The advertising world is buzzing this week as thousands participate in the AdWeek 2010 conference. For those of us unable to attend, thank the Twitter gods for hash tags. These beauties are giving marketers and developers 140 character long golden nuggets of knowledge from the industry’s brightest minds.

One common theme from Ad Week 2010:

Mobile isn’t just big, it’s huge.

Here are three #adweek2010 tweets that mobile application developers and marketers should take note of.

RT @digitas: Laura Lang: Mobile and social are intertwined and they will redefine the nature of engagement with the consumer #adwk2010

This may not seem that groundbreaking, but for an application marketer, the rapid growth of social on-the-go is a growing goldmine that developers and advertisers should also take note of. The rapid growth of virtual goods in social gaming alone should make the wheels of your mind start squeaking. A new study out by the Inside Network points to 40% growth in this market in 2011. For application developers looking to increase distribution, this is a powerful marketing tool to drive installations.

RT @tomspano: Quality content and creative delivery will always be profitable. -Dan Abrams

No one ever said there was a lack of content in the world. An abundance of content relevant to a consumer is another story. Being able to intelligently recommend content to a user is the Holy Grail for both advertisers and publishers. Applying methods of intelligent content recommendation from a desktop environment to a mobile platform makes good marketing sense and would also open the doors for cross promotion in applications.

Getting an app recognized in an increasingly crowded arena becomes easier when the delivery of the recommendation is intelligent. Intelligence + content equals creative to me.

RT @digitas: Lang: The mistake is thinking marketing is about the messaging. Marketing is about inspiring people to engage wherever they are. #adwk2010

As much as omnipotence would be a great characteristic to have for someone trying to market an application, it’s unattainable, or is it. Lang’s thought here screams: applications.

Traditional methods of marketing struggle to reach people where they are, as more and more people are on-the-go. The one constant from online to on-the-go, however, is applications. Applications are consistently present with an increasing mobile consumer.

I believe the tweets coming out of AdWeek 2010 are dead on—intelligently connecting content through applications is the future.  What do you think?

World of Free Games, home to a large variety of free games downloads since 2009, recently made several site improvements in preparation for the addition of over 100 new games.  The new games are slated to be added by the end of the year and will include puzzle, word, action games and more. The site upgrades are designed to improve the user experience, organize the current games, and enhance navigation throughout the site prior to the new content additions.

One of the new features on the site is the inclusion of detailed descriptions on each page.  Users benefit by being able to quickly get a snapshot of what each page is about.  New game descriptions, enlarged images, and the addition of even more images also help the user gain important information about the free games downloads and get a clear picture about the variety on the site. 

Smiley Chomp

To enhance the user experience in finding the exact type of game they are looking for, improvements were also made to site navigation. Links throughout the site now make navigating from page to page easier.  Several other navigation options are currently in the testing phase as well.

In a further effort to make the site easier to use and to make certain that users had a way to get answers and voice comments, a Help page was created and changes were made to the Contact Us page.  Furthermore, revisions were made to the About Us page to more adequately feature the security and privacy commitment of the site through the TRUSTe Certification program.

Perhaps one of the best new features of the site is the addition of a new page for Kids Games. With so many cool games for kids currently on the site, this is a strategic move to make users aware of their existence and set the stage for the new games to come later this year.

Spongebob Squarepants Collapse

Take a minute to check out World of Free Games and keep your eyes open for all the new, free games to come. Plus, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or great ideas, we would love to hear your feedback. Please leave comments on our site.

Randi Kucala, Marketing Specialist, W3i, LLC
A proponent for Internet users, Randi endeavors to make every interaction with W3i’s sites a positive one. She specializes in copy writing and on-page SEO.

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak at the Twin Cities Startup Weekend at CoCo MSP. The Startup Weekend event organized by Shane Reiser had over 100 participants, which formed into 12 different teams with the task of creating a start-up in a weekend.

Thanks to Jeremy Mooney for snapping the photo of me, Rob Weber, Founder of W3i, presenting.

