Distimo Provides Insight & Analysis Across Top App Stores

By Ron Callari

Less than a week after Apple introduced its iPad, its app store was offering approximately 2,400 applications optimized for the tablet device and “games” represented 35 percent of all iPad titles. This analysis, coupled with comparison pricing, number of apps sold and the specific app store breakdowns by source is a small snapshot of the work that is done by Distimo, an innovative app store analytics company that addresses the widely fragmented app store marketplace.

Distimo, a privately held company based in the Netherlands provides in-depth reports and analytical monitoring for companies interested in how their apps are doing across the mobile application ecosystem. While the company competes with the traditional market analysis companies such as comScore, Forrester and Gartner, in stead of basing findings on panels and surveys, “Distimo Reports,” according to co-founder and VP of development Remco van del Elzen, “are more timely and accurate, covering the whole app store market based on factual information.”

Jan-Joost Rueb, CEO and co-founder of eBuddy, a Web based instant messaging service uses Distimo’s reports and monitoring analytics for his firm. Differing from some of the other research companies, he finds most useful, Distimo’s ability to not only track popularity of his app in other countries, but also to “compare the performance of competing applications with our own apps.”  The total cumulative download (to date) breakdown per source for eBuddy is shown here.

Interesting to note, eBuddy app is #2 most downloaded app on GetJar (behind Facebook).

Both Distimo Reports and Distimo Monitor are free to companies. The Monitor service offers mobile developers a free analytics tool to track their own and competitive applications across all app stores, without any adjustments needed to their application’s code. The company is monetized by selling their reports to device manufacturers, operators and large developers, with the future goal of “introducing premium features,” notes van del Elzen.

Companies can view daily downloads and revenue figures of all their applications and analyze their rankings, worldwide and compare these findings to how the competition is doing in terms of publicly available data, such as popularity, rankings and price changes.

The app stores currently analyzes findings from the six largest applications stores in existence today: the Apple App Store, Blackberry App World, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.  According to an aggregate report of the number of applications available in the market for the month of March, it is clear that Apple’s App Store is by far the clear front-runner.

Book apps are proven to be lucrative for the eReader market. One of Distimo’s studies indicates that the highest percentage of apps in the Apple App Store is now paid book applications. For example, there are 27,0000 books in the store, and of those 92 percent are paid apps, according to Distimo’s data. When questioning van del Elzen why Kindle, Sony Reader and Barnes and Noble’s Nook were not included in their reports and monitoring, he indicated that Distimo currently focuses on the stores that provide applications. “The line between applications and books however is blurring and we will provide analytics on some of the eReader market as well,” he notes.

The different ratios of free apps versus paid were one of the findings that Distimo presented during MWC 2010. In the chart below you can see the percentage breakdowns per store. While Android has the most free applications, Nokia has the most paid.

Developers can use Distimo’s data-mining to adjust pricing and distribution channels to maximize growth and revenue streams of their apps.

Rueb finds Distimo’s analysis invaluable because of the changing competitive market his firm has to deal with on a daily basis.  Tracking eBuddy’s performance on a worldwide level with Distimo, Rueb sums up Distimo as a service that which “allows us to act fast, based on country level analyses, popularity of competing apps and competitor’s actions.”

Building A Brand Across Multiple Channels For Premium Ad Experience

By Ron Callari

From broadcasting to broader-casting, the NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead the industry. From conception through distribution, the NAB Show proudly serves as the incubator for excellence - helping to breathe life into content everywhere. More than 85,000 audio, video and film content professionals from 157 countries will convene at the Las Vegas Convention Center April 10-15.

Celebrities will include Emmy nominated actor Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory” and Emmy winning actor, author Michael J. Fox will be honored with the NAB Distinguished Service Award for his significant and lasting contribution to the broadcasting industry.

Ivan Askwith is Director of Strategy at Big Spaceship, an award-winning creative agency based in Brooklyn, N.Y. As the head of the strategic practice, Askwith works to help clients navigate the digital landscape and understand emerging behaviors

He is a frequent speaker and lecturer on digital strategy, transmedia engagement and online communities at both academic and business conferences, and an occasional contributor to magazines like Slate and Salon.

Ivan Askwith will be sitting on the “Unboxing Advertising and Entertainment: Building a Transmedia Experience,” which will drill down on how top advertising and entertainment creatives design media worlds across multiple mediums over time. I had an opportunity to interview Askwith in advance of the conference to discuss his perspective on advertising and entertainment in this immersive, convergent and interactive age.

Push vs. Pull Marketing has changed over the years, as Web 2.0 has become an accepted means of engaging with the customer. How do you see pull marketing today versus five years ago?
To some extent, I think this depends on your marketing goals. If you’re trying to launch in the market and have no awareness, there’s still a clear value in push marketing and advertising: no one is likely to engage with your product or service until they know that it’s available.  But in a best-case scenario, push marketing functions like a spark or lighter — it gets things going.

