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I browse the market every day and I see this guy putting apps that consistently get low reviews. His highest ranking app is 3 stars. He spams the market with apps that are overpriced photo galleries that show pics and play sounds of one specific thing. I think we should help him get the message that his high refund/low ranking rates are not giving him. Please reply if you agree that his apps need to stop spamming the market. If you have not tried one yet, look here. I am not doing this to be mean, but he needs to be told not to quit his day job.
Where's the option for "No. I dislike spam apps, but I hate censorship more." ?
So if his apps were malicious would you vote to have them removed? Do you feel spam filters on email are censorship? They fill your box with junk in hopes of making a few dollars off of you. I am against censorship but his apps are rediculous.
So if his apps were malicious would you vote to have them removed?
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There are rules in place for the Market in regards to malicious apps. There would be no need to vote because the gatekeepers of the Market have already said malicious apps would be removed.
Do you feel spam filters on email are censorship?
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Of course not. The key difference is who gets to decide what is removed. With a spam filter, each user gets to decide whether he wants to see content or not. Any system that removes apps from the Market (that aren't infringing the basic rules as stated above) without your knowledge and consent is basically censorship, whether the decision is made by ten people at Google or a hundred people on xda-dev.
Not if your email provider passes your email through spamhaus you dont. Also I would ****LOVE**** to have a configureable filter but I doubt we will. As an acceptable alternative, I would like for consistantly low rated and highly returned items to be removed. Guess what walmart does if a product gets returned 80% of the time it is sold. Do they ask you?
Also, I am not trying to start a fight with anyone, just stating my view on the subject.
Darkrift said:
Also, I am not trying to start a fight with anyone, just stating my view on the subject.
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I don't care to start a fight either; I'm just pointing out that what you are proposing is a path down a slippery slope, and it generally goes against the "open participation" ethos of Android. You should also keep in mind that one person's junk may be another mans treasure. Would I ever buy one of Khalid's lame $5 joke apps (literally, they're joke books!)? No probably not. That doesn't mean that someone else might not want it.
Edit: Just as an example, back in the early days of Market before developers could geotarget the regions for distribution, some Chinese developers put up some app whose interface was completely Chinese. I think it was a Chinese input method or a frontend for a Chinese website. Regardless, the ignorant fresh T-Mobile masses downloaded it, didn't understand what it was for, and then promptly uninstalled it and rated it zero stars. If you do a filtering system based on ratings, you are giving every uninformed ignoramus an equal say in whether an app is allowed to stay or go.
The Markets sucks! It needs the possibility for user to set their own filter
e.g.
dont show apps publiced by Khalid Shaikh! lower than 2stars, more expensive than x$ and so on..
only show apps of a specifig language (e.g. for traffic,taxi,bus,tv gadgets..)
sort for recently updated and so on .. that's what the market app really needs!
bassbox said:
The Markets sucks! It needs the possibility for user to set their own filter
e.g.
dont show apps publiced by Khalid Shaikh! lower than 2stars, more expensive than x$ and so on..
only show apps of a specifig language (e.g. for traffic,taxi,bus,tv gadgets..)
sort for recently updated and so on .. that's what the market app really needs!
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Yes, the market app needs customizable local (meaning on a user's own device) filters. That will partially solve the problem of crap apps littering the marketplace. However, I think overhauling Market client is low on the Google Android team's priority list. Unfortunately since it is a proprietary closed source app, there is no way for the dev community to take the matter into its own hands.
You would think that the king of searching would have some sort of decent searching on their own platform..
jashsu said:
Yes, the market app needs customizable local (meaning on a user's own device) filters. That will partially solve the problem of crap apps littering the marketplace. However, I think overhauling Market client is low on the Google Android team's priority list. Unfortunately since it is a proprietary closed source app, there is no way for the dev community to take the matter into its own hands.
