As per my post on the Telefonica Developer Communities Blog, WAC have released a developer survey.
You can read more here
Or visit the survey directly here
Posts Tagged ‘Developer’
WAC Developer Survey
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Developer Economics 2010
Monday, July 5th, 2010Following hot on the heels of the new blog launch last week, I’m delighted to announce that another project we have been beavering away on since last year goes live today; Developer Economics 2010 investigates the migration of developer mindshare that is taking place in mobile software today and the drivers behind it.
The project was really challenging to pull together with our friends at Vision Mobile, so we hope you agree with our view that this is a ground breaking piece of developer research that plugs a real gap in the market.
Let us know what you think. If you want to discuss on Twitter or help us promote the report (pretty please!) then use hash tag #devecon
Enjoy!
Why Mobile Operators have a crucial role to play in the second wave of “smart” apps
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010The following post is a reproduction of my guest blog on VisionMobile.com – please see here for the original.
The noise level around Apps and App Stores has reached saturation point. Every day a new launch, a new report, or a new statistic hits the newswires.
We have passed the point where there are now more people accessing the internet via a mobile device than via a PC, overall revenue from mobile apps (including ads, payments, and in-app transactions) is expected to grow to $17.5 billion in 2012 from $4.1 billion today, the iTunes store has delivered more than 3 billion downloads, an App is downloaded every 22 seconds from Nokia’s Ovi store, there are more than 30,000 Apps available in the Android store…you get the idea…
There can be no doubt that the explosion of interest around the App ecosystem brought home just how important mobile will be as a future content delivery channel, typified by the increasing number of App’s being produced by leading brands. No digital marketer worth their salt would now neglect having an app story in their digital marketing plan, even if in all honesty some are not quite sure why!
However, make no mistake that we are still firmly in the realms of a version 1.0 ecosystem. The App retail delivery platforms are still very basic; in fact they have not yet significantly evolved in terms of features and capabilities from the content delivery platforms that were offering mobile games, wallpapers and ringtones at the beginning of the decade.
The Apps themselves are clearly “dumb”. What do I mean by “dumb?” The vast majority of today’s App’s sit on the customer’s handset and have no understanding, or appreciation of its context or the person using it. Yes, increasing numbers of Apps are using location to introduce geographic context, but that is hardly pushing the boundaries of the art of the possible.
To take the App ecosystem to version 2.0, Apps have to become “smart”. I believe this is where Mobile Operators finally have a key role to play in the progression of the App ecosystem.
Of course this role is not a divine right. The Mobile Operators need to go through considerable change in order to be able to contribute effectively. That change is both technological: opening up “smart enablers” to allow developers to easily consume these capabilities, and secondly: culturally – to embrace the independent developer community and relax their traditional command and control philosophy for mutual gain.
So what does a “smart app” look like?
Well consider today’s customer experience. You run an app and it is a one size fits all experience i.e. the app behaves exactly the same way for every one of its users, regardless of who they are, and how they are using it. Imagine a “smart” app that could customise the user experience based on intelligent, real time, information delivered from the Mobile Operator.
Examples of a Mobile Operators unique enhancements to the customer experience could include:
- On the fly customisation of the App UI based on a detailed understanding of the device currently being used. Remember that increasing numbers of customers are SIM swapping. How do you know that a customer using your service on a Monday via an iPhone is now using your service on a Tuesday using the same SIM in a 3G dongle connected to a Netbook?
- On the fly customisation of content richness based on knowledge of the users current connection speed (e.g. 2.5g, 3G, WiFi). For example trying to force rich video content to a customer on a slower 2.5G data connection will probably deliver such a poor customer experience they will never use your app again. If you know in real time their connection speed, you can deliver the most appropriate experience.
- Personalisation of content and configuration of your App UI based on user demographics (gender, age, location, social economic profile, etc)
- Targeting & profiling of the audience based on segmentation information e.g. travel profile (stationary, commuter, jet-setter), spend segment (>€100 per month, €50-100 per month, €30-50, etc.
- Micro billing to the customer’s mobile bill or debits from their pre pay balance at VISA like transactions rates.
- In App interactivity via messaging or calling
- Up selling the customer from a basic service to a premium guaranteed service (for example low ping rate for multiplayer gaming apps).