The “pull” approach, on the other hand, is a lot more sustainable for brands that hope to grow, maintain and deepen relationships with both active and potential customers.  Moving forward, at least online and in interactive channels, it seems to me that Web 2.0 isn’t just an accepted means of engaging with customers — but one of the only viable means for engaging with customers and consumers.

There’s just too much value available on the Internet — content, social connection, utility, all the usual suspects — for us to assume that consumers will continue tolerating interruptive “push” messaging, except when it occurs in very specific (and useful) contexts.  There’s really a third concept in play: if push refers to brands trying to capture attention, and pull refers to brands being available when consumers choose to engage with them, the third option is closer to “magnetic” marketing — where the consumer and brand are drawn together, at the right time, without either side needing to take an aggressive action.

That’s where we see the importance of context.  Whether that means a Google ad that gives you a link just when you need it, but before you ask for it, or a location-aware ad that gives you a reason to grab lunch in the diner you’re just about to walk past.  You didn’t pull it, and it didn’t exactly push itself on you — the consumer and the brand just get drawn together at the right time, and everyone benefits.

Since Skittles was one of the first CPG brands to transform its home page into an online portal for Twitter (March 2, 2009), what were some of the positive and negative results of that initiative? Do you recommend this approach for brands in 2010?
I cannot comment on the campaign from last March.  However, in response to the second part of your question, I’m not sure there’s a single, reliable approach that I’d recommend for “brands in 2010″ for two reasons:

First, because in many ways 2010 is not so different from 2009, and I think we often find ourselves trying to always do something new, rather than figuring out what people want — which may well be something they’ve wanted for years — and just trying to get it right.

Second, and more important, because brands benefit the most from figuring out what works in their unique situation, with their unique value proposition and identity, and for the people that it’s most important they connect with.  For some CPG brands, it may be valuable to find a deep and aggressive use of Twitter, while for others it may be a waste of time and effort.

Here’s what I will say: if you’re going to turn your own home page into an online portal for Twitter, or any other community platform, it’s probably valuable to go farther than just appropriating a popular service (whether that’s Twitter, Foursquare or next year’s emerging buzz platform) and putting it on your site.  Again, it comes down to basic social skills: if you want people to value you, you have to give them something of value, rather than simply appropriating something they already value.  So can Twitter be valuable on a brand’s site?  Absolutely, so long as you can find a way to make Twitter better, more valuable, more interesting or more useful than it was to begin with.  An easy example is Best Buy’s Twelpforce, which lets consumers seek tech-support from the chain’s entire retail floor workforce — a brilliant way of integrating Twitter.

2010 has been earmarked as the year for Location-Based Social Networking and Augmented Reality. How can these two services be harnessed together to produce a higher degree of engagement with customers? Can you provide an example?
A quick distinction: augmented reality (AR) is often used to describe two distinct trends.  The first involves using webcams and visual triggers, so that people sitting at their computers can see themselves on screen, along with things that aren’t there — e.g. a dancing unicorn, a robot head on their own shoulders, etc).  In almost all cases, this version of AR has been used as a novelty gimmick, without creating much tangible value.  The second (and, I’d argue, more important) involves using cameras, usually on mobile devices, to augment the world with layers of information.  This version of AR, I think, has incredible implications for just about everything, including customer engagement.  So that’s the version of AR I’m referring to here.

For both location-based social networking and location-based AR, there’s a simple, powerful value proposition: these tools actually help change our experience as we move through the world.  And in both cases, they come back to the concept I mentioned earlier: rather than push or pull marketing, these location-based services are “magnetic,” and focused on connecting people with information at the right time, and in the right place, for it to be useful and actionable.  In essence, location-based services are the ultimate form of contextual marketing: capable of reaching people at the right time to influence (and assist) their behaviors and decisions.

Some of the best examples are also the best known: take Foursquare.  Even before their current slate of big-brand partnership “experiments” (e.g. Bravo, Zagat), the Foursquare team was striking deals with local businesses.  If I’m trying to decide where to grab a drink, and Foursquare can tell me (a) that my friends just arrived at a bar a few blocks away, or (b) that the bar across the street is offering a special deal to Foursquare users, those aren’t just advertisements: they’re useful offers.  And while AR hasn’t yet infiltrated the physical world in a massively useful (and branded) way, it’s not hard to imagine the opportunities: take a grocery store, where you can find deals, compare local prices, and get recipe suggestions for any product, just by pointing your phone at it… that, in and of itself, becomes a more compelling reason to consider shopping there.

You will be contributing to a panel at the upcoming NABSHOW (National Association of Broadcaster), April 12-15 titled, “Unboxing Advertising and Entertainment: Building a Transmedia Experience.” How do you define a ‘Transmedia Experience’ and why is it important to incorporate this approach in an advertising campaign in 2010?
For a full answer to that question, your best bet is to attend the NABSHOW panel on April 13, where we’ll be digging into the details. But the quick answer is that transmedia experiences are ones that take brands, entertainment properties or stories, and roll them out across multiple media platforms.  It’s still a pretty vague definition, so examples tend to be more effective.