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I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
I will have to agree though on the statement about censorship. While it is true that his apps may be without any true merit, I do not believe that they are (or he is) breaking any of the Market rules or developer agreements. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the the "free" market and the iPhone AppStore, people are willing to download and even spend money on useless apps. I think as long as there is a market for this type of app we will continue to see them. Now, unfortunately that means we all have to deal with him, his apps, and others like him and his apps until either the Market allows for better filtering/sorting or a developer creates this for the community... It is much needed nonetheless.
nEx.Software said:
I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
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thats awesome. if its anything like BarTor its going to be good
nEx.Software said:
I am planning on developing an interface to the Market which allows for custom filters. I have a prototype Yahoo Pipe, which uses Cyrket to display Market data and allow simple filters. Basically, I can filter out apps that have certain words in the title, are from a certain developer (or more than one), or are below a certain rating threshold.
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That's good to hear. What I meant is that the actual Market App itself cannot be modified to work the way we want it to. While being able to display Market data with filtering on a PC is nice, the bulk majority of users are still going to be suffering the standard Market app interface.
Unfortunately, as we've seen in the the "free" market and the iPhone AppStore, people are willing to download and even spend money on useless apps. I think as long as there is a market for this type of app we will continue to see them. Now, unfortunately that means we all have to deal with him, his apps, and others like him
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There will be more, that much I can assure you. As the Android platform grows, there will be more opportunist developers seeking to make a quick buck. It really is like spam. You throw a line out and because digital publishing is free, anything you get back is profit. There is basically no monetary risk involved in creating and distributing crapware. Atleast we won't have to suffer iPhone's idiotic ninety-nine cent "custom" name dialers. Although the number of soundboards posted daily is reaching dangerous limits...
I intend to make it an Android app. While it won't be a permanent fix,it might be what is needed to get Google moving on updates to the official Market app.
Anyway, on another note. I haven't looked at any one of the apps in question but I would venture a guess that they are in violation of copyright laws and as we have seen with the Tetris clones, Google does take action on matters of copyright. Maybe the best recourse then is to inform this developer of the copyright issues either directly or through Google.
?
Frankly i can't agree with having a dev (does this word really apply in this case) removed from the market for producing crap. However i am completely in favour of spamming his inbox with as much crap as i can possibly manage just to see how he likes it. Free porn search here i come!
Anyone wants to help it's --EMAIL REMOVED-- Yes this is a very childish response but i'm pissed with having to sift through his crap every morning, i think it's only fair!
Ideally google can resolve this issue by allowing to create a list of blocked developers. And the ability to block any apps containing the word soundboard would make my day
nEx.Software an app that was basically cryket.com for the android would be awesome. What would really be sweet was if it had an independant comment system that was filterable as well. So we could ban commenters based on their username, words, etc... Filtering by ratings, developer, keywords, etc.. I love it already. Just link the products to their entries in the market. Basically, cryket for the android with comments... I CAN HAZ IT NOW PLZ K?
Also, I'd love to add IndiaNIC, LLC to the filter list. I'm sure *someone* out there likes that they're putting out 300 e-books about India a day, but I'm sure tired of scrolling past them.
The last thing I'd want is to see rigorous policing on the Android Market. He's spreading expensive crapware but I'm sure people are buying it and I'm sure some actually enjoyed it. I don't think removing his apps from the market is the best solution, keep the market as free from censorship as possible if you ask me.
I think the best solution is market search filters as discussed above.
I agree, the ability to "ignore" certain developers would be nice. The new developer I would instantly add to this list would be IndiaNIC, LLC. or whatever the hell they are called. They have about 40 apps on the market, and I don't think a single one has a comment.
/if anyone affiliated with IndiaNIC, LLC reads this, no offense, but please get the message when nobody is buying what you're selling
The more I think about it, the more I realize a filter would be a better idea than removing junk from the market. While I do not agree that anyone will find his apps useful, I do see the point in letting them choose. But at the same time we should be able to choose not to see his crap. As for IndiaNIC, I disagree with placing them in the same category. They have products with good ratings and seem to be making at least SOME useful apps. While I agree they put out too many at once, they seem to have a market for their apps unlike Khalid Shaikh.