The winner of the event was:

Qonqr- There was a little buzz building about the new start-up called Qonqr, Qonqr is a location-based, Risk-like, mobile game played out over the face of the earth! Players are operatives who must capture geographic zones by deploying nanobots to help their army defeat the opposing armies and qonquer the world. Successful deployments, recruiting, and squadron coordination result in experience points that, over time, promote the operative through higher and higher ranks, providing more powerful nanobot options. Monetization opportunities include player purchased virtual armament upgrades and local businesses paying for the opportunity to be a featured battleground. Game interface for field operatives will be mobile devices, and the Command Center will be accessible from the web.

There are Startup Weekends across the globe—in over 100 cities and 25 countries. The weekend brings together a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphics artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.

One strategy I garnered was to pick a team by the quality of the participants—not the best startup idea as experience is keyto turning the idea into a product within the time allotment.  Also keep it lean–only adding the minimal features to make it a viable product.        

Although I was initially a bit skeptical about the whole format of Startup Weekend, I would highly recommend that you participate the next time they are in your city.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

Learn how mobile application developers can make money by listening to Rob Weber’s, Co-founder of W3i and Apperang, interview with Untether.TV. “Rob is articulate, knowledgeable and willing to share with everyone during this session – and share he does. This is a GREAT session chalk full of advice, suggestions and opinion” writes Rob Woodridge, Untether, TV.

Users want to connect with their friends when playing games, but application developers are struggling to make this happen since a user’s friends are not all playing games on the same platform.  With all the hype behind cross platform gaming, there are very few true successes.

PopCap Games cracked the cross platform code with Bejeweled Blitz for Facebook and iOS.  Bejeweled Blitz is the #10 most popular Facebook application and the #14 paid iPhone app in the App Store at a $2.99 pricepoint, #14 in top grossing.  This synchronization enabled Bejeweled Blitz to get a mass user base—last count is 12,506,757 users as of 9/12/2010 (source, www.appdata.com) as the game allows users to connect to Facebook and compete with friends whether they are on their PC or iPhone. 

 Source:  Topappcharts.com

In the example below, Colleen is playing in a weekly Bejeweled Blitz tournament on her PC through Facebook, while Jessica is playing in the same tournament on her iPhone —now that’s an integrated platform.  Colleen and Jessica had never played the same game together, because Colleen doesn’t have an iOS device. Now they are regularly competing for the highest Bejeweled Blitz score.

Another indication that apps are moving toward cross platform synchronization is Google’s recent acquisition of Social Deck, a platform which provides social synchronization for app developers across Blackberry, iPhone and Facebook .  Google is reportedly working on a social platform to rival Facebook.

OpenFeint is also working on a multi-player, cross-platform solution for Android and iOS called OpenFeint PlayTime.  Reportedly OpenFeint PlayTime also gives the user matchmaking, game servers and real-time voice chat. “Traditionally, multiplayer technology has been accessible only to top-tier developers. It’s just too complicated and time-consuming.” states Aurora Feint CEO Jason Citron.

Strong cross platform synchronization is going to become a defining requirement for games to achieve top prominence as social experiences will require that users can play all of their friends. I believe we’ll see Apple incorporate tools in Game Center to make cross platform experiences easier through tighter integration with Facebook within the next year.

Kudos to PopCap Games for their work on Bejeweled Blitz!

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

Featured on ClickZ, September 7, 2010

Are you thinking about how you can annoy people less and be more effective with your advertising? If not, start paying attention, because your competition is.

Digital marketers are shifting their advertising strategies on how they reach people in social apps. The old, impression-based advertising model in social apps doesn’t work because it annoys people. Ever wonder why the cost of Facebook display ads is so low? People do not want to be interrupted by display ads when they are trying to play games with their friends. The same goes for display ads located within social apps in mobile. The mobile ad networks and publishers provide good air cover to help prop up their rates, but it is commonly accepted by most insiders that the majority of mobile ad impressions are going unsold. Marketers are finding that the right advertising strategy for social apps is to stop annoying people and to start focusing on ways to integrate with actual social activity.

