, and Elon Musk. Higgins chronicles the rise of the App Store from its lau...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Daniel McCarthy on the topic of Customer Lifetime Value (LTV / CLV). This is Daniel's second appearance on the podcast; he first joined me in April to discuss his paper, Evaluating the Impact of Privacy Regulation on E-Commerce Firms: Evidence from Apple’s App Tracking Transparency . In this episode, Daniel provides an overview of the CLV / LTV metr...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Adam Singer about the general trend of brands pivoting their marketing strategies into anodyne and agreeable positioning (and why brands succeed when they don't). Adam is the VP of Marketing at AdQuick and runs the Hot Takes blog. Among other things, Adam and I discuss: The "blandification" of marketing Why AI output won't displace cre...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Andrew Lipsman , an independent analyst in the retail media space and the author of Media, Ads + Commerce . Andrew and I discuss the prospects for -- and the futility of -- agentic commerce. Among other things, our conversation covers: The definition of 'agentic commerce' The 'fundamental flaws' in agentic commerce from a conceptual and...

In this episode of the podcast, I examine Google's Gambit : its effort to transition Search from a distribution intermediary to an engagement sink. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode products seek to retain users in the Search experience, rather than forwarding them to external destinations. Many publishers claim that their inbound traffic from Google Search has plummeted , with expectation...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Itai Kafri on the topic of signal engineering. Itai is the Head of Product Growth at Voyantis and previously held senior roles at TikTok and ironSource. I've defined signal engineering as "the process of designing and capturing high-quality outcome proxies (eg., pLTV) so they can be reported back to ad platforms in real time such that those pla...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Chris Hewish , the President of Xsolla , a payments and merchandising platform for video games. Chris previously held senior roles at Skydance, DreamWorks, and Activision. In our discussion, Chris and I discuss the recent changes to mobile platform payment policy implemented by both Apple and Google as a result of Epic's lawsuits. Among other topics...

In this week's episode of the MDM podcast, I speak with Adam Epstein , the CEO of Gigi , an AI-enabled automation tool for the Amazon DSP. Following Amazon's announcement in June of identity partnerships with both Roku and Disney (which I cover in Amazon is CTV’s data engine ), Adam and I focus our conversation on Amazon's strategic positioning with its advertising business across Amaz...

In this week's episode of the podcast, I am joined by Ari Paparo , whose new book, Yield , is currently on pre-sale (see my review here ). Yield follows Google's growth in the "open web display market", starting with its acquisition of DoubleClick and ending with the company being found guilty of abusing its monopoly power in the "ad tech" antitrust suit brought against...

In this week's episode, I speak with David Barnard, a well-known independent app developer, the host of the Sub Club podcast , and the Growth Advocate at RevenueCat . This is the fourth installment of the MDM Mailbag series, where questions for guests are sourced from the Mobile Dev Memo community. Among other things, we discuss: The viability of link-out following Apple's policy change an...