Still, a filter would be better for all. I wish I could edit the poll now to add that as an option
ryan75 said:
/if anyone affiliated with IndiaNIC, LLC reads this, no offense, but please get the message when nobody is buying what you're selling
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Spammers don't need to "get the message"! They know exactly what they are selling (junk). The whole point is they are trying to make a quick buck. And in the immortal words of P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Nevermind the fact that all of those texts can be downloaded for free from manybooks or feedbooks and then read on FBReaderJ...
Google sure doesn't seem to be sticking true to their own philosiphy. It says we can hold them to it. The way they are treating this device launch goes back on their own statements.
As seen here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/company/philosophy/
Ten things we know to be true
We first wrote these “10 things” when Google was just a few years old. From time to time we revisit this list to see if it still holds true. We hope it does—and you can hold us to that.
Focus on the user and all else will follow.
Since the beginning, we’ve focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we’re designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line. Our homepage interface is clear and simple, and pages load instantly. Placement in search results is never sold to anyone, and advertising is not only clearly marked as such, it offers relevant content and is not distracting. And when we build new tools and applications, we believe they should work so well you don’t have to consider how they might have been designed differently.
It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
We do search. With one of the world’s largest research groups focused exclusively on solving search problems, we know what we do well, and how we could do it better. Through continued iteration on difficult problems, we’ve been able to solve complex issues and provide continuous improvements to a service that already makes finding information a fast and seamless experience for millions of people. Our dedication to improving search helps us apply what we’ve learned to new products, like Gmail and Google Maps. Our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help people access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives.
Fast is better than slow.
We know your time is valuable, so when you’re seeking an answer on the web you want it right away–and we aim to please. We may be the only people in the world who can say our goal is to have people leave our website as quickly as possible. By shaving excess bits and bytes from our pages and increasing the efficiency of our serving environment, we’ve broken our own speed records many times over, so that the average response time on a search result is a fraction of a second. We keep speed in mind with each new product we release, whether it’s a mobile application or Google Chrome, a browser designed to be fast enough for the modern web. And we continue to work on making it all go even faster.
Democracy on the web works.
Google search works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been “voted” to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web. As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted. In the same vein, we are active in open source software development, where innovation takes place through the collective effort of many programmers.
You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
The world is increasingly mobile: people want access to information wherever they are, whenever they need it. We’re pioneering new technologies and offering new solutions for mobile services that help people all over the globe to do any number of tasks on their phone, from checking email and calendar events to watching videos, not to mention the several different ways to access Google search on a phone. In addition, we’re hoping to fuel greater innovation for mobile users everywhere with Android, a free, open source mobile platform. Android brings the openness that shaped the Internet to the mobile world. Not only does Android benefit consumers, who have more choice and innovative new mobile experiences, but it opens up revenue opportunities for carriers, manufacturers and developers.
You can make money without doing evil.
Google is a business. The revenue we generate is derived from offering search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on our site and on other sites across the web. Hundreds of thousands of advertisers worldwide use AdWords to promote their products; hundreds of thousands of publishers take advantage of our AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to their site content. To ensure that we’re ultimately serving all our users (whether they are advertisers or not), we have a set of guiding principles for our advertising programs and practices:
We don’t allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they are relevant where they are shown. And we firmly believe that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find–so it’s possible that certain searches won’t lead to any ads at all.
We believe that advertising can be effective without being flashy. We don’t accept pop–up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you’ve requested. We’ve found that text ads that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads appearing randomly. Any advertiser, whether small or large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium.
Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a “Sponsored Link,” so it does not compromise the integrity of our search results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.
There’s always more information out there.
Once we’d indexed more of the HTML pages on the Internet than any other search service, our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases into search, such as adding a phone number and address lookup and a business directory. Other efforts required a bit more creativity, like adding the ability to search news archives, patents, academic journals, billions of images and millions of books. And our researchers continue looking into ways to bring all the world’s information to people seeking answers.
The need for information crosses all borders.