Here are four examples of brands connecting with people through their true social activities:

Activity-Based Advertising on iPhone Apps In January, Bravo created badges that Foursquare users could earn by checking into locations linked to shows like “Top Chef” and “The Millionaire Matchmaker.” The Foursquare app saw a 31 percent increase in downloads those two weeks.

Bravo badges in Foursquare:

Powermat on MyTown: Powermat, a company specializing in wireless charging stations, worked with Appssavvy to advertise in Booyah’s MyTown. The Powermat campaign included a first-of-its-kind sweepstakes promotion on MyTown to enter to win Powermat’s Wireless Charging System for iPhone by physically interacting with Powermat products in-store. Powermat saw an increase in recall of 38.2 percentage points to 43.3 percent. 

Activity-Based Advertising on Facebook Applications

Cascadian Farm virtual good on FarmVille: Zynga, developer of the famous Farmville app on Facebook, launched a number of activity-based campaigns. Recently, over 310 million Cascadian Farm organic blueberries were planted by FarmVille players.

 MTV interview on Social Interview: Appssavvy also created a campaign for MTV that ran on Social Interview. A Facebook application, Social Interview has an audience of more than 11 million monthly active users and was used to promote MTV’s new original comedy, “The Hard Times of RJ Berger.” More than two-thirds of Social Interview users who saw the “Hard Times” branded interview clicked to start the application – nearly seven times the average engagement rate.

As Damon Burrell, VP, marketing, at MTV Networks puts it, “Currently there is a fundamental shift going on in digital marketing, which we are embracing, especially as it relates to social media. The Hard Times of RJ Berger on Social Interview exemplifies this shift, as true engagement isn’t about users clicking on a banner and coming to our site, but rather integrating them into the experience and providing something of value.”

The trend toward activity-based advertising in social apps is not only a win for marketers, but it helps the publisher maintain a high level of engagement with its audience. As most social app developers will tell you, their most important measure of success is how large and how active their audience is in engaging with their social app. That’s why application metrics sites like AppData for Facebook focus on the amount of active users of a unit of time, and not just the number of installs of a particular app.

When developing your advertising strategies for social apps, be sure to connect with people while the social activity is taking place in the app.

Rob Weber, Vice President of Business Development and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Rob is an Internet marketing pioneer with over ten, profitable years evolving W3i in the consumer application industry.

September 2010 – W3i is pleased to announce the donation of high tech computing equipment to St. Cloud State University’s Business Computing Research Lab.   Founded by Information Systems professor, Dr. Dennis Guster, in 2001, SCSU’s Business Computing Research Lab provides high performance computing resources to the University’s College of Business program for instructional an d research purposes.  The lab, which primarily relies on grants and donations, gives SCSU students and faculty an opportunity to work within an enterprise-level computing environment to perform research on topics ranging from distributed computing to molecular modeling.   Currently the lab has half a dozen highly diverse research projects in progress including quantum encryption, anti-matter modeling and hydrogen fuel cell research.   Beyond the research output of the lab, it’s also an excellent opportunity for students to gain an edge on their competition before they enter the workforce.  “Having the experience of working on projects in the lab boosts Student’s confidence when they enter the workforce.   BCRL projects give them chances to apply their theory into practice.  It’s a great conversation point in any interview.” says BCRL Student System Administrator, Corey Hemminger.   

W3i’s equipment donation includes a SUN Microsystems storage area network , 50 IBM blade servers, power conditioning equipment and various other computing and network appliances.  The equipment’s original retail value exceeds $400,000.  W3i’s recent relocation of its primary data center left a large amount of sophisticated equipment sitting dormant.   

