The rise of the fractured, multichannel market has created dozens of sites that developers now need to visit to build goodwill and help gain exposure, something that is fundamentally different from what they probably want to be doing. In my case this translates into 18-20 hours a day since launch to manage the marketing effort and frankly it is still more than I can handle. While I have enlisted friends and an intern to help, most developers don’t have the luxury of dedicating all of their own time to managing their launch.

I have compiled a list of some of the tools and sites I think necessary to use today:

Top Down channels – kissing the ring

1. Bloggers – what some refer to as the “digital influencers” – sites with major traffic like Gizmodo, Techcrunch, GigaOM
2. Targeted review sites – Touch Arcade, 148Apps, Pocket Gamer, etc. – I have counted 60+ serious ones in all

Bottom Up channels – connecting with your users

1. Facebook – both personal status and group page
2. Twitter
3. MySpace
4. App/ Development/ Gaming Forums - Touch Arcade, maybe iPhonedevSDK, etc.
5. Product website & blog – here you need to have a demo, maybe a news section and your blog
6. YouTube – a great way to communicate with avid gamers
7. iTunes App store summary

Analytics Tools – monitoring usage, downloads, buzz

1. User downloads – iTunes Connect – Heartbeat App or AppViz (super easy to use but less flexible than Heartbeat)
2. Usage behavior – Pinch Media – gives you uniques, geo data, version & device stats, as well as unique data by action in your App (very cool)
3. App ranking – AppRanking by Michael Dorn or Mobclix
4. Web traffic - Google Analytics or Wordpress Stats
5. Affiliate data – Linkshare – here if you are an Apple affiliate you can earn back 5% of your 30% cut that goes to Apple – and monitor clickthrough conversion data from your site
6. Brand management – ScoutLabs or Google Alerts – Scout doesn’t really seem to work for small apps or early on in a campaign as it is, for these smaller apps Google Alerts is a great basic filter

While this list is not comprehensive this is basically everything I am using for the marketing of iCombat. I didn’t realize just how many channels and tools this involved until trying to post an urgent piece of news.  When iCombat was reviewed in Gizmodo’s weekly roundup of iPhone apps I quickly wanted to update every channel I was using.

Spreading the word for that first update went something like this: first update Twitter, then my Facebook status, then the Facebook “Fans of iCombat” group news section, then the iCombat website news page, then the Touch Arcade forum thread discussing iCombat, then I finally shot some e-mails to friends (funny I actually just realized in writing this that I forgot to update my App description in iTunes for the good review – add that to the list).

Once I had finished with the news updates, 2 hours later, I started to comb the anaytics tools: first Pinch media, then user reviews in iTunes, then Mobclix to see if rankings had hit, then Wordpress stats to see website hits, then Linkshare to see the conversion rates, then Scout Labs to check for buzz.

What I experienced was the effects of the new multichannel model where the developer has had to become a social media explorer, pushing into every nook and cranny of the social web.  From gamer forums to niche blogs by 12 year old app reviewers (they do exist), developers risk ignoring these communities at their own expense.  With users fatigued by so much new product noise, it is easy for an unmonitored launch to go unnoticed by these users.

Not all products are good enough to sell themselves, and even if they are amazing, the system isn’t efficient yet at rewarding quality (more on this later).  So while I concede part of the problem is that most developers don’t have the time, especially amateur ones, to dedicate to marketing, I do think we all still need to shift our attention to just how important app marketing is.  Traditionally, developers seem to look at rising to the top in the App store as primarily a question of the product.  I would argue that in most cases it is equal parts product and packaging (dare I say it may be even more about packaging).  This new balance should be weighed when estimating the time, cost and energy it will take to execute your idea – i.e. when laying out a development time line, product features and depth of marketing focus should be weighed as equally relevant factors (as each is a drain on your resources, be it time, money or energy).

I don’t know the reason developers ignore marketing as much as they do.  While it is undeniably a question of bandwidth, it must also have to do with the underlying personality traits of developers as a group.  The desire to code, to focus on the hard part leads to a natural urge to ignore the boring marketing and a disdain for the whoring out that is pushing a product.  In the case of iCombat, we too struggled to stay engaged once we launched the app, but had to remember that we were only half the way there.  In our case, I was planning and handling marketing all along, so like a relay, my work began as the coding ended.