The oldest fall-back example is The Matrix, which consisted of three movies, but also used comic books, two console video games, short animated videos, websites and a MMOG, with each of those elements contributing unique details, plot points and characters to the larger fictional world where all of these stories were set.  In the second film, Jada Pinkett-Smith’s character, Niobe, walks off-screen to pursue her own mission, and doesn’t re-appear onscreen until the third movie.  In the case of The Matrix, anyone interested in what happened during that period of time was able to follow her entire mission — because it was the plot of a high-profile video game released alongside the film.  Characters appeared in the second and third movies that audiences knew nothing about — unless they had already met those characters in one of the Matrix comic books, where they were introduced.  Transmedia experiences are ones where there are many different ways to access and engage with the stories, and some form of meaningful connection exists between all of them.  And, because transmedia experiences and stories are so much bigger than any individual film, game, television show or advertisement, they leave a lot more room for the audience — and fans, in particular — to participate.  They don’t answer all of the questions, or suggest that there’s a single “correct” way to engage; instead, they offer a huge range of official and unofficial opportunities for interaction.

As for advertising campaigns in 2010: the truth is that whether we design advertising campaigns to be “transmedia experiences” or not, they often are.  Audiences and consumers are used to engaging with the brands, stories or topics that interest them across the full range of channels that exist, and you could argue that brands that advertise in print, television, digital, OOH and so on are already transmedia experiences — they’re just not good experiences, because they don’t always put a lot of thought into how all of the components that make up a brand, or a franchise, work together.

Often, these things are still separate line items in budgets, and that fools us (as marketers and brand representatives) into thinking that they are different things.  We come up with our basic brand platform, we assign that out to all of the different teams involved in our brand marketing, and then leave it up to those teams to decide how their individual projects turn out.  A smarter approach to transmedia would be to look at each of those components, and ask how it contributes back inward to create the central meaning of a brand.  Because from a consumer perspective, that’s how it works: consumers don’t understand, or care enough to think about, the varying messages that a brand might present in each channel.  In our own lives, brands are brands, and stories are stories, and whatever pieces of brand messaging we encounter as we go about our lives become part of our overall experience of the brand.  So the result, in many cases, is that consumers experience brands as disjointed, inconsistent and self-contradicting. In some ways, it’s important to incorporate transmedia strategy into advertising campaigns now because consumers are way out ahead of us.  Not thinking about our work in transmedia terms just means we’re not concerning ourselves with the overall user experience of our brands.

Measuring Digital Media Ad Spend

By Ron Callari

Now in its 3rd year, the Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit will be held in New York City, April 7-8, at the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel. The conference focuses on how best to invest a consumer product’s advertising dollars for maximum ROI.

To understand the pricing attributes, develop accurate metrics and other quantifiable means to enhance a brand’s campaign performance, industry leaders in social media and consumer products will direct discussions and workshops.

At the conference, Tomas Emmers, Unilever’s North America media insights director, will lead a seminar entitled, “Digital Media Optimization + Metrics Case Studies,” where he will talk about the testing and optimization of digital media to deliver brand objectives.

Emmers recently spoke with DMB’s Ron Callari in advance of the event.

In your role as North America Media Insights Director, how much of your job focuses on social media?
My responsibility as the North America Media Insights Director includes focusing on traditional, digital, social, mobile and emerging media channels. The focus of Unilever’s Media Insights team is to understand how the changing media landscape, including emerging channels like social media, impact consumers behaviors with our brand messages.

How does Unilever measure social media’s ROI? What tools? What techniques?
Social media is an emerging space. The tools and techniques used to measure social media continue to evolve and extend beyond ROI. You need to leverage the power of social media as a tool to passively listen to conversations to gain insights, understand the share of voice on a subject, map conversations and more. Unilever has been actively leveraging an array of social media analytical and marketing tools and techniques across our brands.

Can you provide us with a snapshot of a recent successful campaign on Twitter or Facebook that provided Unilever with a significant return?
The Suave brand held a Twitter party that yielded incredibly robust conversations with consumers about the brand. The Suave portfolio of products will benefit from the insights garnered from the conversations. Hellmann’s leveraged Facebook as part of a multi-platform program and developed a successful application that drove engagement and facilitated sharing during a recent campaign.

Consumer reviews are significantly more trusted than those from manufacturers, according to a survey of ‘U.S. Mom Internet Users.’ What is Unilever doing to create influential word of mouth campaigns in the digital and social media space?
Brands across the portfolio have been increasingly engaging in the social media space in a variety of ways - so mush so that I can’t think of a single Unilever brand that isn’t involved in social media. Organizationally, Unilever has driven social media best practices into the business and has developed programs that leverage the power of social media. Unilever has been harnessing the speed and shear volume of social media conversations.