Jeff Bollinger, W3i’s VP of Information Systems, describes the decision to donate to the BCRL, “We had a lot of excess equipment that needed a new home.  The BCRL was a great fit because we knew the equipment would be put to great use.  The BCRL is about giving students the opportunity to explore and become passionate about computing.  This type of outside the classroom opportunity can truly have a lasting impact on students.  We’re honored to be able to contribute to such a great program.”    

The BCRL plans to use the new 14 terabyte storage system to support a virtualized private cloud computing environment and log file storage.  “We have been limited in our ability to run complex network security experiments due to our lack of storage.  With the additional high performance storage we’re now about to run much more complex scenarios.” says Dr. Guster.  

 Additionally, the lab plans to use the IBM blade computing resources to support several Information Systems courses and also allow undergraduate and graduate level student’s access for thesis and general research use.  Corey Hemminger, says “The donation really opens up opportunities for us to do things like give students administrator access to their own virtual machines.  By giving them their own machine they’re able to explore to a much greater extent.  Prior to the donation this wasn’t possible with our limited resources.”  

2011 marks the 10^th anniversary for the lab which so far has contributed toward over 100 research papers along with giving students real world computing experience.  When asked about what the future holds for the lab, Dr. Guster said, “We have a lot of exciting research ahead of us this year–particularly in the areas of Information Security and Molecular Modeling.  We’re grateful to be able to continue to do projects like this with the help of donations like the one W3i made this year.”  

For more information on the BCRL, visit http://www.bcrl.stcloudstate.edu/  

About W3i:  

W3i increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for consumer desktop applications, browser add-ons, and mobile applications.  On the desktop app side, app publishers get paid for recommending relevant applications giving advertisers a mass, performance-driven distribution channel.  On the mobile side, W3i Mobile Solutions offers low-cost, targeted advertising campaigns for iPhone• apps on a pay-per-install basis.  W3i’s solutions use the company’s InstallIQ, intelligent installation technology, for recommending PC and mobile applications that users’ value.  InstallIQ was optimized on more than 400 million app installs–including more than 100 million in 2009.  W3i will prove to be a valued partner in growing your application business.  To learn more, visit www.W3i.com.  

Press Contact:  

Deborah Manthei  

Director of Marketing Communications  

320-257-7571  

deborah.manthei@W3i.com  

The names of the companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Creating a culture of innovation & what it means to business

 Rob Weber, co-founder of W3i, can usually be found talking about topics that relate directly to the business of apps. But lately, culture has been on the mind of the Minnesota tech entrepreneur.

 “I am beginning to realize that creating the right culture may be the key to what separates organizations that make it big, from those that don’t,” Weber says.

 Recently, @Courtney Guertin recommended a book to Weber. Guertin is a former engineer with Digg and founder of FollowStyle.

 The recommendation? TonyHsieh’s “Delivering Happiness”.

 When the culture starts sucking, change better be a-comin’

 The Zappos CEO talks about his decision to sell a former business, LinkExchange, to Microsoft after the work stopped being fun and the culture sucked. Hsieh talks about how he went on to “get it right” with Zappos by focusing the company on culture.

 “Whether it was weighting 50% of an employee’s performance review on culture, or focusing an entire interview round during the hiring process, Hsieh credits Zappos’ commitment to culture as the single most important factor fueling its growth,” Weber says reflecting on the recent read.

 Even the folks over at the Harvard Business Review think there’s something to this “culture” concept. Tony Schwartz points to a recent poll of 1500 CEOs from 60 different countries. For them creativity is the most important leadership competency in cultivating culture.

 Creativity and the complexity of business

 A majority of the CEOs in the survey say the business environment is “so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking.” Schwartz goes on to note that over half of the CEOs surveyed thought their organizations weren’t equipped to deal with “this rising complexity.”

 Schwartz provides 6 steps organizations can take to cultivate a culture of creativity and a culture of innovation. In a nutshell, he points to focusing on your people. Look at their needs he says, people who have unmet needs spend more time focusing on the unmet need than being productive. Many of his tips mean starting a dialogue with your team. The conversations will act as a barometer: Does the work matter to them beyond just a paycheck? Are their passions being nurtured? Schwartz also notes a need for renewal. It appears my junior high creative writing teacher Mrs. Sallberg was right in her charge to write, step away, and return later to edit. Schwartz also notes a need to take breaks from the creative process, let the machines in the office go nonstop.