Our company was founded in California, but our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, and in every language. To that end, we have offices in more than 60 countries, maintain more than 180 Internet domains, and serve more than half of our results to people living outside the United States. We offer Google’s search interface in more than 130 languages, offer people the ability to restrict results to content written in their own language, and aim to provide the rest of our applications and products in as many languages and accessible formats as possible. Using our translation tools, people can discover content written on the other side of the world in languages they don’t speak. With these tools and the help of volunteer translators, we have been able to greatly improve both the variety and quality of services we can offer in even the most far–flung corners of the globe.
You can be serious without a suit.
Our founders built Google around the idea that work should be challenging, and the challenge should be fun. We believe that great, creative things are more likely to happen with the right company culture–and that doesn’t just mean lava lamps and rubber balls. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to our overall success. We put great stock in our employees–energetic, passionate people from diverse backgrounds with creative approaches to work, play and life. Our atmosphere may be casual, but as new ideas emerge in a café line, at a team meeting or at the gym, they are traded, tested and put into practice with dizzying speed–and they may be the launch pad for a new project destined for worldwide use.
Great just isn’t good enough.
We see being great at something as a starting point, not an endpoint. We set ourselves goals we know we can’t reach yet, because we know that by stretching to meet them we can get further than we expected. Through innovation and iteration, we aim to take things that work well and improve upon them in unexpected ways. For example, when one of our engineers saw that search worked well for properly spelled words, he wondered about how it handled typos. That led him to create an intuitive and more helpful spell checker.
Even if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, finding an answer on the web is our problem, not yours. We try to anticipate needs not yet articulated by our global audience, and meet them with products and services that set new standards. When we launched Gmail, it had more storage space than any email service available. In retrospect offering that seems obvious–but that’s because now we have new standards for email storage. Those are the kinds of changes we seek to make, and we’re always looking for new places where we can make a difference. Ultimately, our constant dissatisfaction with the way things are becomes the driving force behind everything we do.
What exactly are they "going back on"?
"The way they are treating this device launch"
What? They took preorders and said 3-4 weeks. That timeframe still isn't up, and they are currently sending out stock to brick and mortar retailers so they can have a unified launch. What exactly is the problem?
*philosophy
Trollololol
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium
Really?! For a TABLET?! It's not that serious.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
Damn dude. Get a grip.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
jamerican413 said:
Really?! For a TABLET?! It's not that serious.
Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
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It is serious. It's life or death :laugh:
Seriously though, I was just trolling to stir the masses. Take this sh*t with a grain of salt.
Idiots. It will be shipped mid July. Quit crying. They are planning to do (and will likely achieve) EXACTLY what they said.
You could get yourself an iPad...
timmytim said:
It is serious. It's life or death :laugh:
Seriously though, I was just trolling to stir the masses. Take this sh*t with a grain of salt.
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You have to much time on your hands
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using xda premium
P1 Wookie said:
Trollololol
Sent from my SGH-I777 using xda premium
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Trollololol Guy
chROMed said:
You could get yourself an iPad...
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I would never own that peice of over priced trash but thanks for the advice :good:
Got to get in before the ban hammer.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Below is the text of a brief email interview conducted with Cezary Pietrzak, Director of Marketing at Appboy, for an article about app analytics that will be published soon to the XDA Portal. If you have any experiences with specific analytics providers, post them in this forum.
What are the most valuable pieces of data that come out of your product? Why? Give examples of how I might get actionable data, make a change, and improve results.
Appboy’s entire philosophy is making data actionable and giving developer tools to drive user engagement within the app. We’re very much against collecting data for data’s sake which is quite common among mobile analytics tools which bombard you long reports and meaningless percent changes. To change this mentality, we start by collecting data on an individual user level rather than on aggregate, because that allows for more flexibility and customization when running marketing campaigns. We then offer a robust customer segmentation product that lets you create dynamic groups of app users across any attribute or in-app behavior. Lastly, we provide a complete suite of messaging tools, a customer support product and HootSuite social integration to influence specific segments and behaviors.