- Then for the owner of the App, post usage analytics providing data like who, where, how long their users are consuming their services, and other customers of the Mobile Operator that match their current users profile, who could be targeted by a marketing campaign.
Examples of the enablers that Mobile Operators could deploy include; quality of service, billing, handset information, customer analytics, network traffic analytics, messaging, call management, location, age verification, tariff information. The list can go on and on, and in fact in our own planning sessions we have identified over 50 potential enablers.
This is a more intelligent way of developing not only the App, but also the business opportunity. Via the Network Operators turning their network infrastructure and assets into a plug and play platform, Mobile Operators become vital in the creation process of the second wave of ‘intelligent’ apps that can deliver far richer experiences for users which will drive adoption, longevity, and profitability.
Evangelisation and education on the benefits of creating “smart” Apps is crucial – this won’t just happen by itself. We are at the start of the process, and many companies are only now trying to get to grips with their App 1.0 strategy.
To ensure Mobile Operators both identify and capitalise on the opportunity to become relevant in the App ecosystem, it is vital they adopt an open and transparent approach. Therefore there cannot be enough effort to bring together the various players in the App ecosystem to share thinking, create strategy and influence product roadmaps, and marketing plans.
A great example of this is the Mobile Entertainment Forums Smart Enabler Initiative. I’d strongly recommend you check it out and get involved.
Critically the experiences and enablers I have described here are not commercial reality today. Talking and listening to developers will be essential to ensure that the Mobile Operators invest in the right technology enablers and introduce compelling business models to encourage their adoption.
Of course enablers are just one piece of a complex App ecosystem. There are many other challenges that hinder unlocking the full commercial value of the market place, not least the fragmentation and choices available to developers at the handset Operating System level. However, our approach is the same: dialogue and insight.
That is exactly why O2 Litmus has partnered with Vision Mobile to undertake the largest developer research to date. We’re encouraging all mobile developers to participate, and we look forward to sharing the results with you all.
Have your say at visionmobile.com/developers.
I’d welcome your thoughts on both this piece and some key questions it poses:
- Have you used a Mobile Operator enabler? What was the experience like?
- What enablers do you need to make your App “smart”?
- How can we effectively spread this message?
Debi Jones joins the team
Monday, February 15th, 2010A quick introductory post to formally welcome Debi Jones to the Telefonica Developer Community team. Debi’s role will be to lead the editorial and community management strategy, to fuel our growing ambition in the Developer space.
Many of you will already know Debi, and you can see her work on her personal blog: www.mobilejones.com
This is a great win for the team and I’m really excited about the contribution Debi will make to help establish Telefonica in the Developer community.
Debi dives straight into the deep end, pulling together our coverage of Mobile World Congress. Keep an eye on my Twitter feed for the URL of the site.
You can contact Debi here:
email: mojo@mobilejones.com
Twitter www.twitter.com/mojosd
What role can the Mobile Operator play in developer ecosystem? Part 2
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Firstly thanks for all the comments on Part 1 of this piece. I received a lot of constructive feedback on Twitter and face to face, I just need more people to leave me comments here, hint hint 
It was pointed out via Twitter that the Operator should concentrate on delivering a great pipe. I’d like to think we can bring more to the table than the pipe, but on reflection I should have included the delivery of a world class network as one of the assumptions listed in Part 1.
Before I move onto the role of Customer Services, the interest in the marketing discussion justifies a little more attention. Last week we announced that, uniquely, O2 Litmus has started a marketing campaign to promote the Litmus Developer community to 1 million of O2 UK’s consumer customers.
This coupled with the instigation of the O2 Litmus “App of the week”, where we promote an app across our social media channels, has hopefully raised the bar in terms of an Operator’s commitment to increasing the profile of 3rd Party Developer offerings with its customers.
Throughout November 2009 we will contact 50,000 select O2 UK customers per day inviting them to participate in O2 Litmus via a personalised email invitation, with a competition incentive for completing registration.
The sample group of customers have been carefully selected based on a number of criteria including handset ownership, usage of mobile data services, and the customer segment they sit in. We will of course update at the end of the campaign, but the initial results are very encouraging. Our registered customer base has increased 28.5% over the first 7 days of the campaign. To maximise cut through we are also sending a follow up SMS message to all customers that successfully received the email but did not open it within a predefined timeframe.