How do you see the ARF Measurement Workshop held last December differing from the upcoming Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit in April?
Each media measurement conference should continue to evolve the industries’ learning of digital media measurement. The digital and mobile media landscape is changing at such a rapid pace that every media measurement conference, like the Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit, is an opportunity to showcase the rapid evolution of new digital and emerging media measurement techniques. The research industry needs to keep pace with the consumer. Every conference is an opportunity to show that our media measurement techniques and knowledge are evolving at the pace of our consumers and the media landscape.

What are some of the topics you will want to emphasis at the Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit that pertains to ‘Digital Media Optimization + Metrics’?
As the Internet has evolved, it has become a very cluttered space. Consumers are ignoring digital ads, making it more and more difficult to capture their attention with brand communication. At the same time, the dynamic nature of the internet provides a perfect testing ground to optimize creative, real-time to generate the strongest consumer response to our brand ads. My presentation at the conference will explore the power of optimization tools to generate the strongest consumer engagement with digital brand communication.

Mad Men 360: Augmented Reality Breaks New Ground in Advertising

By Ron Callari

Mobile Advertising will set some new ground rules that will differentiate it from traditional ads in other mediums. Brands and advertising agencies are in development now to determine how to engage and target audiences to interact with a product or service using augmented reality overlays. Experience dating back to the Mad Men of the 1960s has shown that engagement moves the consumer from idea and awareness to familiarity and sale. Augmented Reality aids that process in ways not thought of, even a few years ago.

Working with mobile devices, augmented reality is used to overlay information markers from the virtual world onto real-life images. For example, street scenes can be enhanced where augmented reality applications apply overlaid context, images and/or videos relating to a business establishment’s pricing and promotions.

Augmented reality is a valuable adjunct to any type of marketing campaign.  However it hasn’t reached critical mass yet in terms of how many users can and will use it when it’s made available. This year, marketers will be looking closer at integrating AR to move their marketing message(s) forward. While there are presently no ad agencies that devote themselves solely to mobile augmented reality advertising, there are several new firms, consulting groups and brands that are experimenting within this space.

Tina Whitfield, CEO of EquisGlobal is one of the new breed of marketing firms testing the waters in this new arena. Her company is described as “a flexible organization that easily plays a ground game, gets dirty, goes guerilla, and drives impressive consumer acquisition numbers.” In a recent EConsultancy article titled Augmented Reality for Mobile Advertising, she espouses the need for augmented reality to reach beyond the ‘cool factor’ to become a ‘pleasant experience” in motivating new users.
In a recent interview with Whitfield, she talks about a dichotomy as to what software engineers are focused on versus ad agencies. “Creative agencies are trying to dance their way through technology and technology agencies are trying to sing their way through the science of branding,” she notes.

She asserts that mobile marketers need to embrace, hire, and learn from engineering and product management talent that are working on mobile handset development. “The data is there - tons of it - on how users like to engage with the mobile screen.  You don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing a single handset without due diligence,” she says.

With such a small viewing screen, it would seem that smartphones aren’t the most ideal medium to view augmented reality ads. Whitfield disagrees. “Users who just want to see the world through that screen” might find the AR data feeds and overlays as clutter, but those who are seeking out data fields “find value in AR mobile advertising to assist them in finding restaurants, bars, emergency rooms and other types of facilities,” she says.

Users’ experiences vary, “but clutter is the result of the brand not standing out in proper balance to the scenery.” notes Whitfield. Too many, ads dropped into a street scene can be a turn-off and she emphasizes that, “most app developers wouldn’t allow this to happen, nor would most brand marketers.”

5th Finger is a firm that helps brands navigate the diverse technologies in the mobile space. When CEO, Patrick Collins compares AR ads to traditional online ads, he sees them having “less clutter.”  “On the web, most people are attuned to shutting out the clutter of ads around their content. The experience is newer and more engaging on the smartphone and so click-thru rates tend to be an order of magnitude higher with mobile advertising when compared to online advertising,” he asserts.

With the new tablets soon to be released to the public, perhaps the larger screens these devices offer will overcome the small viewing screen hurdle. While Apple’s new iPad will not include a camera, the HP Tablet and the Dell Mini 5 (with a screen slightly larger than and iPhone) might be the answer. While Whitfield dismisses this option due to the weight of these devices being too cumbersome, Christopher Barger, director of global social media for General Motors says “larger viewing screens are definitely a great feature of tablets and they certainly set the stage for a second application renaissance and plenty of opportunities for Chevy products.”

Barger believes augmented reality mobile advertising is another avenue to support brand awareness versus creating a cause-and-effect sales transaction.  He points to the example of cars being a consumer’s ’second largest purchase decision in life.’ While mobile augmented advertising will not sell the vehicle outright, it will “continue to shape the brand’s image in conjunction with wider advertising, marketing and PR initiatives,” says Barger.

Barger’s team recently launched a mobile augmented reality campaign titled, ‘Chevy iReveal.’ It was inspired by location-app games like Foursquare, one of the current location-based social networks. GM’s marketing initiative promotes a virtual treasure hunt for consumers to unlock GPS-coordinates of hidden vehicles in cities across the U.S.

