If you haven’t heard our trumpets blasting over the past few weeks, you may be interested to know that DiscoveryBeat 2010 is coming up on Monday. And it’s about time we posted our final agenda.
DiscoveryBeat 2010 is an event focused on the secret recipes for application discovery and monetization. Our newest speakers represent vital parts of the ecosystem, from investors to app creators and experts who cover the space. Due to its success in 2009, the conference has expanded to a full-day event and will be held on October 18 at The Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Get your tickets here.
For publishers or app developers, the promise of the mobile and social revolution is compelling. However, new players like Google’s Android are throwing out the early rules and creating new challenges in the ecosystem. How do you get discovered when there are 250,000 other publishers and applications fighting for users across diverse devices and interfaces, such as the PC, social networks, mobile phones, and tablets? We’ve summed up what we’ve learned so far about discovery techniques in a new VentureBeat feature, the Discovery Directory. We’ll be updating that story after the conference.
Without further ado, here’s the agenda:
9:00 am Coffee & Networking
9:30 am Welcoming Remarks – Dean Takahashi, lead GamesBeat writer at VentureBeat, and Matt Marshall, Founder & Editor-in Chief of VentureBeat, will kick off the event.
9:40 am Fireside Chat – Beyond FarmVille: How Brands Can Unlock New Game Categories on Facebook
It’sbeen a year since EA bought Playfish for $400 million and the two companies have begun launching branded social games. Where is this going and what are the implications for app discovery?
>> Moderator: Matthew Bellows, Founder, Yesware
>> Sebastien de Halleux, Co-Founder, Playfish
10:00 am Panel – Show Me The Money
It’s not enough to create an addicting app–you’ve got to squeeze cash out of wallets. How do you go from free to paid? When do you use in-app virtual good sales? Master money hounds share their secrets.
>> Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, VentureBeat
>> Lee Linden, Co-Founder & VP of Business Development, Tapjoy
>> Peter Farago, VP of Marketing, Flurry
>> Aunkur Arya, Mobile Partnerships, Google
>> Sunil Verma, Co-Founder, Mobclix
10:30 Case Studies in Getting Noticed (Round 1)
App rockstars unveil their strategies for making it to the top of the charts.
>> Moderator: Dean Takahashi, Lead GamesBeat Writer, VentureBeat
>> Julian Farrior, CEO, BackFlip Studios
>> Dave Castelnuovo, CEO, Bolt Creative
11:00 am Break
11:15 am Panel — Investing in Discovery: What are the Opportunities to Create a Killer App Company?
Where have the big investments already been made to grease the process of app discovery? What are the small ideas? What are the ideas that are big enough to warrant investments?
>> Moderator: Owen Thomas, Executive Editor, VentureBeat
>> Jennifer Scott Fonstad, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
>> Peter Relan, Founder, YouWeb
>> Bing Gordon, Partner, KPCB
>> Savinay Berry, VP, Granite Ventures
11:45 am Panel — Virality on Viagra: Turning Your App into an Infectious Disease
It’s time to replicate the social virality of Facebook on iPhone, Android, and other platforms. Here are the companies making it possible for apps to spread across platforms like an epidemic.
>> Moderator: Charles Hudson, Former VP of Business Development, Serious Business
>> Si Shen, CEO, PapayaMobile
>> Marc Gumpinger, CEO, Scoreloop
>> Jason Citron, CEO, Aurora Feint
>> Kabir Kasargod, Founder & Business Development Lead, Vive Service (Qualcomm Services Labs)
12:15 pm Lunch Break (downstairs in Fisher room; don’t miss the free ice cream man’s truck outside)
1:30 pm Panel — Big Media Gets Moving
Heavyweight brands are chasing eyeballs and attention (and dollars) onto the superphone. Big Media has hailed mobile devices like the iPad as a savior for brands, as consumers move from a search-based internet to an app-based one, which reinforces the value of brand recognition. How are the big boys innovating, and what are their strategies for getting traction in an open app store ecosystem.
>> Moderator: Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Social Games
>> Tim O’Brien, VP of Business Development, Disney Mobile
>> Travis Boatman, VP of Worldwide Studios, EA Mobile
>> James De Jesus, Creative Development Director, AKQA
>> Garrick Schmitt, Managing Director, Razorfish
2:00 pm Presentation — Turning Data Into Rocket Fuel: How Analytics can Help You go Viral
Who is your biggest audience, and where are they? What do your superusers care about, what makes them share, and when do you need to message them? Here’s how the most successful app makers use analytics to give their apps for Discovery.
>> Simon Khalaf, CEO, Flurry
2:15 pm Fireside Chat — Using A.I. for Discovery
Can artificial intelligence solve the problems of discovery?
>> Moderator: Dean Takahashi, Lead GamesBeat Writer, VentureBeat
>> William Mark, VP of Information Computing Sciences Division, SRI
2:35 pm Break
2:50 pm Breakout Sessions:
App Discovery and Monetization on iOS and Android (Hosted By Flurry)
>> Sean Galligan, VP of Business Development, Flurry
Indie Discovery Stories
>> Moderator: Anthony Ha, Assistant Editor, VentureBeat
>> Doyon Kim, US head, YD Online
>> Chris Williams, General Manager, Mobile, PlayFirst
>> Justin Maples, Co-Founder & CEO, Broken Thumbs Apps
>> Patrick Mork, chief marketing officer at GetJar
3:30 pm Presentation — Amplify your App: The PR and Social Media Playbook for Developers
Traditional PR doesn’t work in the app world. It’s not enough to get your name in the paper; you need to get social media addicted and talking. This session will include a bulletproof checklist on marketing essentials, the Do’s and Dont’s of App marketing including social media marketing, focus groups, advertising, goal-setting and media relations.
