March 2012
22 posts
Advergames
Everyone’s into gaming. With the *somewhat* recent handset upgrades afforded by Apple and Google, it’s gone mobile and mainstream. No need for specialized handsets. No need for any more thought put into how to break into the market. It’s the here and now and it’s why gaming makes great sense for brands to go after and employ in their marketing strategies.
I first saw it...
Barack - The Social President
I would never have thought of calling the President by his first name. Except here we are with what’s likely the most social president ever to be seen in the history of the world. It’s amazing that since President Bush has left office, we’ve seen Facebook go really mainstream. Twitter. YouTube. Tumblr. Google+. Instagram. Pinterest.
Yes, he’s on all of these social...
Human Thought Silos
It’s practically the human condition. We like to silo things. Make them easier to understand. Easier to deal with. Straighten them out. It’s why we think San Diego is west of Reno (look it up, it’s not). It’s why we hate taking a step back, even if it’ll move us a step forward.
I was talking about the mixing of social, mobile, and web with someone yesterday....
Big Data = Big Money
It’s why Google built Google+.
It’s why privacy has become such a hot button issue.
It’s why Facebook is working so well as an ad platform.
It’s why Adsense already works so well as an ad platform.
It’s why data scientists are in such hot demand.
It’s why everyone says they have proprietary algorithms.
Ultimately though, there are phases for all of this....
Mophie Power
I had posted a couple of weeks ago about battery life issues and how Apple really focused in on that on the new iPad, making sure the battery didn’t become a user issue (or did they?). A few days later I saw some more people talk about it and then talk about the iPhone battery (can’t remember where, sorry!) and they brought up what Mophie was doing.
Now, I have an Android phone, but...
Sweat the Details
Yesterday, I wrote about keeping it simple and I really meant it. If your message and service isn’t simple and intuitive, forget about success. However, on the flip side, it’s still really important to sweat the details. The details of how it should look, how that message is delivered, how you can execute better.
I was reminded of this when I received an introduction from someone but...
Keep it Simple
Anything good starts with a simple premise. A clear value proposition to your audience. If you can’t manage to clarify what that is, then it most probably doesn’t make sense to pursue.
This pretty much holds true for everything. No matter how complex things may be operationally, or behind the scenes, just keep the message really simple. I was reminded of this when I saw Jack...
You're Either Growing, Or you're Dying
Look at the news coming out of Yahoo and you see a great manifestation of this classic theme. You’re either growing or you’re dying. There’s no middle ground and certainly not in the digital space where innovation is rapid and unrelenting.
They’re looking to offload Right Media because they haven’t done anything with it in years and have been surpassed in technology,...
Hire for Values, Not Skills
In a perfect world, you’d actually hire for both. But if you have to prioritize, place values over skills. I don’t think this pertains just to the mobile and web sectors but really for any sector, any business. Really any business where you expect your people to perform at their peak.
If your values and their values are aligned, good things will happen. Skills can be taught....
Social & Games - A Dynamic Duo
I’ve mentioned it before. Game developers see much higher peaks and troughs than staid app developers. Not always, but more often than not. The reason, of course, is because games are a hit driven business. Think about your own experience with games. You see something you like, you play it, and maybe you play it a bit more, but eventually boredom sets in and you move on to something else.
...
10 Things Learned from 300 Mobile Developers
Yesterday, Offervault posted one of my pieces on different lessons that I learned from over 300 mobile developers. It was an expansion of my prior post (see below).
I figured that you’d want to read it as well. So here goes:
In my prior life, I ran one of the most highly trafficked mobile destinations for quite a while and we launched one of the most successful apps of all time. It still...
3 Weeks. 3 Major Conferences.
And I wasn’t by any of them.
First it was Mobile World Congress. Based out of Spain, it has a tremendous international presence. While it used to be dominated by the hardware guys and carriers, the software guys have moved in as well. Wasn’t there.
Second, it was GDC out in San Francisco. Anyone who’s anyone in the gaming space was there. Obviously mobile gaming was front and...
Android Market > Google Play
Android Market is now known as Google Play. I liked Android Market. It had a really defined meaning and it had a broad generalization related to anything that you would want to find on Android.
I haven’t seen anyone say anything positive about the name change and frankly I’m baffled as to why Google did it. If I’m reading a book, am I playing? If I’m checking my battery...
Naming a Business: Does it really matter?
Yes and No.
Yes. It matters that you choose a name without negative connotations. Something positive sounding will definitely work better. If you could have a sense of action, a verb, even better. But ultimately it doesn’t really matter.
People fall in love with a service. With an experience. Not with a name.
Look at Google. Apple. IBM. Dell. eBay. GoDaddy. Amazon. Zappos. DropBox.
And...
iPad "3" - Power Up
The biggest news about the iPad 3 is not really the retina display, speed, processing power, or any other gee-whiz features you’ll get by partaking in the hardware upgrade. It’s really the combination of all those things, coupled with a battery that has 70% more capacity than the previous one. Again, it all comes down to user experience. Running out of power just demolishes that...
The Hangover - Purim Startups
Among Jews, Purim is a time for drunken revelry. For spiritual reasons of course. The more fun half to the sobering Yom Kippur (they both share the same root word in Hebrew and, as such, have much of the same underpinnings) where a little alchohol and lots of fun is meant to bring people to a physical/pseudo-spiritual high.
But then you have the hangover and you realize what you’ve done....
Anonymity - Google!
I’ve been pretty clear about what I think about the recent privacy policy changes at Google. Cut the company some slack. They’re making things easier for users to understand. Simplifying everything, and ultimately continuing to provide you with services that you could never have imagined in a million years, nor would have thought that you can get such stuff for free even if it was...
The Monetization Trend: iOS vs. Android
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again. I talk with lots of developers and they are all over the monetization map. But there’s a clear trend that I see developing on iOS vs. Android and the reasons for it are pretty clear.
Let’s start with the trend:
On iOS, developers monetize with either paid apps or in-app purchasing first. Advertising second.
On...
Life's Too Short
I recently saw a great post via Allen Lau @ Wattpad. Written by Mark Suster, it reiterates what we all inherently know but sometimes just can’t find the guts to deal with completely and properly.
Life is too short to work with people who you don’t respect, with people who are not loyal, with people who don’t show appreciation, and with people who disrupt by their very nature.
...
10 Things I've Learned From 287 Mobile Developers
Over the last 5 months, I’ve built relationships with 287 mobile development shops. These range from the largest companies in the world with hundreds of millions of users to the larger independents with “mere” millions of users. They all have lots of traffic, lots of users, and lots of concerns.
What I’ve learned is that there is no single concern, no single reason for...
Are 40% Super Satisfied?
I wanted to thank all the readers of this blog and all the people whom I’ve reached out to over the last several months. I’ve helped many of you with intros. I’ve helped many of you think through the challenges and, more importantly, the opportunities in the mobile space.
And with all of that, you’ve helped me even more. The clarity and honesty of opinion has been truly...
Banner Ads = Red Herring
In apps.
I’ve mentioned this before, but banner ads are perhaps the poorest method of monetizing an app and the reason is because in today’s world, they are non-contextual. You can see it if you look at where apps on iOS are heading. All arrows point towards in-app purchasing or straight up paid apps. The primary reason being that traditional banner ads just don’t work that...