For example, app developers can use an in-app message to drive feature discovery, help customers get through onboarding, and notify them about bugs/issues in the app - something that has helped our clients minimize negative app store reviews. They can also use push notifications to bring lapsed users back into their app and drive regular engagement through timely updates. Many developers forget about the importance of customer support in a competitive app ecosystem, so we provide them with a simple feedback tool to deal with customer issues in a timely manner. And our HootSuite integration lets developers identify their app users on Twitter while enhancing existing profiles with in-app behavior data, which gives them more firepower to drive loyalty and virality.
Appboy’s big-picture goal is to help app developers increase ROI and drive lifetime value of customers, so we’ll continue building features that support this vision and help them turn their app into a sustainable business.
What most differentiates you from your competitors (features, pricing, etc)?
Appboy’s biggest point of difference is our holistic approach to customer engagement. We bring together the most effective app marketing tools on one dashboard, including messaging (push notifications, in-app messages, email), customer support, social and cross-promotion. No company can claim the breadth of our offering nor the benefits that their deep integration brings. For developers, this means managing only one SDK (vs. 4-5) and one standardized customer data set for all of their app engagement needs. Appboy also stands out through its performance-based pricing that is tied to MAUs rather than data points, which aligns our incentives with those of the app developer.
Explain your range of pricing and, if you have a low tier or free option, what features are only available to premium users?
We have a free version of Appboy (complete with all features) available to any app with <10K monthly active users. For those with a larger audience, pricing starts at $199/month and scales accordingly. The reason we use monthly active users for pricing is to properly align incentives, as Appboy only makes money if the app is successful. Most of our competitors charge by data points or API calls, which creates negative incentives to use their tool and collect the proper data. We also have an enterprise product with custom pricing depending on client needs.
Are there any technical aspects of implementation that would be helpful to explain?
On Android, the Appboy client will ship in two parts: 1) an internal jar library exposing the Appboy events and analytics API, and 2) an open source Android library project implementing the Appboy UI and user interactions on top of the API. The open source library will be available as a public repo on Github and licensed with the Apache 2.0 license. With this setup, developers will be able to fully customize the UI/UX of Appboy within their application, while easily keeping up with upgrades and enhancements.
What advice would you give to help make new independent app developers more successful?
Start thinking about user engagement before you launch your app. Once you go live, you only have a small time window to reconnect with the app users you lost before they’re gone forever (on average, apps lose 76% of their user after 3 months). Ask yourself: What is the ideal user flow in your app? Which parts of your apps cause the most friction and drop-off? How can you encourage people to use your app on a regular basis, and how can you incentivize them to come back once they’ve left? What tools will you use to facilitate and automate this task? Because they focus on the long-term, these questions will help you craft a better product and a better user experience from the start.
It’s also important to understand your goals for the app. While some apps may want drive in-app purchases, others are more concerned with time spent in-app and stills others focus on general exposure and branding. These goals often overlap. For example, many app developers are now discovering that monetization is most likely to happen after a customer is happy with the app experience and has spent considerable time engaging with the product.
If you’re interested in learning more about our approach to engagement, here’s a visual presentation we put together on Slideshare that explains it in depth: bit.ly/mobileappengagement.
Related to the above, in your mind what makes an app successful? Why do some "great" apps not get noticed?
Building a great product is table stakes, but it’s only a start. Here some of the important characteristics we’ve noticed among the most successful apps:
Community. Great apps build a community of people who evangelize the app to their friends and across social networks, which drives their growth at essentially no cost. The challenge of community-building is that it requires work, both on the product side - building hooks to make social sharing easy, as well as on the marketing side - systematizing your outreach to customers and encouraging them to promote you. Most app developers don’t invest their time in the latter because they think it takes too long. What they fail to recognize is that the process can be automated across customer segments without losing the personal touch. For example, the smartest apps ask only their most active users to rate them or share them with friends, because they expect a much higher response rate among this group.
