Category Archives: Monetization

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New Asha developer competition: you could win big!

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Do you develop apps and content for Nokia Asha Series 40 phones? Interested in winning cash prizes and Nokia promotions? Then the Nokia Asha Developer Competition is for you.

For apps submitted to Nokia Store between now and June 30th, 2013, we’re giving awards for the best apps in four Asha categories: music and entertainment; games; utilities and productivity; and news and information. For each of these categories, we’ll be awarding three cash prizes: 25,000 euros for first place, 15,000 euros for second place, and 10,000 euros for third place. In addition, we have three special prizes of 10,000 euros each for the best user experience, best web app, and best new idea.

To top it all off, we’ll promote winning apps in Nokia channel campaigns and present them in targeted communications to other developers to give the winners even more exposure.

To qualify, your app must be designed to run on Nokia Asha Touch phones, and will ideally use at least one of Nokia’s monetisation methods: in-app purchasing or the Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX). The competition is open to developers from around the world—just make sure you publish in Nokia Store by June 30th, 2013.

Ready to accept the challenge? Then get your app ready and enter the Nokia Asha Developer Competition!

Air Soccer Fever shoots and scores with NAX

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Air soccer fever screenshotFor Dangling Concepts, the US-based developer of Air Soccer Fever, using Nokia Ad Exchange (NAX) to increase the mobile game’s discoverability is a winning move. This past December and January, when Air Soccer Fever was featured in a NAX ad campaign, daily downloads of the game to Windows Phone devices more than doubled, from 1,500 a day to 3,200.

Air Soccer Fever is a casual swipe soccer game available for both Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 smartphones, and Windows 8 tablets. Available in both free and $0.99 (USD) Pro versions, the game can be played by either one or two persons in the same room or by multiple online and Wi-Fi players in real time.

NAX is a private mobile advertising exchange offered by Nokia that offers app developers and publishers access to more than 120 ad agencies and networks worldwide. NAX also lets publishers incorporate in-app advertising and gives them a dashboard to track their apps’ performance. NAX can be used for both free house campaigns aimed at cross-promoting apps and paid campaigns in which developers bid for ad space on the apps of others.

‘Integrating NAX ads was very straightforward’, says Imran Shafiq, president of Dangling Concepts. ‘We had no issues or bugs, so we spent no time in troubleshooting.’

Because Air Soccer Fever is truly a global game – it lets players choose teams from 100 nations around the world—Shafiq uses the NAX dashboard to target specific countries based on their ad prices. ‘The NAX dashboard is one of the best we have seen’, he says. ‘The UI is clean, and it has great features.’

One feature Shafiq finds especially useful within the analytics dashboard is ‘Performance by Country’ option. This shows a breakdown of ads served by country, along with their comparative costs (expressed as cost per thousand, or CPM). ‘That way’, Shafiq explains, ‘we can fine-tune our ad targeting’. The result: In last 2 months, NAX provided 40% of total ad traffic and revenue for Dangling Concepts. This month Shafiq and his team have redirected more traffic to NAX due to great eCPMs as compared to other ad networks. According to Shafiq, NAX will provide 70% of the overall ad revenue moving forward.

Although Air Soccer Fever has not yet been promoted with either paid ad campaigns or house ads, Dangling Concepts plans to try both soon. For example, when the developer releases his next new game, the game will display house ads for Air Soccer Fever to cross-promote and drive downloads. These cross-promotional opportunities could be impressive: every day, an average of 15,000 unique users play Air Soccer Fever, according to Flurry Analytics figures cited by Shafiq.

Dangling Concepts also finds that when it comes to in-app ads, a little restraint can be beneficial. The free version of Air Soccer Fever shows ads only when the game is paused, never during game action. Similarly, the game’s menu pages only show ads at the bottom of the page, so the ads do not cover or overlap the menu UI. This restrained approach seems to work: Shafiq reports ‘great’ click-through rates on Air Soccer Fever ads, in some regions reaching as high as 15 per cent.

Check out Air Soccer Fever on the Windows Phone Marketplace

Watch a video of Air Soccer Fever in action

Sanoma Group report on Finland: “Lumia became more popular than Android, and reached the popularity of the iPhone.”

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Check out the latest news from, Sanoma Group, one of the largest media companies in Finland. They just came out with an interesting press release for those of you who are interested in evaluating the business case for developing on Windows Phone.