A great example of the “hidden” value that this kind of exercise can deliver is we have discovered an existing O2 UK customer that has participated in beta testing for Microsoft products, and has agreed to become an O2 Litmus admin to help us support and engage the fledgling Litmus community.
To provide you with some insight into the high quality of the Litmus community, here are some interesting facts and stats about the registered customer base ahead of the start of our current marketing campaign:
- Impressive levels of previous testing experience amongst the target audience, from websites, phones and software through to novels and cosmetics.
- 59% of O2 Litmus customers are Pay Monthly Consumers
- Over half (53%) of the Pay Monthly customers on O2 Litmus are on £35+ a month tariffs
- O2 Litmus members have a tenure of over 20% longer compared to a typical O2 consumer customer
- O2 Litmus customers have higher Voice, SMS and data usage than a typical O2 consumer customer
- 38% of O2 Litmus members use over 10Mb of mobile data per month
- There is a higher Male bias amongst O2 Litmus customers (66%) compared to the overall O2 consumer customer base.
- Customers going for O2 Litmus tend to be aged between 18 and 45, with 32% falling between 26 and 35.
- From registration data, there is a very diverse handset ownership pattern in the membership base. The Nokia 6300 is the most common handset in the member base, but only represents 6% base share
Hopefully this data reinforces the high quality of the customer resource that we have made available to our Developer partners for testing and co-creation. They represent the cream of O2’s consumer base, and more importantly they have opted in to participate with O2 Litmus, indicating their willingness to be hands on, if the right apps and services come through.
As a refresher to Part 1, I explored the marketing support a Mobile Operator can bring to the table in answer to the question: “What role does the Mobile Operator have to play in the Developer ecosystem?”
Now on to the second part of the answer: Customer Service.
The world of mobile apps is still a very scary place for the average consumer.
Our consumer research tells us that trust and reassurance in times of trouble is the number 1 deal breaker for consumers getting involved in Developer programs.
Customers are fiercely protective of their personal data, and do not want to be spammed by Developers promoting apps to them. There is a clear role for a trusted middle man to “referee” the interactions of the community to ensure all parties are comfortable and respected.
Secondly the risks of beta testing unproven software are not clear in customer’s minds. There is a lack of understanding if software can damage their handset, corrupt or lose their personal data, or introduce viruses and other malware. Therefore having the confidence that a trusted brand is there providing a safety net is a huge value add to unlocking the vast potential of customer led innovation.
Who is best placed in the App ecosystem to step in to address these consumer concerns?
I would argue there is only one kind of organisation that operates in the value chain that can bring the necessary Customer Service competences to the table; experience, investment, infrastructure, backed with a trusted brand: The Mobile Operators.
Also, importantly, the Mobile Operator can take a more agnostic approach in supporting the high degrees of fragmentation in the market. Operators support multiple device manufacturers and operating systems as a business as usual activity.
Customer Service provision is costly and complex, and not for the fainthearted. It is unsurprising that other players in the ecosystem have, to date, avoided providing the required consumer safety net that is so important to unlock the value in this nascent market.
Of course it is a broad statement to say Mobile Operators can step up to this challenge. Execution is an entirely different thing. Already there is big variation in the levels of service provided by Mobile Operators around the world, and many Operators are already struggling to face up to the significant challenges of moving from supporting voice networks and billing, to supporting data services, laptops, smart phones, IPTV and other advanced services.
However I maintain that the Operators are in the best position to exploit this opportunity, should they choose to compared to the other organisations in the ecosystem.
As I have already stated, the Mobile Operators have the foundations in place to do this, and more than anyone else, they will be impacted by the move to 3rd party apps, regardless of their own in house Customer Service strategy, as more and more of their customers use open internet access to experiment with new non Operator services.
The simple question is then; if this is going to happen anyway, why not turn this into an opportunity by differentiating through service and delivering a unique selling point for their organisation in the industry. By getting this right it unlocks the commercial opportunity for the entire value chain.
With the support wrap in place, customers will increase their experimental behaviour, driving adoption of smart phone devices, usage of apps, usage on the network, and build an engaged audience that advertisers are looking for, thus driving value for all stakeholders.
What role can the Mobile Operator play in developer ecosystem? Part 1
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009A question that I’m often asked on panels is what role do Mobile Operators have to play in the Developer community and why should anyone care?