When the user is in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle, the ‘virtual’ car will be revealed and appear in the real world setting. Once unlocked, it may be a Camaro in Times Square, or a Volt in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

The incentive to keep using the app, is the ’surprise factor’ relating to the updates GM will be adding with each new vehicle they include in the program, as well as new functionality that will offer users the opportunity to view ‘interiors’ and hear new ’sound effects.’

The Beta version of this mobile app will debut at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas beginning March 12. GM will incorporate learnings from the Beta and enhance the application, releasing the full application in Detroit, New York and Los Angeles in April. New vehicles and new locations will be added subsequently throughout 2010. Updates will be posted to Facebook.com/Chevrolet.
The Chevy iReveal initiative is similar to an AR Ad campaign launched by Ikea in 2009, where their AR ‘Portable Interior Planner’ application gave customers the ability to see exactly how Ikea furniture could look in their homes prior to a purchase. Designed by the advertising firm of Ogilvy in partnership with the development group Mindmatic, photos of a room in one’s home taken by a smartphone merge with the app to insert the ‘un-purchased’ furniture into the room.  In this case, a clock was placed into a potential consumer’s living room.

Since AR mobile advertising is a relatively new marketing technique, there has not been a lot of tracking or analysis pertaining to ROI. Collins notes that “to track ROI on early technologies like this is simply too difficult given the early experimentation occurring - no two experiences are the same, so trying to develop standard measurements for them is less useful.”

Barger also feels calculating ROI should not necessarily be the sole objective. App downloads, vehicle awareness, positive branding, app rating reviews, user time spent on the app and positive press about the app are all important components, but these types of campaigns will pay dividends over time, as GM continues to live and engage in this new technology. “This is not a comprehensive, catch-all application for Chevrolet. It is just one (fun) way for Chevy to engage with tomorrow’s car buyers on their own turf,” he says.

In my recent article titled, “Real-Time Augmented Reality: Future or Fantasy?“ it was apparent that the AR language was still under development and at present there was no universal standard code accepted by all developers. Similar to HTML, it will probably take a number of years before a consensus is reached on ARML. However Whitfield did not see this as a hindrance for agencies and brands in using this new technology. “Advertisers should not be picking up ‘AR for Dummies’ to code an app,” she jests. “They need to hire a development shop or developers who are skilled in mobile software development with engineering degrees and expertise in the field to develop their apps and embed the code into the advertising.”

Barger believes it would be easier if “it were standardized to paint all smartphone users with the same brush.” However, with a segmented audience, it forces us to look closely at our core demographic and how to best reach them, no matter what device they are using,” he adds.

For those looking to learn more about AR in mobile advertising, Whitfield suggests attending Cellular Telecommunications Association and Mobile World Congress annual events while both Barger and Collins recommend SXSW that’s held in Austin every March.

Pinpointing the Future of Geo APIs

By Ron Callari

Geolocation APIs are flourishing and third-party API developers are multiplying faster than bunnies on a hot spring day. Twitter’s acquisition of Mixers Labs and GeoAPI have a lot to do with this exponential activity, but other APIs and location-based-services have been flourishing on their own paths as well.

Facebook is sitting back examining the digital landscape before making a move. Couple this with the heated smartphone explosion in the last 12 months, and you have a perfect digital storm brewing on the horizon. 2010 may be the Chinese Year of the Tiger, but it’s also the Year of the API.

It’s no longer good enough to know “what’s happening” a la Twitter circa 2006-2009 - now according to CEO Evan Williams, it’s more important to know “where it’s happening.” Noted in his “Mixing It Up at 795 Folsom St ” blog, 2010 will be the year that “the Twitter API integrates its platform with new and existing apps the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.”

What geolocation brings to the table that has somewhat stalled the traditional social networks of Twitter and Facebook is a quicker means to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. With smartphones came cameras and GPS systems allowing for an easy and direct conduit to local advertising for shops, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions and a multitude of other businesses. In turn, APIs that open their platforms to the public can grow their reach and the diversity of that reach with newer monetization models.

So while some call geolocation one step closer to ‘improved stalking,’ others believe that there will be a paradigm shift and a more relaxed definition as to what privacy means to us in the year 2010.

Let’s take a look at today’s most shiny thing as seen through the eyes of third-party developers, CEOs and other thought-leaders in the soon-to-be-very-crowded location-based space.

Andrei Taraschuk, Founder | UMapper
The big idea behind UMapper is enabling its customers to manage the entire map life cycle from creation to monetization. With UMapper you can create, distribute, track and monetize maps. In addition, UMapper is map-agnostic framework - meaning it works with different map data providers including Bing, Google, Yahoo and OpenStreetMap.

In questioning Taraschuk as to how UMapper works with Twitter’s GeoAPI, he notes, “We used the Twitter search API with a geographic filter, which can search tweets in a specific location / radius.” Basically a simple platform to work with, “The GeoAPI implements Twitter’s search methods making it very easy for integration with Flash we used Tweetr ActionScript library.”