A couple of highlights from a Nokia perspecitve:

“Nokia is a favourite among Finns

The visitor statistics of Sanoma online services also indicate changes in the popularity of mobile devices. It seems that Finns really embraced Nokia Lumia last year.

”Sanoma’s network and number of mobile visitors indicates that the total traffic from Lumia phones exceeded that from Android phones in the summer and it also reached the traffic level of the iPhone at year-end,” says Anders Stenbäck, Director of Sanoma’s digital partnerships.

In the autumn, Sanoma and Nokia launched co-operation through which new Lumia phones have Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat apps pre-installed.

“The co-operation with Nokia has been productive and it has also clearly increased the number of users of our Windows apps. Finland still remains Nokialand,” says Stenbäck.”

Check out the full press release here >

Nokia and Idea Cellular in India offer integrated operator billing with Nokia Store

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Operator billing with Idea CellularIntegrated operator billing helps developers by offering their consumers a seamless purchasing experience as well as a secure transaction model for those who do not own or are reticent about using their credit cards to make online purchases.

As we continue to focus on creating enhanced revenue opportunities for our developers, Nokia has extended its ecosystem of operator billing partners with Nokia Store to include Idea Cellular in India. This partnership will make Nokia Store easily accessible to millions of Idea Cellular consumers, allowing them to use their Nokia phones to consume premium content from Nokia Store and pay for it via their pre-paid or post-paid accounts.

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Nokia introduces Marketing in a Box (Beta) for Developers

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We understand that for a developer, marketing an application effectively is a key to succeeding in the market. To help developers effectively market their apps, we have been actively working on a suite of marketing tools for your apps called “Marketing in a Box”. Today we are introducing Marketing in a Box beta. This suite of tools will help developers create winning app marketing strategies and the assets to support them.

Marketing in a Box contains two key elements:

  • Marketing guidance — guides and videos covering the complete spectrum of app marketing (marketing basics, launching an app, and using digital media, among others).
  • Digital Marketing Toolkit — both existing tools, such as OMT, and new tools to create promo videos and various web content to support marketing activities.

The Marketing guidance material will take developers through:

  • Conception — what to do while their app is in planning and early development.
  • Buzz — how to build interest in the app from beta testing to launch.
  • Launch — how to effectively launch their app.
  • Community — how to build a community of users to support and spread the word about the app.

Learn more about Marketing in a Box here >

Introducing the Nokia Premium Developer Program

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Today at the Microsoft Build conference we are announcing the Nokia Premium Developer Program, a program designed to make building Windows Phone apps faster, better and more affordable.

The Nokia Premium Developer Program is a package of Windows Phone-related tools and services designed to help you develop great looking, high-performance apps for Nokia Lumia smartphones. For a program membership cost of only $99 (USD)/year, you’ll get tools and services with a suggested retail value of up to $1,500 (USD).

The program includes:

  • 1 year membership in Microsoft Windows Phone Dev Center
  • 1 license for Telerik RadControls for Windows Phone
  • 1 million API calls per calendar month with Buddy’s cloud API offering
  • 2 Nokia tech support tickets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RIQdky7ct0&feature=youtu.be

Learn more and register for the Nokia Premium Developer Program at http://developer.nokia.com/premium

Introducing the Nokia Ad Exchange for in-app advertising

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We are pleased to introduce the Nokia Ad Exchange service that helps you monetise your app by connecting it to over 120 ad networks worldwide.

Nokia Ad Exchange is a private mobile advertising exchange that offers access to the top ad networks in the world. With one API and one partner, you’ll get access to over 120 ad agencies and networks worldwide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0W81hOQdK0

Additionally Nokia Ad Exchange offers cross platform support. This means that if you are an Android, iOS, or other non-Nokia developer, you can still use Nokia Ad Exchange to monetise your apps.

Nokia Ad Exchange provides:

  • Full cross-platform support (including Windows Phone, Series 40, Symbian, iOS, and Android)
  • Optimization across 120+ ad networks
  • Payment enabled in over 200 countries
  • Smart, contextual ad servicing for optimum effective cost per mile
  • Easy to implement – just one line of code

Want to learn more? Visit https://www.developer.nokia.com/Distribute/NAX/

New webinars to improve your Series 40 full touch apps

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The Nokia Developer series of webinars continues with three presentations that will help you create great apps for Nokia Series 40 full touch phones.

