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Monetising your applications: Part two: in-app payment and direct commercialisation

Following on from part one of our look at monetising applications, it's time to look at the most prevalent method. The direct sale of the application, be it from a shareware model or the dual nature of lite/full applications in an App Store, to time limited apps and in-app purchasing, there are a number of choices to get the money straight out of the user's wallet.

# Posted by Ewan in Develop at 11:00 UTC, Aug 4th || Comments

Monetising your applications: Part one: introduction

The modern smartphone landscape places a huge emphasis on third party applications, but those applications don't simply appear. The developers behind them need to make a living, or at least justify their investment of time. The monetisation of apps is at the forefront of many in the industry, including us here at All About Symbian. Over the next month or so, we're going to look at monetising applications, the choices open to developers, best practices and implementation strategies. First up, an overview of the landscape as it stands today, and how we got here.

# Posted by Ewan in Develop at 10:45 UTC, Jul 27th || Comments

Qt in the mix: An interview with Chris Watt of TigerSpike

TigerSpike is a Sydney, Australia, based business — with offices in London and New York — that has been offering solutions in the personal media space for eight years. The company has recently started working with Qt and I (Richard Bloor) caught up with Chris Watt, product director at TigerSpike to find out about the company’s initial impressions.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 20:24 UTC, Jan 30th || Comments

Is Amazon's variable pricing the solution to developer income woes?

While not yet directly relevant to Symbian developers, it looks like Amazon are going to address the issue of mobile app pricing with the launch of their Android App Store (reports Technologizer). Along with the fragmentation of the “Android app story” and leveraging their recommendation engine, Amazon are going to introduce variable pricing of applications. And while that’s the biggest gamble, I’d love to see this on more platforms including Symbian and Meego.

# Posted by Ewan in Comment, Software, Develop at 11:18 UTC, Jan 19th || Comments

In-app ads currently a fiasco, (much) more imagination needed

The pendulum swings regularly in the software world, with different ways of making money from software being in 'vogue'. The latest fashion, somewhat predictably, with most applications and games needing a price of 'free' in order to get serious numbers of downloads, is to put adverts inside the app or game and rely on income from these to bring in a similar amount of money to that which you'd have expected if you'd tried to sell the item by more conventional means. The concept is indeed sound - but I'm finding the implementation often lacking. What's needed is more imagination.

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Software, Develop at 11:47 UTC, Jan 18th || Comments

Nokia, taking apps local

While “global” apps, such as Foursquare app and games such as Hero of Sparta HD, grab the headlines, local apps and services play a significant role in Nokia’s future. The new local app focus was revealed at Nokia World in September. Last week I got the opportunity to see how it’s starting to play out at the grass roots, in the form of the inaugural Forum Nokia developer breakfast in Auckland, New Zealand.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 9:15 UTC, Nov 10th || Comments

The future of the Symbian platform

Last week Nokia announced a focus on Qt as its sole developer framework across both MeeGo and Symbian and that Symbian would move to a continuous improvement model, with Nokia building future applications and user interface in Qt. Developers were promised that there would be no binary compatibility break and consumers were told that many future improvements would be compatible with, and available for, existing Symbian^3 devices. In this feature article we look at some of the technical details, which explain how some of this will work.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Software, Develop at 16:36 UTC, Oct 26th || Comments

The top ten software gaps for developers to exploit

With the upswing of developer interest in the new Symbian^3 platform, one of the questions that might be lingering in their minds is “what could I write for Symbian?” With all the promise of millions of devices and a perceived empty application store, what titles and areas should a developer concentrate on to make a big splash in the market?

# Posted by Ewan in Software, Develop at 13:59 UTC, Sep 24th || Comments

Vodafone's Vitorri Colao on mobile usage

David Gilson sat in on Vodafone's Vitorri Colao's keynote yesterday, at Nokia World 2010. He spoke about real world mobile usage and what needs to be done to increase this, in both existing and developing markets, breaking down what mobile consumers currently do and where Vodafone would like to see the market move. Overall, it's a useful snapshot of the 2010 mobile world across the globe - at least, as seen by Big Red.

# Posted by David in Comment, Software, Develop at 11:39 UTC, Sep 15th || Comments

Can the cloud replace mobile applications?

David Gilson explores the relative benefits of native applications and cloud applications, both from a consumer point of view, and from the point of view of the developers who ultimately supply our applications. Will the cloud replace the traditional app?

# Posted by David in Comment, Software, Develop at 17:08 UTC, Jul 18th

MWC Video Content

List of video content from MWC related to Symbian as part of the AAS / Mobile Industry Review collaboration.

# Posted by Rafe in Interviews, Comment, Profiles, Software, Develop, Hardware at 18:37 UTC, Feb 28th

Supporting developers through diversity

Ulf Wretling is a nineteen year veteran of Ericsson and Sony Ericsson. He headed up Sony Ericsson’s developer program for a number of years and recently has been responsible for setting up the processes to manage third-party application sales through PlayNow arena.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 7:55 UTC, Dec 8th || 1 Comment

Ovi Developer Day

Rafe reports back from the recent (September 2009) Ovi Developer Day in London.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Develop at 13:19 UTC, Sep 30th

WRT � Another arrow or killer weapon?

Web development standards — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — are a front runner in the quest to provide an accessible development environment for Symbian. However, Web Runtime (WRT) has its limitations and, across the industry as a whole, is rather fragmented. So, how is Symbian working to make WRT a viable choice for developers?

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 8:21 UTC, Sep 16th || 1 Comment

Members matter: A discussion with Lauren Sarno, Member Programs at Symbian Foundation

Any open source project lives or dies by its members, whether those members are active contributors to the code base or provide support in other ways. The Symbian Foundation is no different. The responsibility for building and maintaining membership of the Symbian Foundation falls on the shoulders of Lauren Sarno.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 22:39 UTC, Aug 20th || 0 Comments

Mobile Development � For Everyone

Betavine, the Vodafone mobile developer site, is currently running a web widget competition. For once a mobile development competition is truly open to any developer; no special tools (beyond those supplied free by Betavine) or signing is required.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 21:56 UTC, Apr 16th || 0 Comments

Nokia Developer Summit 2009

The Nokia Developer Summit, being held in Monaco at the end of this month, is the first event that brings all aspects of development for Nokia devices together. Srikanth Raju, head of marketing for Forum Nokia, offers some insight.

# Posted by Richard in Develop at 8:38 UTC, Apr 15th || 1 Comment

Symbian Foundation � Challenges and Opportunities

As we rapidly approach the formal opening of the Symbian Foundation, I caught up with Thibaut Rouffineau, Head of Community and Program at Symbian Foundation, to discuss the challenges and opportunities in setting-up to support developers and the role of academia in the software industry.

# Posted by Richard in Interviews, Develop at 7:59 UTC, Mar 17th || 3 Comments

Alternative business models for commercial software

Until now commercial software has generally been based around the traditional business model of selling a product directly to the user. Piracy is seen as a threat to this business model, and many commercial publishers have responded to this with various kinds of DRM, but are there alternatives to the model which could make piracy irrelevant? All About Symbian takes a look at some candidates...

# Posted by Tzer2 in Comment, Software, Develop at 10:06 UTC, Aug 22nd || 7 Comments

So How Much Is A Game Worth?

You've written your Killer App, now it's a matter of selling it. But at what cost? Ewan thinks about the issue of pricing games and applications in the modern world. In response Steve points out the true cost of gaming and argues that purchase price is almost irrelevant.

# Posted by Ewan in Comment, Develop at 0:50 UTC, Jul 17th || 11 Comments

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