Content. Great apps serve great content and make sure it’s always fresh. Most content is served on the product side through the app’s core function (eg latest weather, breaking news, social status updates), but a lot it can be conveyed through various form of messaging. For example, using push notifications or in-app messages to serve micro-content (rather than plain alerts) can drive engagement significantly. Email is also very effective - we’ve seen apps use it to provide their customers with personal stats and weekly summaries of app usage. Giving people something to talk about on social media is also effective, and can be used to bring users back into app experience. When creating content for your customers, think about the story you’re telling and the progression of information, and don’t be afraid to repurpose what you already have.
Context. Great apps have a knack for connecting with people in the times, places and situations where they can provide the most value. They don’t try to be top of mind all the time, because that’s not sustainable. One of the big problems we’ve seen in the last few months is app developers abusing push notifications and spamming their users which generic, one-size-fits messages. This only leads to frustration and encourages people to shut you out. The best apps use location data, behavioral triggers, historical usage patterns and other data to create a very relevant, contextual and personalized experience. For example, Fab alerts you about new sales, Foursquare tells when your friends are nearby and Circa sends notifications about stories you follow.
An “great” app often doesn’t get noticed because it assumes that a great product experience is enough to succeed. That’s simply not true. First, the structural challenge of the ecosystem are much higher than on the web - apps need to get discovered, apps take time to download and apps are easily lost on phone screens. Second, building relationships with people takes time and effort, and apps are no different. If you’re unwilling to invest your time engaging your customers, then you’re inviting your audience to go to a competitor who better at managing relationships.
Thanks for sharing!
Below is the text of a brief email interview conducted with Christian Poppelreiter, Account Specialist at Flurry, for an article about app analytics that will be published soon to the XDA Portal. If you have any experiences with specific analytics providers, post them in this forum.
What are the most valuable pieces of data that come out of your product? Why? Give examples of how I might get actionable data, make a change, and improve results.
Flurry Analytics reports a variety of metrics related to app usage, user engagement and audiences. In addition to standard metrics, like how many sessions are taking place or how many unique users appear during a specific period of time, we also report metrics that indicate how "sticky" an app is, or how likely the prospects for longer term success. For example, Flurry Analytics has sections which report on session duration, session frequency and overall rate of retention as an application ages. Beyond this, developers can customize how they collect data through events tracking, which can be used to examine user behavior particular to that app, such as when someone likes a status, shares an article, beats a level or makes a purchase. Once events are set up, developers can also segment out sections of their audience either according to behavior (i.e. purchasers) or according to more traditional audience metrics like age, gender or location.
There are also features in Analytics which can help a developer formulate a monetization strategy. The typical length of a session can tell you how many ads might be appropriate to place in an ad supported app. Developers can track how long users typically spend within different sections of the app, can detect when users are most engaged and also see conversion rates from tracked event to tracked event using the Funnels tool.
What most differentiates you from your competitors (features, pricing, etc)?
We are the leader among mobile app analytics providers for a number of reasons. First, as I mentioned before, Flurry Analytics is highly customizable and is designed to work on a variety of types of apps on a variety of platforms. Of course we support iOS and Android, but also Blackberry, Windows Mobile and HTML5 / Mobile Web apps. All of the features mentioned in my response to your previous question are available for each platform.
What's more, because we are the leader and we have the largest sample of data with close to 1 billion unique mobile devices and over 300,000 apps worldwide, we offer features that other Analytics providers cannot, like benchmarking the performance of apps versus other apps in a given category. We can also show what users among a developer's audience belong to behavioral segments called personas, based on their longer term app usage (i.e. what apps they have on their device that also use Flurry. Benchmarking and segmentation by persona would be what I would describe as "features from scale".
There has also been a concerted effort to consolidate the range of services we offer to developers within a single SDK, so anyone that is using Flurry Analytics can create ad spaces to code into their app and monetize using Flurry AppSpot, or launch a promotional user acquisition campaign with Flurry AppCircle, all powered by the data we've collected from Flurry Analytics.
Finally, Flurry Analytics is a free product, which has no doubt contributed to our leadship position in the market. Analytics is also used by a range of customers, from your solo indie developer on up to some of the biggest media and consumer products companies in the world. Many other Analytics providers charge for their products, and very often there is a component of paid consultancy as well. Our platform is designed to be primarily self service, which we've found is very often preferable to smaller scale enterprise.