It’s clear that Mobile Operators have a poor reputation in the Developer community, much of this negative sentiment due to their historical behaviour and an irritating habit of over promising and under delivering.
I suspect many Mobile Operators move into this space with the best of intentions, but the day to day challenges of big companies get in the way,like changing management priorities and reorganisations disrupting both the teams running the Developer programs, and their corporate sponsors. I think another important factor is they still think like Telco’s and not like a software company.
We conducted a comprehensive Developer research project from across the world over the summer. A typical quote was:
“I still don’t ‘get’ why Operators even have development communities – all the information we require for development comes from the Apple Dev site for iPhone, Microsoft sites for WM, Symbian / Forum Nokia for S60 etc”
Common problems cited from trying to work with Mobile Operators were:
- The Operator is greedy. They either charge too much for APIs, or take too much revenue share.
- The “ecosystem” is as important as the customer – Developers feel unappreciated
- Too much focus on mobile apps / widgets (on device apps), need to focus on PC and communication / network services.
- Lack of direct customer access
- Lack of timely technical support
- Lack of clarity on processes
- Lack of flexibility in experimenting with business models
- Lack of clarity on purpose of Operator development communities
- Lack of test phones
- Operator specific APIs put too much risk on Developers
- Difficult to determine if an ROI is possible
- Device fragmentation remains unaddressed by Operators
- APIs in silos – need integrated framework
- Too many communities – Operators should partner with device communities, providing APIs. Device communities are far easier to work with.
I will attempt to address these concerns in future posts, and share additional insights from our research, but initially in a three part post I will expand on the arguments I used at the recent Mobile 2.0 Silicon Valley conference to tackle the over arching question: “What role does the Mobile Operator have to play in the Developer ecosystem?”
Firstly two assumptions:
- No Mobile Operator should assume they have a birth right to play in this space. Apple has shown that a flourishing Developer community can be created without the cooperation or permission of the Mobile Operator community.
- If you are an Operator reading this, you have already made some level of investment to open up API’s and provide basic Developer support and encouragement.
It is vital that Mobile Operators take a step back and assess the unique assets and knowledge they can bring to the party. Just offering “me too” API’s, which themselves contribute to a key industry problem – fragmentation, is going to do nothing to address the perception problem of Operators “just not getting it”
So, with this pause for thought, what are the current issues facing both Developers and the nascent apps and mobile data industry? Secondly, if we can identify those challenges, what can a Mobile Operator do to help, if anything?
Part 1: Marketing Support
The over riding thing we hear back from Developers time and time again, is help me make money. We are in the middle of the current trend for launching App Stores, but 99% of these stores are simply retail environments.
In this situation the Developer is reliant on download counts, user ratings, and comments to drive their positioning & prominence in these stores. Whilst community endorsement of the apps and services within a store is absolutely essential, it should not be the only method to drive visibility for the Developer. Data from September quoted 85,000 apps for the iPhone in the iTunes Store alone. So how does a Developer stand out from the crowd?
Spotify famously drove it’s own PR campaign ahead of receiving approval for it’s iPhone app from Apple, building pressure on the store owner to accredit their app, and also helping to build user anticipation ahead of launch. However these tactics, even if they largely leverage free mediums like social media, are out of the question for smaller software houses because they just don’t have the brand equity of a Spotify to stand out in the noise of the market.
Gambling your business’s potential on a user generated star rating seems risky to say the least. That view was backed up by the VC panel at Mobile 2.0. Only GetJar currently seems to understand and address this problem from within their own version of the App Store model. They offer Developers an advertising package which effectively mimics Google Adsense. Developers bid to promote their apps on GetJar’s store and only pay an advertising fee when someone downloads their app.
Most Mobile Operators are pretty effective marketing machines. There is a huge latent opportunity to utilize the weapons in the Operators marketing armory to help support the Developer community.
Of course there are always a million and one things that Operators want to push to their customer base each month. How realistic is it to expect a product manager to sacrifice their customer messages so the Operator can promote a 3rd party application instead?
Key to success is effective segmentation of the customer base to ensure you hit the right type of customer with the right kind of message. Identification of customers that may be interested in experimenting with apps can be deuced from a mix of the demographic and behavioral data available to the Operator.