As a lone developer, the combination of fatigue at the end of a project and the lack of desire to get into “marketing” mode is what leads to developers choosing to focus on the wrong thing.  Here is where most developers launch, email their friends and family and a few review blogs, and then return to working on updates for their app.  This decision to immediately turn back to updating is precisely where most developers doom their apps (I am not talking about gimmicky apps or super early launch and iterate strategies like Pocket God).  In my mind this is just like carrying a child around for nine months, giving birth and then deciding to not feed the baby.

The reason that post partum neglect is such a travesty (I will leave that horrible metaphor alone from here out I promise) is that the App store is the PERFECT place to get into marketing mode.  Content discovery is inefficient and the market is young so you can make an impact and experiment without knowing the landscape.  It’s like Junior Prom, in the App store; it’s basically everybody’s first time.

To understand the opportunity it helps to look to the music industry where content discovery dynamics are similar.  Here, the highly subjective nature of determining “quality” and the huge breadth of options makes ranking what is good difficult.  And it is precisely in this type of inefficient discovery marketplace – where success is not necessarily deserved that a system of patronage becomes key.  Since the music industry is a highly evolved market (although getting rocked by technology shifts), an elaborate web of connections has developed where bribes, quid pro quos, image consulting, content engineering and the like, all thrive.  The app market will eventually trend toward this, as do all markets, where market leaders seek to protect and enhance their competitive advantage, but for now it is still young.

In the App store the definition of what is “good” is all over the place, open to interpretation across the huge breadth of gaming, niche, utility, gimmicky and entertainment apps as well as age and demographic groups – so the opportunity to define what is good is wide open for anyone willing to get down into the dirt and push.  While it is fantastic that there is no system of patronage or well laid tracks in the app store in terms of rankings and exposure (as occurs in music), it is a bit like the Wild West in that everyone is in a land grab racing for market position (whether it be in App reviews, app analytics, brand management, or the apps themselves).  What’s clear is that the ones who will triumph aren’t those sitting waiting for the meritocracy to kick in, but rather those who act aggressively and start thinking creatively about how they can get noticed.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Opinion: Withdrawing from the addictive iPhone (macworld.com)
• iPhone app use over time (russellbeattie.com)
• Four Mobile App Stores Battle for User and Developer Attention (wired.com)
• The keys to App Store success, courtesy of Pinch Media (tuaw.com)

With the iPhone and iPod touch, Apple is winning in two formerly very different spaces: The smart phones market… really, the mobile phones market: Apple is already one of the largest phone makers in the world (#3 in revenues after only Nokia and Samsung), and hands-down the leader in smart phones and next-gen devices

The handheld gaming devices market. Who’d’ve thunk in July of 2007 that Apple would be rivaling Nintendo and Sony for leadership in the handheld games devices market? Well, six months into the App Store, there are three times more games available on the App Store than for the Nintendo DS, five times more than for Sony PlayStation Portable – and, says BusinessWeek , Apple is on track to sell as many game-capable handsets in twelve months as Nintendo, the current market leader, has sold in its most recently reported 18 months.

At Tapulous, we’re still getting used to that idea, and trying to shake our habits of assuming that all our users are above the legal drinking age, on an iPhone, and always online.”

Bart offers a much needed dose of enthusiasm and reminds his readers that last year, over 100 million app downloads were done in 90 days.  The numbers are astonishing, and while many of these downloads are free applications, the amazing fact is that developers have access to well over 13 million devices by now (was around 12+ million by Q4 ‘08 see here) for almost no upfront or fixed costs at all.  And now with Apple’s new focus on marketing the App store more aggressively (just check out your local Apple store or turn on the TV) you get free marketing as well.  Perhaps for me the best part about accessing users though the iPhone is the near frictionless 1-click purchase solution that removes all of the trouble associated with purchasing something online.  By lowering this friction, Apple has effectively made the dollar cost of most apps the new free (Europe has known this with SMS campaigns for over 5 years).  This is well worth the 30% cut that Apple takes and in return they get to offer mobile users the most impressive deep resource in mobile computing.  So I say ignore the 25,000 apps (as of 03.05.09) and negative usage stats and focus on creating a quality app for the 13mm+ users waiting for you.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Who profits from the App Store? (bbc.co.uk)
• Nuclear Nova updates GL Golf for iPhone – On Sale (themactrack.com)
• Apple Kills Off Precious Emoji From App Store (iphonesavior.com)
• Opinion: Putting a premium on iPhone games (macworld.com)