>> Vijay Chattha, Founder & Chief Talker, VSC Consulting & AppLaunchPR
3:40 pm Fireside Chat – Design For Discovery
How do you create the kind of explosive popularity and social trends that Zynga — the #1 social game company on the planet — has been able to achieve? Brian Reynolds will share Zynga’s secrets to runaway success and discuss his company’s plans to expand its presence across multiple platforms.
>> Moderator: Dean Takahashi, Lead GamesBeat Writer, VentureBeat
>> Brian Reynolds, Chief Game Designer, Zynga
4:15 pm Case Studies in Getting Noticed (Round 2)
App rockstars unveil their strategies for making it to the top of the charts.
>> Moderator: Anand Iyer, Director of Product Management – Mobile, IGN Entertainment
>> Arjun Sethi, CEO, LOLapps
>> “Needle in the Haystack” Contest Winner: Dave Smiddy, Infrinity
4:35 pm Fireside Chat — The Amazing Foursquare Discovery Recipe
Holger Luedorf, Foursquare’s VP of Mobile Partnerships, will discuss how the company generated amazing attention from millions of users without the aid of initial venture financing, to the frustration of many of its foes.
>> Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, VentureBeat
>> Holger Luedorf, VP of Mobile Partnerships, Foursquare
5:00 pm Panel — App King-Makers
What are the apps that get to the top of your charts doing to get there? What new discovery tools are in store for 2011?
>> Moderator: Yukari Kane, Staff Reporter, Wall Street Journal
>> Ben Keighran, Founder & CEO, Chomp
>> Alan Warms, CEO, Appolicious
>> Laura Fitton, Founder, oneforty
>> Chris DeVore, Executive Chairman, Mobilmeme (AppStoreHQ, iPhoneDevSDK)
5:30 pm Reception
Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. Join us at DiscoveryBeat 2010 and hear secrets from top industry executives about how to break through and profit in the new cross-platform app ecosystem. From metrics to monetization, we’ll take an in-depth look at the best discovery strategies and why they’re working. See the full agenda here. The conference takes place on October 18 at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Sponsors include Flurry, Appolicious, appbackr, Adobe, Herakles Data Center, AppLaunchPr, YD Online, and Offermobi. For sponsor info, send an email to sponsors@venturebeat.com. To register, click here. Hurry though. Tickets are limited, and going fast.
Next Story: Evidence builds for smaller 11.6-inch Apple MacBook Air unveiling next week Previous Story: enLighted gets $1.4M to reduce energy use in commercial buildings
“It remains to be seen if it’s good in the long run but what’s exciting is Amazon has proven the ability to move product,” said Ben Gottlieb, president of mobile app maker Stand Alone Inc. “It all depends on the implementation. But if they live up to what they say, we can make more money.”
That’s a real issue. Gottlieb, who sells a crossword app, says he makes 20-30 times more selling his apps in the App Store compared to Android Market. It’s gotten a little better lately, but it’s still discouraging trying to sell in Android Market, which has more than 80,000 apps. Developers like Gottlieb say the store needs more recommendation and discovery tools, more categories, a better check-out system and more marketing muscle. These are all things that Amazon could immediately address.
Arron La, maker of the Advanced Task Manager app, said Amazon could help ignite sales by giving better recommendation tips and making checkouts easier for users. He said Google Checkout can be a nightmare at times, sometimes charging people multiple times for one app. A reliable and familiar system like Amazon’s could prompt people to open up their wallets, something they don’t do that much of in the Android Market. He also hopes that Amazon will do more to promote apps and advertise its app store, which Google has shied away from.
Google, for its part, is working on a number of changes, including a new web-based Android Market and a reported deal with PayPal for payments. And it just expanded the number of countries that can buy paid apps.Even with those improvements, La feels better about Amazon because the company seems more committed to making money, something Google seems less interested in. Google claims it doesn’t make any money from Android Market.
“Once you have the right things in place and you get that ecosystem going, you can definitely make money out of it,” he said. “But that’s been what’s hurting Android Market. Everyone using Google devices, they want and expect everything for free. When Google released Android market, they had no paid apps in the beginning.”
To be sure, an Amazon Android store or a similar market from Verizon Wireless could be a headache for developers. Developers would have to get in the habit of submitting and updating apps in multiple markets. Users might get confused as to who to turn to for apps or support. Amazon will have the ability to turn down apps and has stated it won’t approve offensive or pornographic content. It could lead to some gripes from developers about rejected apps, similar to complaints about the App Store, and it’s unclear if it will be as easy as one click to buy an app and get it on an Android device.
If Amazon proves to be a real player in the app market, expect a lot of developers to look Amazon’s way. They’ll be happy to get something closer to an App Store experience for their apps. “Apple is about the making the whole experience pleasant while Google is just focused on getting the job done and it’s not always pretty,” Gottlieb said. “Amazon is somewhere in between and it’s definitely closer to Apple than Google.”
Related research from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):
- Why Google Launched App Inventor
- Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?
- Why Carriers Still Hold the Key to Handset Sales
internet reputation management
The Facebook <b>News</b> Feed: How it Works,10 Biggest Secrets - The <b>...</b>
How does the social media giant decide who and what to put in your feed? Tom Weber conducts a one-month experiment to break the algorithm, discovering 10 of Facebook's biggest secrets.
<b>News</b> - Insider: Justin Bieber Was "Harassed" at Laser Tag Fight <b>...</b>
"There was an exchange of words and pushing," an observer tells Us of the talked-about incident.
FOR KIDS: Prizes Award Big Ideas About Small Things - Science <b>News</b>
Carbon and IVF win big in this year's Nobel prizes.
No comments:
Post a Comment