  Meanwhile, in the state of innovation

 Back in the land of 10,000 lakes, innovation takes multiple forms according to the guys at Minnov 8. In a recent podcast the voices behind the stage for innovation and creativity in Minnesota identify innovative leaders as being able to look beyond the norm.

 Julio Ojeda Zapata, a tech writer for the Pioneer Press and author of Twitter Means Business, joined Minnov 8 on the podcast. He sees an innovative leader as someone with the ability to “redefine [their] own assumptions and perceptions, remov[ing] [themselves] from [their] own box and look[ing] at problems in different ways.”

 There’s no place like home . . .

 A key to creating a culture of innovation is to focus on accountability. W3i has been a-buzz around the concept of @theOzPrinciple. A week ago, Weber spent the day with Craig Hickman, co-author of the book “The Oz Principle.”

 “My biggest takeaway was the need to clarify key organizational results and to align people’s daily work objectives with those results. I’d highly recommend ‘The Oz Principles’ to anyone in the industry looking to move mountains through changing their organization,” Weber notes.

 Ryan Ruud, Freelance Writer

Rob Weber, founder of W3i and Apperang, shares his thoughts on how to successfully promote iOS and other mobile applications.  Rob is a ten-year veteran of application marketing and believes in the freemium model to create a sustainable iOS application business.

Deborah Manthei, Director of Marketing Communications, W3i, LLC, evangelizing the use of consumer application marketing to engage brands’ essential users.

Featured on ClickZ, Aug 10, 2010

Increasing application use is essential to a thriving app business. Studies show that it costs five times more to attract new customers than it does to get repeat customers and less acquisition costs equate to higher profits. One reason is that current customers are easier to convert as they gain trust and experience the value of the app. To measure success, a game developer uses this rule of thumb: more than 50 percent of total revenue should be from repeat players, and second purchases should be 30 to 40 percent of sales, according to Lisa Marino, chief revenue officer at RockYou.

Here are some ways to increase application use and safeguard an app business used by game developers:

1. Know the users/players: While planning an app, determine the target audience and what features will be sticky for that audience. Pretty basic, but it’s the key to building and marketing an engaging app.
2. Entertainment value: Again basic, but it’s much easier to increase application use with strong entertainment value. Incorporate human triggers: lust, mystique, prestige, alarm, power, vice, and trust. A narrative will increase interest in the app as well as rules, time pressure, ranks and levels, marketplace, different environments, and winning assets.
3. Tips about use (a start to advancing the user through the app): Reveal the rules as necessary, educate the user about app usage, reveal secrets or hints on improving the experience, or add features for additional interest (be sure to inform the user). Continued feedback accelerates mastery and increases application use.In Bookworm, basic rules are presented to the player prior to the start of app play.



4. Creating a community: Not only does it defray distribution costs, creating a social outlet for the audience increases buzz about the app. App promotion could include sending requests to friends or getting friends to work together to win a prize or achieve a goal.Apps like Resident Evil 5, Unreal Tournament III, Guitar Hero/Band Hero, and Mercenaries have features where the user gets a friend to join as they play through the normal game mode. This fosters community by encouraging play with others (regardless of their location or progress within the game). Facebook is a great place to start a community and then promote the app profile in the app to increase friends.Many games, like Bejeweled, have started Facebook pages for passionate app users. 
5. Collecting: Most people love to collect; it is innate in our nature. Provide opportunities for players to collect something to gain bragging rights with their friends.Games like LittleBigPlanet encourage players to collect as many items as possible. Some of these items improve the user’s status by changing the way the character looks. Players who have obtained items difficult to acquire will generally flaunt their success by dressing their avatars with these items.
    
