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Platforms

How Much Time Could You Save With Backend-as-a-Service?

Backend-as-a-Service (Baas) provider Kinvey published an interesting infographic on the average time taken to build an iOS or Android app (with a backend service) this week. The data comes from a survey of 100 developers with their estimates averaged. Before interpreting the data, it’s worth bearing in mind the following:

  • This is only to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) – it’s nowhere near the total that would be spent on a successful app.
  • The features included create an app with a relatively rich backend service and a fairly basic client.
  • This is only building a client app for one platform rather than several.
  • Building a robust API versioning system would not normally be part of an MVP.
  • This survey has been created specifically to promote the benefits of BaaS.

Even so, the the items included in the infographic would be common to a wide range of applications.

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Business

Growth Lessons from LinkedIn

Elliot Schmukler from LinkedIn spoke at a recent Growth Hacker conference about the strategies they’d used to grow the site since he joined in 2008. His advice was very helpfully summarised by Sandi MacPherson, Founder at Quibb and is general enough to be applied to mobile apps. Here’s our take on his main points.

Before you get started: Understand your channels

It’s important to understand how new users come to your product. Although it may be distributed exclusively through an app store, if that’s the only way users discover your product then you’re unlikely to succeed. This aspect of app marketing is still evolving rapidly, so keep testing different channels but focus your resources on the ones that generate the best results for you.

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Business

The “Onboarding” Problem

With some types of mobile app, getting a user to download it is just the beginning of the problem. If the application is going to be personalised to a user’s preferences, or allow them to interact with others via some online service, then they’ll need to provide some data before they can start using it. Typically the more information a user provides about themselves, the better job an app or service can do of tailoring the experience to them. Unfortunately, the more steps a user has to go through before they can start using an app, the less likely they are to complete the signup process. Getting this wrong can catastrophically alter the economics of user acquisition.

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Business

Which apps make money?

[This post by Andreas Pappas, Senior Analyst at VisionMobile, first appeared on the VisionMobile blog on 13 November 2012.]

[Andreas Pappas takes another look at the results of VisionMobile’s Developer Economics 2012 survey and comes up with interesting new insights on app monetisation: how does app revenue vary by app-category and by country? Is there a correlation between time spent developing an app and they money it makes?]

VisionMobile - which apps make money

In Developer Economics 2012 we discussed app revenues and how they vary across platforms. We found that overall, around half of all app developers that are interested in making money did not earn a sustaining income, i.e. they were below the “poverty line”, which we drew at $500 per month per app. Of course the real poverty line will vary widely across countries and regions: while $500 per month may not be enough for a San Francisco-based developer, it could be more than enough for a developer based in Bangalore where average living cost is less than a third, according to Numbeo.

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Business

Different Ways of Winning on the App Stores

winning on the app stores

A recent report from Canalys highlighted the extreme concentration of income distribution across the iOS and Android stores in the US. The top 25 publishers make 50% of the revenues. 24 out of 25 of those are games publishers (the 1 exception is the Pandora music streaming service). During the first 20 days of November these 25 publishers made $60m from paid downloads and in-app purchases in the US alone. Is there still room left for smaller publishers? How can smaller companies succeed and start winning on the app stores?

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Business

Advertising to Existing Users – could re-engagement reap rewards?

re-engaging users

Currently the vast majority of mobile app advertising is used to generate new installs. At the same time, for some of the most successful revenue models, a small fraction of the most active users generate the bulk of the revenue. Free-to-play games are a good example of this model but there are similar in-app purchase driven schemes in other categories. Whilst a user is still very engaged with an app it’s likely that the most cost effective way to increase their spend is within the app. However, if an existing user stops using an app regularly ,then might there be more value in re-engaging users than acquiring a new user?

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Platforms

From Mobile to TV: The companion screens opportunity and the role of apps

[This post on Mobile to TV, by Peggy Albright, guest author for VisionMobile, first appeared on the VisionMobile blog on  17 September 2012.]

[The latest trend in app development is targeting companion screens, as a way to bridge a multi-screen experience. Guest author Peggy Allbright investigates the future of app development on companion screens -and TV apps in particular – and discusses how TV advertising has found a whole new screen to engage users on.]

The Future of TV Apps

TV applications are opening up a new business frontier for the mobile industry. But we are still in the most nascent phases of the TV app industry’s formation and it needs to evolve on many fronts. Fortunately, early startup activities are revealing some of the roles that devices, apps, developers, merchandising and advertising can play in this industry, as we’ll see in this article.

The industry is well aware that consumers want to be engaged with their devices while watching TV and that many consumers are beginning to use mobile devices and apps as interactive “companions” to supplement the TV viewing experience. New research released by Google in August provides some of the latest data to characterize this trend. Google found that in a typical day, 77% of television viewers use a second device, such as a tablet, smartphone or PC, while watching TV. More than one-fifth (22%) of these consumers are using the TV and their second device in ways that complement each other, even if it is only a simple search related to the live TV programming.

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Platforms

The yellow brick road of app store monetisation

App Store monetisation
the yellow brick road

[This post on App Store monetisation by Andreas Pappas, Senior Analyst at VisionMobile, first appeared on the VisionMobile blog on  31 July 2012.]

Apple and Google dominate the app store game – but only in terms of size. Senior Analyst Andreas Pappas discusses the key success factors for app stores, why Google is lagging behind and how Amazon fits in the whole picture.

With Amazon challenging Google’s app market and Apple allegedly offering the best monetisation potential, several developers and analysts have put these claims to the test by comparing monetisation data across the three app markets. Differences in monetisation potential can have a significant impact on developer mindshare: developers will seek to leverage platforms that will make them more money.

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Platforms Tools

Mobile Platform Wars: Winners & Losers in 2012

Mobile Platform wards

[This post first appeared on the VisionMobile blog on 9 July 2012.] The game of ecosystems is in full bloom, with each player attempting to draw as many developers as possible around their platform. As we finally see some signs of consolidation, VisionMobile Senior Analyst Andreas Pappas, talks about mobile platform wars, the rules of engagement and identifies the winners and losers in this game of ecosystems in 2012.

Moreover, we’re proud to introduce VisionMobile Visualisations – live. These are interactive graphs with tons of data from the Developer Economics 2012 research!

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News and Resources Platforms

Appsfire Infographic illustrates once more difficulty to get to the top

Appsfire Infographic

Appsfire Infographic shared figures for the iOS App Store in 2012.

  • The growth in the amount of apps, while still high, seems to be slowing. This might indicate that the market is maturing.
  • Only 1 in 10 apps gets any reasonable traction at all. Only 1 in 1000 manages to get to the top 10 of the App Store. For non-games, only 1 in 1690 reaches the top.
  • The percentage of paid apps has dropped dramatically.