Explain your range of pricing and, if you have a low tier or free option, what features are only available to premium users?
Once again, Flurry Analytics is free to use, and there are no premium features - all features are included as standard in the only version of Flurry Analytics which exists. When our customers decide to promote their apps on our network they can pay for display ads or videos, or if they decide to monetize their apps using Flurry, there is a revenue share model. If you're interested to learn more about promotion or monetization, let me know, happy to explain more.
Are there any technical aspects of implementation that would be helpful to explain?
Anecdotally, most developers love the ease of use of Flurry and say that integration typically takes less than 30 minutes to do. Technical details related to integration and making use of the advance features of Flurry Analytics can be found in our support portal:
http://support.flurry.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
What advice would you give to help make new independent app developers more successful?
I would say focus on your customer experience and design the app the way that you would want to use it if you were the customer. Many developers start with a great idea, but compromise the user experience with something that is either poorly organized, with limited functionality or something that is overrun with advertising. People download apps because they want to perform some kind of task, whether that task is sending a message, reading an article or playing a game. They don't want to feel disrupted, nor do they want to feel like they're being given a hard sell, and I think a lot of developers need to tread carefully on the fine line between what engages the user and what earns them money.
A while back I did a survey of how many of the top non-gaming apps were being monetized and I noticed that in most instances, advertising was non-intrusive, and in many instances, advertising was not included, because the developers just wanted to retain the users. That said, the baseline expectation of your typical app user is that each app has some minimal functionality and that a good experience can be reached in a reasonable period of time, and that once the user has returned and gets an idea of what the app does, they'll be more likely to tolerate ads, pay for premium services or premium functionality. You could think of using an app like the experience of going into a store. You don't have to buy something to think well of the store and keep them in mind for a future purchase. Once someone goes into the store, or in this case, downloads an app, developers have the opportunity to market to that user indefinitely.
Related to the above, in your mind what makes an app successful? Why do some "great" apps not get noticed?
Great apps get noticed for a variety of reasons - their value is clear, they give something valuable away, their brand is recognizable, they're offering something unique. That the app is thoughtfully organized, is bug free and has basic functionality included is implied. Unfortunately there is no objective formula for success, however there are objective quality metrics, such as the engagement metrics reported in Flurry Analytics and other key performance indicators (KPIs). Each app offers something different, so in each case, these KPIs will also be different.
"Great" apps don't get noticed because discovery is a huge problem in the AppStore, which is how we've been able to build up the user acquisition side of our business. This will not last forever as discovery improves, but I would also argue that if an app is truly remarkable, then the word will spread, and if the word does not spread, there are any number of reasons (app quality, functionality, presentation, pricing) why success isn't immediate. Flurry can help to constantly improve apps until the experience aligns with the expectations of users.
Really good article, Thanks a lot
Interesting. Thanks!
Hello fellow themers!
I've learned a few things so far about marketing and selling themes on Google's Play Store so far and figured I would share what I found. I hope others also share what they have learned about the process. So I just finished my first ever completed themes for android with the online Go Theme Factory packaging tool/site. I realized that my history in programming with Pascal and C++ really didn't match up to the ever growing JavaScript phenomenon and the learning curve would just be too much for me with my 80+ hour a week job as a Paramedic.. if you didn't already catch that from my username. I decided to use the Go Theme Factory because it was easy and simply took the programming portion of developing a theme out of the equation so I could focus on design. Long story short... I finally finished my completed themes and was ready for the MASSES to see what a fabuloussss job I have done!... Easier said than done. Believe me I'm not the type to walk into a room and expect things to be handed to me, i'm a very hard worker and have gotten where I am in life because of it. What I have realized so far is that to expect instant mass exposure is simply unreal. I've noticed that there are a few key components to being that sought after designer who gets thousands of downloads on the Google Play Store. Many of these may seem like a "no brainer" but to new designers in the theming market these pointers may really help...