6. Exchanges: Two-player games or teams encourage engagement by adding a social element and increasing competition. Exchanges can include: taking turns, making allies, getting app usage advice, sharing weapons or accessories, etc. Is there a way to add a social element to the app?The best game to demonstrate this is Nintendo’s Pokémon games. Each player is allocated only a certain number of items (in this case, Pokémon). In order to collect them all, the user must trade with other players. Some Pokémon will change forms while being traded, while others are simply not available unless traded. This also fosters community by forcing trades between players.
    
7. Customization: The more a user can customize the app and the interface, the more invested the user is in the app. Tests show that creating a character for the opponent instead of just labeling the opponent as the “computer” will create more player involvement.Customization is a game marketer’s friend. The Sims is a good example; games have slowly integrated the ability to create a custom character or shape experience to preferences. Games like Guitar Hero allow players to create a custom star. Customization gets as detailed as settings for four points on the cheek and three points on the chin for each character. Playing with the customization, players have recreated their favorite heroes/villains as well as creating self portraits to immerse themselves further in gameplay.
    
8. Points: Can some scoring method be built into the app to challenge the user to increase app usage? Psychologically, redeemable points drive loyalty as users equate earning points (especially to earn something) to not wasting time.PlayStation and Xbox use a trophy/achievement system to encourage users to compete against friends to see who can score higher or complete more objectives.
    
9. Create competition among friends using visible metrics: People are social beings; the more interaction the user has with the app, the more engaged the user will be. Some additional features could include:
   • Friend walls
   • Customization
   • User vs. user engagements
   • Instant messaging interfaces

   Console apps use messaging systems for players to keep in touch and send app invites. For example, while playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, the user can send a message to other friends requesting they join them in play. When friends are offline, messages can be sent through the app system similar to e-mail. In many cases, players on the friends’ list are more apt to check their gaming message box over their traditional e-mail box. For example, the app’s messaging box is used as a means to set up times to play apps with friends at a later point.
    

10. Messaging when inactive: It’s important to build rapport and maintain relationships. Be sure to build a messaging platform into the app. Make messages interesting: new features, promotions, cross-selling opportunities, etc. Don’t drop the connection with the user if at all possible, but beware not to message too much to cause irritation.
11. Fresh content: Continue to perfect the app and use messaging to tell users when there is something new. Many games now utilize downloadable content (aka DLC) to expand the experience for gamers with brand new content, like additional stories, side quests, characters, or costumes. Sony’s Heavy Rain released a brand new side story as downloadable content, allowing the gamer to broaden their experience with the game for a nominal fee.
12. Incentives for returning: Give the user a reason to return – bonuses, additional app usage tips, special privileges, etc. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing is a perfect example, always giving players reasons to return. Depending on the date that the user fires up the app, they experience different events, meet new characters, or find new collectibles, like bugs or fish.
13. Accessible: Build the app for multiple platforms to ensure continued use. With the introduction of smartphones and now the iPad, loyal players want to engage where and when they have free time.
14. Mashups: If possible, build ways that an app can be repurposed/embedded on other sites, blogs, or apps. Can you create a teaser app with content from the app?
15. Syndicated: For speed to market, a sure bet is leveraging the success of an established brand.Many apps are syndicated. If you grew up in the 1980s, you’ll recognize Mario and Sonic. Both mascots are still heroes to the current generation. Mario was a villain (Donkey Kong Jr.), a Plumber, a Doctor (Dr. Mario), a racer (Mario Kart), and more. While Sonic’s resume isn’t nearly as impressive, Sega managed to slap Sonic in more titles than most people realize. In the Dreamcast Title Shenmue, players collected Sonic the Hedgehog action figures. Keeping this brand recognition, both Sega and Nintendo have managed to chain games together around a character. When players hear the names Mario or Sonic, sales are guaranteed.

Now that you have a checklist and some examples, build features to increase application use into the app design or add them as the app gets more traffic; and they become the foundation to a thriving app business. As revenue increases, you may want to buy traffic for your app.