1. With people you know, you will never get the brutally honest answers you need so try to go outside of your immediate circle.
2. Getting a thoughtful, helpful review takes more time and thought than most people you demo it to are willing to give. it is not as easy as it looks to try something for 15 minutes and then offer intelligent suggestions or feedback so usually people will just shout out their first thoughts to give you something.
3. Sometimes you don’t actually want to hear what testers have to say – by the time you are testing your game on them the idea is pretty near finished so adding or shifting anything major (which people always suggest) is basically out of the question.
4. For many applications, it is impossible to know your end market – you may think it is high school kids, but in the end it might be picked up by an entirely different demographic. The only way to know is to put it on the market.
5. Relating to number 4, if you don’t have a clear vision of where you game should go from the beginning don’t expect your testers to answer that for you.  Odds are your sample set will not be big enough to lead you to one conclusion over another.
6. Unless you are careless and sloppy, testing it yourself will spot the glitches / bugs in the game better than your testers – you shouldn’t rely on someone else to do this who probably has a more forgiving eye and definitely less of an interest in seeing your game work flawlessly.  The flip side of this one though is that you may sweat unnecessary details more than you need to.
7. It is easier just to go to the local mall and find people to test your product on the spot than do Ad Hoc testing (in this case Starbucks gift certificates work great)

I guess the issue I have is that it is hard to separate the review from the reviewer.  And as soon as you start to look at the different demographics in your test group you find yourself needing to decide what group you want to cater to.  Herein lies my app game design dilemma – do you take the feedback of one of your groups over the other or try to cater to all of them?  For example I had my 11 year old cousin try my game and he loved it, but then several older people played and said it was just too difficult.

Well I know that the younger demographic is more active with sharing and consuming these games but it is the older people with the credit cards on file – so what do you do?  The iPhone with its diverse user base runs the full range of casual to experienced gamer so you have to decide early who you are going after.  Ultimately you just have to stick to your original idea and wait until the users in the App store validate your product one way or another.

But the question is a good one, how do you let user feedback – before or after launch for that matter – affect the vision you have behind your application?  While listening to users is incredibly important, in the era of rapid updates and constant new releases, where you draw the line is getting challenged more and more.  I wonder how long it will be before someone crowd sources the design of an iPhone game from beginning to end?

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to make an iPhone game (tuaw.com)
• School that uses game-based learning opens in NYC — Boing Boing Offworld (boingboing.net)
• Second Life web resources for February 23rd 2009 (vintfalken.com)

iPhoneSavior wrote a post recently about how Imaginuity New Media’s new game Rocky Artue had been cracked and was being downloaded online hundreds of times for free.  Perhaps most interesting was the fact that they discovered that the game had been cracked through the use of Pinch Media’s user analytic tools.  While Pinch Media markets their mobile analytics solutions more for usage behavior (as seen in their AppStore Secrets presentation so widelyin the press over the last week) their ability to audit App store data by comparing actual downloads to App store downloads may become increasingly relevant to developers.

Quoting an e-mail to Imaginuity founder Allen Restrepo from Pinch Media’s Jesse Rowland (from the iPhoneSavior post):

“Unfortunately I have bad news for you that you might not want to hear. We typically see these large discrepancies between our numbers and Apple’s for paid applications that have been pirated.  I did a quick search for cracked versions of your application in the wild, and like most, it’s definitely available for people to steal. Your case is actually one of the largest cases of piracy we’ve seen where typically we see paid applications receiving around 5x more users from piracy then from legitimate downloads.”

