Addiction runs thickly on both sides of my family. Alcoholics hang from the branches all over my family tree.  Because I’m quite certain that I carry that recessive gene for addiction and could easily end up like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I have carefully constructed complicated and iron-clad rules around the few vices that I allow myself. I channel my addictions into harmless pursuits, like dumb video games.

Last week, I wondered why free iPhone apps were so much better than the free games on the computer. In the comment section of this blog, MichaelB kindly explained that iPhone apps are able to bring in greater revenue from advertisements than computer games.

The guy who developed the iPhone game, Flappy Bird, was pulling in $50,000 a day in ads before he decided to pull the plug on the game.

Why are the ads on the iPhone games so effective? The online newspaper industry has never been able to bring in much money for advertisements. Is it because the audience for those games is so huge? Are the ads on iPhone so obnoxious that people click on them?

UPDATE: Some of the ads in your iPhone game apps may be tracking your online habits, not just telling you about a product.

UPDATE2: Facinating stuff on Facebook’s use of ads and how they know that I googled a particular handbag last week. Can the media industry learn from the tech industry?

In the past, ads provided exposure for a production. Now, online ads provide information about the audience, as well as exposure.