What’s New @ W3i for Mobile App Partners

App ID Creation – Create an ID for your app that you can use for integration. This will save you time speed up implementation so your app is to market faster! Forgot your ID? Do you need to know what we have set up for your currency? Can’t remember if you have been set up as a partner for a specific application? Find it all here!

Self-Service Campaign Management (Coming Soon!) – Stop and start your campaigns to optimize your return. No more waiting for someone who may be in a different time zone than you. Move quickly with the ability to pause and resume your campaigns as needed without the help of a W3i associate. Were you looking for the ability to see the campaign information for your applications? Now you can! You will be able to view your budget, remaining balances, daily cap information, country targeting, rate, start time and expiration time, whether or not your application was featured and more!

Mobile Integration Documentation – For ease of implementation you now have direct access to updates to SDK’s, sample apps, FAQ’s, etc. No more waiting, direct access to all of our integration updates immediately without having to log in.

Create and Save Custom Reports – Saves time and gives you the insight you need at your fingertips. Save your reports for immediate access to your most important reports after login.

Custom Subscriptions (Coming Soon!)– Now that you have the ability to save your reports, wouldn’t it be nice to have them e-mailed directly to you? Coming soon, the ability to subscribe to your custom reports and have them sent directly to you as you need them. Weekly, daily, whenever, you got it!

This is just the beginning of improvements we are making to improve your experience partnering with W3i.

W3i had a rockin’ year in 2011–doubling sales.  You could say…W3i’s on Fire!  Thanks to all our partners, employees and the tech community in the Twin Cities, San Francisco and St. Cloud.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

Team W3i

November 23, 2011 Sartell, MN – W3i, a local Internet marketer, teamed up with CentraCare in their Caring for Generations Campaign to expand advanced health care in Central Minnesota for families, friends and neighbors and generations to come.

W3i is proud to be a member of the St. Cloud community and as a team, wanted to give back to this esteemed cause.  During the month of October employees held several fund-raising events including a bake sale, raffles, and Bingo raising $7,500, of which $5,000 of that amount was doubled by W3i and then matched by Marco.

W3i is having a tremendous year, and our team wanted to give back by supporting the efforts of Centracare in providing outstanding health care to central Minnesota.  The management team and I are proud of our employees for their generosity in supporting this important campaign.” comments Andy Johnson, CEO of W3i.

Minneapolis, Minn. September 19, 2011- W3i, a leading network for app distribution and monetization for personal computers and mobile devices, is very pleased to announce the following promotions:

• Jeff Bollinger was promoted to Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President.  Jeff joined W3i eight years ago as a Software Developer.  Today, he leads the Information Systems Group, which includes Software Development, Business Intelligence, and the Information Technology teams.  
• Lisa Nistler was promoted to Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing.  Lisa joined W3i four years ago and has increasingly taken on additional responsibilities.  Today, she leads Business Development, Account Development, and Creative Services.
• Ryan Ranweiler was promoted to Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President.  Ryan joined W3i six years ago and has progressed through his career at W3i.  Today, he leads the Finance team and the company’s Owned and Operated team.
• Ryan Weber was promoted to Senior Vice President of Product Management and Co-Founder.  Ryan Weber co-founded the company in 2000 and leads product management.
• Rob Weber was promoted to Senior Vice President and Co-Founder.  Rob Weber co-founded W3i in 2000 and leads business development for mobile.

“W3i is experiencing outstanding growth in 2011, surpassing all financial expectations.  In addition to outstanding company performance, these promotions recognize the increasing demands of a growing organization and creates a framework to further expand our organization to meet the demands of a high growth company.  I would like to congratulate my senior management team and the W3i team as a whole.  We look forward to an exciting future at W3i as we strive for leadership in the consumer app industry.”  comments Andy Johnson, CEO.  

About W3i: W3i is an application network that increases revenue and distribution for consumer applications. W3i’s solutions use InstallIQ technology for recommending PC and mobile apps that users value.  InstallIQ was optimized on more than 600 million app installs, that’s 6 apps per second. W3i is an experienced team of app-savvy marketers with deep technical know-how and many years of industry experience. To learn more, visit www.W3i.com.

