I think that high-quality apps have a loyal and passionate audiences - a smaller one for sure - but advertisers can rest assured they have access to the best audience money can buy.
I've never thought in terms of Facebook or Google's scale and I actually want to take a more anti-Facebook/Google approach where the amount of user tracking is inexistent. Just track the ad performance and that's about it.
My understanding is that larger companies with bigger ad spend don't have time to hand-pick each app or web page. (Using human labor to pick apps and pages can significantly raise the cost I presume.) Perhaps there is a marketplace for smaller advertisers here.
I was thinking in terms of a more human approach where advertisers are actually looking to connect with their potential users.
App publishers don't sell impressions - they sell influence by allowing the advertiser to get a spot from their app real-estate.
It's certainly possible, but not scalable. If your goal is to support your own work and you have the hustle and editorial eye, you can make money.
Keep in mind that the big players can wipe you out in a second. Overcast exists because Apple's benign neglect of podcasts. They can wake up at anytime and wipe the app and ad market out.
I'm not sure I've understood - what's not scalable? Selling ads by yourself or using a network that helps you sell ads?
The audience will be more open to ads as well if delivered right. For e.g. A sports app with a limited audience will be interested in knowing more about a particular sport equipment or a sports drink.
But let's not just throw banners here and take them to new links / apps; show them meaningful info in the app itself, when users click on the banner.
I am planning to implement this approach in my app cricheroes.in - will update on how that is working.
No, it can still be done, if you're in a niche for which it doesn't make sense to have a more automated approach (either because it's too small to justify the investment in building an ad network, or because it requires higher-touch interactions).
It sounds like what you want to build is a niche ad agency. It wouldn't be a software/technology business, but a sales business. Your first step should be to get high-quality apps to agree to place high-quality ads that you've sourced - that will be infinitely more difficult than building an ad network (if that's what you're doing). And if you can do that, you can probably run the business at first using Excel, without writing any code.