The question of just how bad is App store piracy is one that I haven’t really found many answers to yet.  Part of the problem I imagine is that no developer really wants to put out press releases announcing to the world that their application has been cracked.  And writing about the problem might only contribute to the issue (I cringe at the thought that I may be helping propagate Crackulous by even mentioning it) but what is the alternative? By putting the burden of cracking an application on only one person and making it easier for everyone else to follow, Crackulous could be the application that makes App store piracy grow exponentially (especially amongst the high school and college kids that are the most active application users).

While the good news is that we can quantify whether the problem is ocurring at all on our own applications by using analytics tools already out there, the question though is what about blocking piracy altogether?  While developers have to primarily look to Apple for protection, there do seem to be a few solutions developers can choose from.  TUAW wrote about Ripdev’s launching an anti-piracy service several weeks ago here and while it seems to be an effective solution, it certainly isn’t cheap.  It requires an upfront fee and a percentage of revenue generated (varying depending on volume of sales), for pricing see here (PDF).  While this seems like a very high price to pay, it could be well worth it if Jesse Rowland’s statement that “paid applications [are] receiving around 5x more users from piracy then from legitimate downloads” is correct.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The keys to App Store success, courtesy of Pinch Media (tuaw.com)
• The Appstore friendly for business? Think twice (ouriel.typepad.com)
• Apple Struggles With Flood of iPhone Games [IPhone] (kotaku.com)
• Omniture Builds Online Yardstick for iPhone Apps (marketingvox.com)

1. “Crapware” – cheap to make in terms of time and resources.  Targeted by both experienced and inexperienced developers.  Business model is either ad supported or sell for $0.99.
2. Full fledged apps by amateur developers – more elaborate design and execution by part time developers.  Attempting to create a full game experience with iShoot and Trism being good examples.  Business model is pay model with prices between the $1 and $5 range.
3. Full apps by funded start-ups – professional developers focused on higher quality games.  Here we have iBowl by the Social Gaming Network for example.  Quality of applications is high, business model is anything under the sun (to see one of the more creative examples check out Toy Bot’s $10k giveaway marketing strategy)
4. Professionally produced games – major studios like Sega or EA using teams of developers to leverage the iPhone platform.  Business model is selling games for $5+, probably closer to $10.  A good example is Spore.
5. Specialty “niche” apps – made by professional iPhone development companies for specialized purposes.  Usually sell for $10+ or have a lite version that functions as an extension of existing brand.

I know from personal experience that by the time I am paying $5 I expect something pretty damn good.  And not because it is a lot of money but because there are THOUSANDS of apps that cost much less, if anything at all that I could have chosen instead.  Barry Schwartz calls this the paradox of choice, and describes how our consumptive experiences can be poisoned by our awareness of the fact that so many other options exist.  Maybe this is why there are so many angry reviews of the more expensive apps; not only are users spoiled by the free apps in the store but they are pissed off when they make what they perceive to be the wrong choice.  So where does this leave us?

While I understand the current strategy of using price as the sole tool to spur demand, the ideal solution would be to create a more efficient discovery process for the user where they can try before they buy – thus allowing a larger purchase to be less of a gamble.  For now I plan to focus on the middle pricing range, making sure to deliver good value to my users while resisting the temptation to fall to the lowest pricing point to spur demand.

iPhone Usage Patterns by Pinch Media

Techcrunch is out with a new post today addressing the pricing dilemma, where they offer Pinch Media’s data on application usage over time as evidence that free apps are not the way to go.  According to Erick Schonfeld “for all but the most successful apps, the free route does not make much sense because there is not enough time to recoup the costs of developing the app from advertising.”  This is because the data suggests that only 20% of users return the SECOND day after downloading and only 5% of users return by day 30.  So it is easy to see why even with high online CPM rates you would still not have much time to recoup your investment.  Of course if you can create the application in an hour then maybe it still makes sense but current trends suggest that the market for simple apps is also getting more competitive.  If there are 20 free versions of a level in the app store then odds are it is not going to be that easy to rise above the noise.  See some great slides from Pinch Media’s CEO Greg Yardley below:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Developer Loses Thousands To App Store Piracy (iphonesavior.com)
• Can Nintendo DSi Become the iPhone of Game Handhelds? (gigaom.com)
• Omniture Builds Online Yardstick for iPhone Apps (marketingvox.com)
• Touch Pets Dogs To Apple’s App Store (lockergnome.com)