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

The W3i team has been working closely to analyze and understand the REAL value of users based on traffic source. We measured lifetime value (LTV) based on a series of retention and monetization metrics and together we found that traffic source plays a huge role in quality, no real surprise there…but what was more interesting is that some pockets of incentivized traffic actually performed better than overall organic traffic. This discovery provides a counter to the popular argument that incentivized traffic is not worth the same as organic or non-incentivized. This gives credibility and validity to incentivized traffic. When a developer and distribution network understands traffic source, real value can be provided through incented installs. We hope this data will help educate platform providers and mobile app media buyers on the importance of understanding real value variable forms of marketing including incentivized application installs. If we are intelligent on our media buys, we can find pockets of profitable and valuable incentivized installs. How do we know this? Check the numbers below on one of W3i’s apps.

Day 30 Retention vs. Traffic Source:

We looked at day 30 retention rates per traffic source for one or our burst campaigns with a popular game application. We also calculated the volume per traffic source and assigned a color to indicate which application that traffic was coming from. As you can see below, the top paid volume source produced the 2^nd best 30 day retention rate. However, the second top paid volume source performed the worst! Clearly the second top paid traffic source did not produce a positive return for the buy!

 Revenue per 1000 users vs. traffic source:

In addition to retention we also looked at average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) per 1000 over a determined time frame. While we couldn’t disclose the specific traffic source each source is represent by its own letter. As you can see, revenue per user is dramatically impacted depending on traffic source.

Organic vs. incentivized source:

When comparing overall organic traffic to incented traffic, we found pockets of incentivized traffic are actually more valuable than organic traffic. Take a peek below at our calculations comparing the top RPDAU sources compared to all overall organic sources. 

 So what does all of this mean?

As a Media Buyer, you should do your homework! Work with an application distribution partner such as W3i to help you acquire users effectively and remember not all traffic is the same when it comes to incentive installs. Finally, don’t underestimate the value of incent traffic. If you are smart and work with the right partner you just might find pockets of highly profitable, high performing incentivized traffic.

By Sarah Perez via TechCrunch

Monetization and distribution network for app developers, W3i, is today announcing a program specifically for iOS Game Developers. The new service, now in beta, is simply being called “Games Platform,” the company says. And its goal will be to solve the challenges facing game developers such as server set-up, maintenance, security, storefronts and analytics.

The idea for the service was sparked by a number of interviews with mobile game developers, conducted by W3i over recent weeks. The most common headaches, especially for small-time or hobbyist developers, was dealing with the setup of the infrastructure needed to support their applications, the company found. Most developers would rather focus on actually developing their game – not server set up and maintenance.

Read more on TechCrunch.

by Keith Andrew via Pocketgamer.biz

n any industry, no-one really likes to get their hands dirty.

The roll out of W3i’s new framework for freemium developers is built upon that principle, with the firm claiming to handle everything from servers and storefronts to maintenance and security.

However, there’s also a valid monetary angle to Games Platform, the name given to the framwork: a large portion of the smaller studios dipping their toes into the freemium market simply can’t afford to handle the fundamentals of the business.

Games Platform, W3i claims, will take care of all of this.

Read more at Pocketgamer.biz.

Communication Orientation

Good communication skills are one of the most sought after qualities by employers across career fields today. Plain and simple, interactions suffer in poor communication environments and many employers know this. Let communication and interactions deteriorate, and you could be looking at the demise of a company.

Here at W3i, we understand that communication that has this kind of impact comes with a need for awareness. In the workplace, one should have a conscience for any and all interactions they are involved in. Understand, and keep in mind, that communication can come in various forms and across many different mediums.

Written and Oral

When you think about communication, it is common to assume oral or spoken communication but in this generation, the majority of businesses are going global. This means less and less communication occurs face-to-face, so it is crucial to remind ourselves about the importance of clarity in the written messages we send. Also remember that tone, pitch, sarcasm and humor are a few written elements that are easily mistaken, and sometimes impossible to detect.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

The cliché phrase “Actions Speak Louder than Words” has stuck with us for generations for a reason; because it’s true. Take for example, care. There is a big difference between caring for and caring about. We can all care about the environment but if we don’t take action (care for) to maintain it, there is no substance or worth to caring. Use of action words not only strengthens a message but it can also be motivational to yourself and others.

Having personal awareness of the nonverbal messages that we send and applying the Silver Rule, can aid in the flow of daily interactions. Yes you read that right. The Silver Rule, “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you”, is very appropriate in the workplace in that it compensates for its golden counterpart’s shortcomings; shortcomings that often lead to agitation.