Indicators like the type of phone the customer owns, their usage of mobile internet services, their consumption of premium content, and their demographic information can be layered to build up a target audience profile which can be tested with Developer related marketing communications. When we launched O2 Litmus in January 2009, even a fairly rudimentary profiling of the audience lead to a dramatic uplift in the performance of the campaign verses a standard “blanket” direct email campaign. The Litmus campaign delivered a 24% email open rate.
If direct customer communications remain challenging, increasingly Mobile Operators are embracing Social Media as an opportunity to engage their customers in conversation. A quick, and non scientific, scan provides the following data:
Sample Mobile Operator Social Media Accounts:
These emerging channels represent a growing opportunity to promote the Developer’s wares to a switched on digital audience who will be receptive to the message, and peers via the Developer community specific accounts. Currently, there is also less internal competition to use these channels compared to traditional channels controlled by the Operator. At O2 Litmus we are now promoting an “App of the week” on the O2 Litmus Twitter account to help support our Developers.
Finally another huge area of differential and value add a Mobile Operator can bring to the ecosystem is the effective use of its retail footprint. Unlike many of the other non Telco Developer communities, Operators can leverage physical retail stores and a face to face relationship with end users / customers.
Today’s reality is the retail footprint is mostly utilised for selling standard tariffs and handsets and customer service, but there is no reason to not consider creating a “store within a store” environment to promote 3rd party apps and services. On the Mobile 2.0 panel I described a shopper experience of walking into a store, placing your phone onto a Microsoft Surface table and flicking app’s onto your handset to try out. That step alone could revolutionise the sector by bring apps into the physical, mainstream, world.
In part 2 I’ll discuss customer service, and the opportunity for Operators to step up to provide the support wrap around the world of apps.
New survey on mobile operator developer communities
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009New survey on mobile operator developer communities . Let us know what you think http://bit.ly/Lw2gR
Changes to the O2 Litmus App Showdown
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009Last week, we launched the O2 Litmus App Showdown, with a prize of £10,000. Whilst we had a very positive response from the community, there was also some constructive feedback on how to make the competition better.
When we were planning the competition, we were keen to ensure we could involve as many O2 customers in the judging process as possible. This caused a problem for developers though, as they would have to give up 95 of their slots required to test apps – slots that as any iPhone app developer knows are extremely valuable.
We listened to the community for guidance on the optimum number of slots reserved for the developer and have subsequently had a chat about structuring things to make sure it works for the developer community.
These are the slight changes we’re proposing:
· The panel of judges will be made up of 20 app-loving iPhone users
· Developers will now only need to keep 20 of their 100 slots free for the Showdown
We put this to the O2 Litmus community and received positive feedback on the forums. Hopefully this amendment to the rules means that there is now no reason for you not to enter the App Showdown.
That £10,000 is one step closer!
O2 App Showdown
Monday, July 20th, 2009
It’s been a while since I have had a chance to post here, although I’m doing better with the old Twitter updates!
It may have looked quiet from the outside for a few weeks, but believe me its been 100mph behind the scenes.
This morning the O2 App Showdown went live – a two month competition to find a great iPhone App for O2, with a £10,000 prize and great publicity for the winning developer. You can find out more here: www.o2litmus.co.uk/appshowdown
Along with the competition, I’m pleased to announce that O2 Litmus now supports the promotion of iPhone App’s hosted within the iTunes App Store. This means developers can now promote their apps via O2 Litmus, helping address a common complaint amongst developers – “With the thousands of apps inside the App Store, just how do I get visibility?”
Today’s announcement is just the first of few we have lined up, so stay tuned
O2 Litmus Roadmap Developer Session
Friday, May 1st, 2009
O2 Litmus held its first “Live Road Mapping” event on Wednesday this week where we had a good dialogue with some of our member Developers. A big thank you for Elayne and Graham for running to the shops to buy a VGA cable for the projector to avoid a disaster!
You can find the topics covered by visiting the Developer Day thread in the Roadmap section of the O2 Litmus forum. Please be sure to give us your views on the debate.
Next up, O2 has also just announced its X Prize competition. If you are a UK entrepreneur be sure to check it out here: http://www.o2.co.uk/xawards
Finally the next of our marketing campaigns to the O2 customer base begins shortly, so make sure you are uploading your applications to O2 Litmus in anticipation of a larger and fresh audience.