Users can create UMapper/Twitter maps that in turn can be embedded on their websites or Facebook pages. Others have used them to enhance blogs and news articles. “For example, if you are writing an article about a flood, you can create a Twitter map that shows people tweeting about flood in the area,” Taraschuk says.

Paul Hallett, CEO | Schmap
Hallett makes an interesting observation regarding what he calls the “geoparsing” of content shared on social networks. He points to the example of the wealth of local information that is shared in the body of tweets. “People tweet about great restaurant experiences, bands tweet about gigs, bars are tweeting about happy hours and so on,” he says.

The challenge for the app developer then comes down to filtering and deciphering. If someone tweets “Cool bash tonight at Joe’s,” has that person just returned from a private party at a friend’s house, or is there some kind of event coming up at Joe’s Bar? What is the event? Where is Joe’s Bar, and who might this information be relevant to?

According to Hallett, “there’s an epic commercial migration taking place right now at the intersection of ‘local’ and ’social’.” The same local restaurants, bars, shops (i.e. SMBs) that took 10 years to discover the Internet are now adapting to Twitter and Facebook with a much greater speed.” At Schmap.it, “we make it easier for these SMBs to reach local audiences, and help these target groups to discover vibrant, real-time local content,” affirms Hallett.

Jean-Francois Noel, CEO | 3rd Crust /SeeYourHotel.com
In working with Twitter’s API, 3rd Crust developed two apps that were both based on search/tracking to view where people wanted to go on vacations. According to Noel, “Twitter’s search API is very easy to use and the technical hurdles are minor.” The app provides location points and those points are added to tweets. However Noel feels that Twitter is somewhat limiting when compared to Google’s new social network product, Buzz. With Buzz, there is the ability to be more precise with one’s location and what is nearby. “In fact,” notes Noel, “I see this possibility as one of the best aspects for Buzz on the mobile devices and a problem for Foursquare.”

SeeYourHotel.com is a Web app designed to let you make your accommodations with ease, whether you are traveling for business or pleasure. Using the power and ease of Google Maps technology, you can now find a hotel, then view actual photos of the rooms and facilities, compare with other hotels nearby and then make your reservations all from one convenient site.

Keith Lee, CEO | Booyah & Founder of MyTown
With the location-based social network of MyTown reaching its recent milestone of one million registered users, Keith Lee sees the intersection of the real and digital worlds opening up new forms of monetization and branding opportunities with real-world tie-ins. According to Lee, “the ability to serve geo-targeted advertising and to engage consumers with brands on a local level is the holy grail for marketers. For Booyah, we now have the ability to offer branded virtual items based on proximity to real-world retail locations.”

One of the major limitations with today’s geolocation apps is “the inaccuracy of GPS at indoor environments such as malls. This is a problem since a significant number of shops in the US tend to be indoors. Moreover, it’s challenging to determine if you’re inside the store instead of just outside the store,” Lee adds.

While MyTown does not use Twitter’s GeoAPI, it does use GPS features to check-in at real-world locations to unlock virtual rewards. Players can then buy and upgrade to real-world shops, and enjoy MyTown ownership of their favorite real-life places. The more a place is frequented, the more it raises your shops’ value and rent. It’s a fully dynamic market economy and MyTown leverages the CitySearch API as its local directory to search for nearby restaurants, stores, and other points of interest.

Keith Dutton, CTO | Geodelic Systems
Dutton believes the geolocation APIs have significant potential, as they offer other dimensions that brings targeted, relevant information to users in a specific context. “However, with all the excitement of location specific information, it is important to remember that location is just one more dimension, though obviously a very important one, to relevancy,” Dutton notes. He cites as an example, using a geolocal coupon API. “While we receive a set of local coupons, to create a positive user experience, we still need to prioritize those coupons with additional analysis along traditional dimensions,” he says.

Geodelic’s app proactively shows what is likely to be of interest to a user in his local area. The app’s raw data consists of national geotagged databases, proprietary partner feeds, public partner feeds, live geolocal API calls, hand edited content, and will soon be rolling out a general public facing content publishing system. All this is run through a search engine that takes into account your personal interest profile to highlight points of interest around you. Their many data sources allow Geodelic to augment the API information, so that when an API locates a datum on a local business, it can match it to that local business and present a unified set of enriched information about it.

Dan Gilmartin | Where/Ulocate.com
Gilmartin see the location-base service market becoming more streamlined over time. “As a company that has been developing mobile location based applications since our inception in 2003, we saw early on, a developer had to have a relationship with a carrier, then pass a series of tests in order to get access to the location infrastructure. Today, developers can get access to location from device manufacturers as well as aggregators and the possibilities become endless,” he ascertains.

Where.com’s consumer value proposition is to deliver the best in class local search and discovery experience, through the aggregation of top data feeds. They combine their content into a user friendly application and based on the users’ location and context, they provide the user with distinct offers and deals from local merchants.  Ultimately their goal is to connect consumers and merchants who will have access to a network that delivers location services to users without the need to have them download an application.