These webinars are free to attend and open to all developers anywhere in the world. Here’s what is coming:

 

UX checklist for Series 40 full-touch apps

Are you looking to do a quick user experience (UX) check of your Series 40 full-touch app? This webinar will provide pointers you can use, even if you have no formal experience in UX design. UX expert Jan Krebber of Digia will present a list of the worst UX mistakes he and his colleagues have found in their real-world tests. Jan will not only point out mistakes you may be making, but also provide specific solutions to those problems. Also, this presentation will feature exercises and a follow-up treatment in a Nokia Developer Wiki article. For your convenience, this webinar will be presented twice:

 

UI design for monetisation enablers for Series 40 full touch

How you design and present monetisation interactions requires as much attention to user experience as does the rest of your app. If you use in-app ads or in-app purchasing, this UX webinar is for you.

In this webinar, you will be walked through the recommended flows of various monetisation stories in Series 40 full touch. You will also learn about common mistakes that developers make — and solutions to those problems. This presentation will also feature exercises, and they will receive follow-up treatment in a Nokia Developer Wiki article. For your convenience, this webinar will be presented twice:

 

Debug your design for Series 40 full touch

You know how important it is to test your app before publishing. But if you test only the code, you are missing half the story: You also need to find bugs in your design. If not, consumers may still find your app frustrating and give it low ratings in Nokia Store.

Join UX expert Jan Krebber of Digia as he presents simple methods to find UX bugs and then correct them. Jan’s techniques can help you increase your app quality, whether you work for a large organization or on your own. This presentation will also feature exercises, and they will receive follow-up treatment in a Nokia Developer Wiki article. For your convenience, this webinar will be presented twice:

 

Gaming for the Masses: Inode Entertainment Joins the One Hundred Million Download Club

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Earlier in the year, we chronicled the success of IndiaGames and Pico Brothers. Today, we’re happy to add Inode Entertainment to the list of developers who have achieved the one hundred million download milestone via Nokia Store.

Inode logoIt all started in 2006 when Jaime Enriquez decided to apply his passion for gaming to mobile handsets and applications. Since then, his company has grown to ten developers who share his passion for app development. One of the first publishers in the Nokia Store during its inception, Inode Entertainment is now one of the most successful development companies in Mexico.

One of Inode’s most successful applications, Ming Zhu, is a puzzle game that has been deemed the “Sudoku killer.” Players can spend hours challenging their brainpower and the brainpower of fellow users in this free game. This app, along with others like Escuadron, Monster Truck, and Race Electrix, appeals to a broad demographic and continues to surprise customers. Enriquez and his staff pride themselves on customizing themes and applications for their fans. Through stellar customer service and the support of their local Nokia team for quick solutions and training, Inode Entertainment has built a profitable company with a loyal following.

While Inode Entertainment offers paid versions of their apps, they monetize their apps primarily through in-app advertising supported by Nokia.

“The in-app advertising platforms provided by Nokia are great for both developers and users. They enable us to make our applications available to the masses while providing us a good fill rate and an impressive eCPM,” according to Jaime Enriquez, Founder and CEO of Inode Entertainment. “We are happy with our revenue success and are able to pay employee salaries through the revenue generated from our applications.”

At Inode Entertainment, they believe in a company atmosphere that encourages dreaming big and working hard. And with a hundred million downloads under their belt, they’re now aiming for the one billion mark. With a portfolio that spans Symbian, Series 40, S60, and Symbian 3 (and soon Windows Phone), they expect to achieve their goal with hard work and determination, as well as Nokia’s global reach.

Inode app screenshots   

“Nokia has the best developer program in the industry, and we know we can reach above and beyond the status quo with their help,”said Jaime Enriquez. “With a portfolio that spans gaming, productivity, tools, and personalization, we are proud of our success. Our partnership with Nokia has enabled my hard working team to achieve this milestone.”

After reaching the handsets of gamers all over the world on Symbian, Series 40, and S60 phones, Inode Entertainment is looking forward to developing for the growing Windows Phone Marketplace.

“We are extremely excited about the Nokia and Microsoft partnership and are in the process of developing several applications for Nokia Lumia smartphones and the Windows Phone Marketplace,” said Jaime Enriquez. “We are big fans of Microsoft’s development tools and believe that Nokia has the most impressive global reach. That winning combination enables us to reach our very ambitious goals for the future.”

Inode Images