W3i’s advice on how to:

Communicate Effectively:

• Remember to KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid! Unnecessary complexity should be avoided in communication, especially in interactions that are not face-to-face.
• Organize your thoughts, formulate your message, edit and then communicate. Asking yourself if there is a better way to say what you need to say is a great way to avoid confusion.
• Less can be more but don’t leave out necessary information. A small amount of quality communication can trump a lot of useless information or unorganized messages. Don’t make the receiver work in order to understand.
• Put yourself in the receiver’s shoes and apply the Silver Rule.

Build Integrity:

• Be aware of every way in which you communicate and remember, your reputation follows you everywhere. What you do, and how you do it, leaves lasting impressions.
• Use actions words and follow through with them. Keep an awareness of promises that you make and fulfill them.
• Consistency in communication and your actions are essential to building personal integrity.

Communication in W3i’s High Tech Environment

Communication is changing quickly in our highly technological world. In order to have quality interactions, we need to adapt and evolve our communication to accommodate this change. Here at W3i, we strive to make our communication as efficient as possible without sacrificing quality and clarity. While it might be easy to IM someone at work, we understand the value of face-to-face communication. To ensure mutual understanding, put in an effort to make the experience personal. Using this same standard, we also work to make our encounters with partners as personable as we can. If face-to-face interactions are not available, we use teleconferencing and phone calls first before resorting to emails. Good communication deserves priority over time.

Communication: A Learned Skill

Communication is learned. No one was born with amazing communication skills. While learning how to communicate effectively might come easier for some, it comes with time and practice. Don’t get frustrated and give up. Try on the advice you have just read. Just like a hat, if you don’t like it, you can take it off. Challenge yourself and others. You’ll like what you will uncover.

Virtualization has been one of the fastest growing areas of the tech industry for some time now, and W3i is no stranger to it.  W3i implemented virtualization when we moved to a new data center in early 2010.  Virtualization has allowed us to consolidate servers, be more scalable and flexible, and increase uptime.

Before moving to a new data center, W3i had over 40 physical servers in production.  Today, we have only 14 physical servers in our data center with over triple the processing power.  We consolidated our data center from 9 full sized racks down to 3.  The cost and environmental benefits are clear with significantly lower power and cooling needs because of the much smaller footprint.  Going virtual allows us to use our server hardware more efficiently by not dedicating a physical server to just one application.  Being able to run multiple operating system instances on one server allows us to use our server hardware much more efficiently.

Server consolidation is a huge benefit of virtualization, however, for a growing company like W3i, the scalability and flexibility of virtualization is one of the greatest benefits for us.  As W3i begins entering new markets like mobile app distribution, the ability to scale is key.  In a virtual environment, it’s possible to add processor and memory resources to virtual servers on the fly when the need arises with no server downtime.  When physical server resources start to get low, it’s just a matter of adding another physical server to the environment.  W3i has already added more virtual server resources to its virtual environment since it was first implemented.

The fault tolerance capabilities of virtualization have been another valuable feature.  In the old data center, if hardware failed or maintenance needed to be done to the physical server, it had to be shutdown making whatever application it ran unavailable.  With our virtual environment, this is not the case.  If a virtual host fails, the virtual machines that were running on that host are seamlessly migrated to another host with available resources.  Similarly, if maintenance needs to be performed on a virtual host, virtual machines can be migrated to other hosts before starting the maintenance.  This ability allows us to be much more flexible with our maintenance schedules and significantly reduces downtime.

So what’s next for W3i and virtualization?  The benefits of server virtualization are clear, but what if we could bring all of those same benefits to the desktop?  Giving each of our employees a virtual desktop that has the ability to scale as needed and runs in a fault tolerant environment would be a huge asset to their productivity.  W3i has plans to research a desktop virtualization implementation later this year.

by Keith Andrew via Pocketgamer

Pitched as a one stop shop for developers looking for both a new discovery tool and a source of fresh revenue, W3i has unveiled its latest venture: the Mobile App Ad Network (MAAP).

MAAP combines two distinct elements – display advertising and daily app offers – into one product designed to bring new users on board.

Rather than simply offering up an in-app ad, users are offered a daily app offer, which W3i’s numbers suggest offers a far higher conversion rate than standard ads alone.

Continue reading on Pocketgamer.