Kent Lindstrom, CEO | Oogalabs.com/PlacePop
Lindstrom was the former founder and CEO of Friendster. When he became enamored with location-based social networks, he hired the head of Google Asia Pacific to run Friendster and founded OogaLabs to develop PlacePop, his initial entree’ into the LBS space. Competing head-on with the widely popular Foursquare and Gowalla, Lindstrom’s vision is predicated on providing users with a “dead-simple app” that reduces the mobile location experience to its essence, “much like Facebook did compared to MySpace,” he says.

While he is not yet working with Twitter’s GeoAPI nor does PlacePop have it own API, he finds the development of geolocation an arduous challenge - but one that PlacePop is up for. “For example just to do a “check-in,” it requires multiple systems to work in tandem; namely:  GPS, the phone network itself, the app, a geolocation database, then that all has to be sent back to the phone, in just a few seconds,” Lindstrom notes.

When asking Lindstrom as to how he will differentiate PlacePop from the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and MyTown who all gained a foothold in the market last year, he sees it as such: “In my experience, the first movers rarely end up winning, because of the enormous burden of pioneering. Lycos, Powells.com and even his own former company Friendster were all eventually exceeded by the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook.”

Zak Tanjeloff, Founder | Brring.com & NearToHere
Tanjeloff has not worked with Twitter’s GeoAPI. His alert service called NearToHere has been developed on the Wikipedia API. The challenges he sites in developing geolocation apps points to the “inability for iPhone apps to run in the background - meaning that unless our apps are running, we do not have access to geolocation data, and therefore, cannot deliver relevant content all the time,” he cautions. However he is very enthusiastic about embracing the enormous possibilities of geolocation apps. “With the availability of tremendous APIs to small developers like myself, we are able to build products, seemingly once only available for James Bond, in a quick, efficient, and most importantly, inexpensive manner.”

In considering collaboration with other location-based social network Tanjeloff says, “we are going to continue to layer more content into NearToHere to make it a more robust experience for the user.” Since we are a travel guide, in addition to Wikipedia content, we will next be layering in Yelp’s geolocated content to provide reviews of local business to users as they pass them.”

Tim Napoleon, Co-Founder/President | AllDigital, Inc.
AllDigital offers software and online services that enables the secure transport of digital content to IP-enabled devices including mobile computing devices, the desktop computer, and digital televisions.

In discussing geolocation challenges with Napoleon, he firmly believes that “The biggest issue with GEO data is end user perception. It needs to be really clear how this data is being used or the industry risks consumers disabling the feature,” he says. He sees the ubiquitous nature of geo-information affecting almost every Web page or application we use. “The widest use case is ‘ad targeting’ and ‘right restriction on Premium Content’,” notes Napoleon, where, “the granularity of mobile data is really providing media companies with new ways of pin-pointing users.”

As with so many early-stage social network platforms, extending the service with secondary applications is what makes the functionality truly useful. GeoAPI and the other geolocation APIs mentioned by our experts is a work in progress and as all have indicated, there is a lot more work that needs to be done. With Twitter and Facebook holding their developers conferences two weeks apart in April, I am sure the momentum for API development will kick into high gear shortly thereafter.

As to what major platform will lead the ‘geolocation’ charge by year-end, Booyah’s Keith Lee seems to think if “Facebook decided to incorporate a check-in process into their own API, it will have the capability of destroying all other check-in functionality (found in the majority of location-based social networks) because no one will be able to compete with their 400M+ social graph.” Others think Twitter and their acquisition of Mixer Labs’ GeoAPI will be the major catalyst to give them a leg-up in the geolocation universe.

With success comes consolidation. Potentially some or all the API development firms mentioned here may eventually be absorbed. Schmap’s Hallett is actually planning for that end-game as part of his exit strategy. He believes it’s extremely important that the smaller players like his company Schmap need to “establish defensible positions” to prepare for that outcome. He argues, “My point here is that when a smaller location-service player fails to establish a defensible position (erects little in the way of competitive barriers), then the big guys don’t need to acquire, they can just compete and squash it.”  However, “If the position is defensible, because the smaller player has built up a large enough base of loyal clients/users, or because it has certain key elements to its rollout that would prove difficult or time-consuming to replicate, then an acquisition makes more sense.”
The Year of the API may be a long-winding road as a result of geolocation being part of the mix.

2010 API Developers’ Conferences Round-Up

By Ron Callari

This year API developers’ conferences are flourishing as Web and Mobile Platforms are expanding the playing field. From well-attended repeat events like MacWorld and Apple’s WWDC to first-time events like Twitter’s Chirp event, official conferences for third-party developers will cover mobile devices, OAuth, geolocation, enterprise applications and much more.

In layman’s terms, to understand Application Program Interfaces (API) in its simplest form - it’s analogous to relying on others to perform functions that you may not be able or permitted to do by yourself, such as opening a bank safety deposit box. Similarly, virtually all software has to request other software to perform some functions to extend its usage potential.