1. [U]MAKE A QUALITY PRODUCT:[/U] If you don't put any effort into making a quality theme users will let you know. Spend that extra time to make sure you are producing a theme that you yourself would LOVE to have and interact with multiple times a day. Don't get me wrong if you are making a theme say to appease cute kitten lovers but you actually hate cats.. you won't necessarily love having that theme on your phone. Put yourself in the potential downloaders shoes. Create something that you can be proud of calling your own. If you lack on details and quality you may still get numerous downloads, but I wouldn't expect to have great user reviews if any at all. How likely would it be for that person to scroll down and click the "See More" link showing your other works of art that you spent countless hours on?
2. DEVELOP FOR MULTIPLE LAUNCHERS: There are numerous launchers available right now. Even though Go Launcher EX is the most popular launcher with regards to downloads, you shouldn't limit your audience to one platform. Almost all of the highest downloaded and highest grossing themes on the market and made to work with multiple launchers such as Go Launcher Ex, ADW, Nova, Apex, Solo, Action and more. The more launchers that your theme is compatible with the more exposure you will get. Why would someone download an ADW theme if they are a dedicated Nova user? It's easier for them to just simply search for a similar theme on their launchers platform.
3. KEEP CURRENT WITH TRENDS: Right now the highest trending themes and icon packs are ones that either resemble iOS 7 or ones that have a "flat" appearance. The iOS 7 style is obvious. Whenever a new phone or operating system comes out users want something similar. The "flat" style I believe is the lingering result of when the Windows phone first came out and theme developers rushed into reproducing the same look. Regardless of their origin it tells you something.. android is one of the only operating systems out there that you can openly and easily modify the look of your phones user interface. If they want the look and feel of an iPhone one day then the Windows phone the next they can have it. If you keep current with popular trends and new user interfaces, design a quality theme identical to it, and be one of the first offering it to a community of android users you may just be up there in one of the "Top New..." lists.
4. COMPATIBILITY FOR TABLETS: Phones aren't the only devices people want to modify anymore. There is more and more popularity in themes for tablets now than there ever was before. Tablet prices are much more affordable now. This translates into more users looking for apps, launchers, and ultimately themes. Icon sizes are increasing and pixel density seems to grow exponentially for each new device released. Make sure that your designs meet these visual expectations.
5. RESPOND TO EVERY REQUEST: I personally believe that great customer service is often overlooked with theme developers. If you aren't willing to take requests or answer questions that downloaders have then you shouldn't complain about your "CURRENT / TOTAL INSTALLS" ratio. Be nice, use smiley faces, complete requests as quick as you can, and guide them in the right direction when they ask a question about how to do something. Every person you help will remember it I promise you. If it means the difference between a 5 star rating or a 1 star rating you will be glad that you took that extra minute or two to respond back. Remember, you won't please everyone because you can't fix stupid but you can at least try to be helpful.
6. KEY WORDS AND KEY PHRASES: This topic specifically was one of the biggest eye openers for me after reading an article titled "App Store Optimization". Link below I highly suggest you give it a read. After I made a few changes in the wording of my app description I noticed an increase in downloads overnight. The article was written in 2011 by an android developer and the co-founder of ANDLABS. It covers the importance of key words and key phrases used in the description of your apps. Now I know a lot has changed since 2011 and android app searches on the Google Play Store do not rely as heavily on key words and phrases but regardless it will help. I won't name the specific icon pack but recently I saw one within the top 10 of the "Top New Paid" list with keywords of "iOS7, iOS 7, iPhone 5..." wayyyyyy down the bottom of the description where no typical user would think of reading. The kicker.. it was FAR from the new iOS 7's style and was marketed as a MIUI icon pack.
Link: http://droid-blog.net/2011/06/23/app-store-optimization-aso-14-keywords-description/
I could sit and type for hours about other pieces of advice I've learned throughout the process but I've chatted enough.
What has helped you gain exposure and downloads? Whats the best advice you can give to new theme developers?
Reply back and share with everyone!
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My FREE theme on Google Play Store - Doggy Style (Green) currently only for GO Launcher because I'm still a NOOB!