The practice of publishing APIs has allowed web communities to create an open architecture for sharing of content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that is created in one place can be dynamically posted and/or updated in multiple locations on the Web.

This year’s round-up of developers’ conferences is listed here chronologically.

360|iDev
April 11-14
San Jose Convention Center
San Jose, Calif.

360|iDev started in San Jose, March of 2009, and will be back in April of 2010. The Silicon Valley is exploding with iPhone development companies and iPhone related startups. After the initial success of their first 360|iDev, 360|iDev San Jose plans to build and expand on that momentum this year. The intent of the conference is to bring the best and brightest minds in the development community together for 3 days of intensive sessions, social interaction, best practices and innovative new ideas.

TWITTER Chirp
April 14-15
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, Calif.

Twitter’s first official conference for developers, Chirp was just scheduled for April 14-15 and will cost developers $469. It’s a two-day event with a conference covering OAuth, geolocation and streaming, among other topics, and then a 24-hour hack day for first-time developers to work with seasoned pros. There are only 800 seats available, so developers who have not signed up yet, are encouraged to do so at the earliest.

FACEBOOK f8 2010
April 21-22
San Francisco, Calif.

According to their fan page, on May 24, 2007, Facebook launched their Facebook Platform alongside 800 developers and entrepreneurs at their first f8 conference in San Francisco. Many developers built the innovative applications which paved the way for future development. Today, there are over 500,000 applications on Facebook.com, and over 300 of those have more than one million users each.

This year will be Facebook’s third f8, to be held in San Francisco on April 21-22, 2010.

Become a fan of their f8 Page on Facebook to get updates and information (including how to register) as they make these announcements. Check out the videos and photos from prior f8 conferences and developers can also share their stories and experiences from the past.

GOOGLE I/O
May 19-20
Moscone West
San Francisco, Calif.

Google I/O brings together thousands of developers for two days of deep technical content, focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more.

I/O will feature over 80 sessions ranging from introductory talks to deep dives on the nuts and bolts of a particular technology or product. Fireside chats will also return this year, where you can ask questions to Google engineers in an informal, intimate setting.

The Developer Sandbox, first introduced at I/O 2009, returns this year. The Sandbox will feature over 100 developers who have built applications based on technologies and products featured at I/O. These developers will be on hand to demo their apps, talk about how they built them, answer questions, and exchange ideas.

WEBAPPS ‘10
USENIX Conference on Web Application Development
June 23-25
Boston, Mass.

Since 1975, the USENIX Association has brought together a community of engineers, system administrators, scientists, and technicians working on the cutting edge of the computing world.

Join them for the first USENIX Conference on Web Application Development. WebApps ‘10 is a new technical conference designed to bring together experts in all aspects of developing and deploying Web applications. Web-based applications are revolutionizing both the features that can be delivered and the technologies for developing and deploying applications.  The full program will be available at their Web site some time in March 2010. Check out their Web site for announcement details.

APPLE
World Wide Developers Conference 2010
Moscone Center, San Francisco
June 28-July 2

According to a Wikipedia listing, the WWDC 2010 venue is unknown at the present time, but the conference will, in most likelihood, be held in California as an Apple “corporate event” has been scheduled at the normal WWDC venue, the Moscone Center, for June 28 through July 2.  Information on last year’s event can be found at their 2009 event website.

MICROSOFT
Microsoft Professional Developers Conference
(No venue or date scheduled at the time of this posting)

Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference (or PDC) is a conference for Windows developers.

It covers new and upcoming technology from Microsoft, and so only occurs in the years when there is something new to talk about. The conference is typically hosted by the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, Calif.

The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is Microsoft’s premier gathering of leading-edge developers and architects. Attendees come from around the world to learn about the future of Microsoft’s developer platform, exchange ideas with Microsoft technology experts, and network with fellow professionals. This is the conference you need to attend if you want to stay ahead of the curve, and get a head start on planning your company’s products and technology investments.

Microsoft’s PR department has indicated that interested parties can learn more about the future conference dates, industry-leading speakers and registration info by visiting their website.

BLACKBERRY Developer Conference
September 27-30
Marriott Marquis
San Francisco, Calif.

Stay up-to-date on what’s coming up at the 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference. The conference is a dedicated forum for the developer community to immerse itself in all aspect of creating consumer and business applications for the BlackBerry platform.

What you’ll take home is some of the following:

• The inside scoop on developing for the BlackBerry platform and the very latest in software, hardware and tools from RIM and its partners
• Invaluable information directly from RIM experts who will personally share their expertise
• First-hand experiences from developers who have successfully created, integrated and managed wireless applications
• Best practices from industry leaders to shortcut development cycles and drive new applications to market

For readers who have been involved with any of these conferences, feel free to provide us with your feedback. And if there are any Developer Conferences not listed here that you feel are significant, please comment on that as well.

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