How to Gamify your app using a timer-based scoring system.

A lot of mobile app developers today like to incorporate game mechanics into their apps. The reason is simple: We all love incentives. That’s the core of game mechanics. It incentivizes users to perform various actions/behaviors in an application. Some companies managed to increase the number of users who completed their online tasks from 10% to 80% after adding gamification elements. A few real-world examples are loyalty programs, achievement badges, leaderboards etc.

Anyways, one effective way to incorporate game mechanics is to start with a timer-based system. This method can be a good start for developers who wish to gamify their apps without spending too much time and resources.

This is how it works. Whenever a user performs an action (tapping on an ad, tapping on a feature, opening the help page, tapping on a function etc), he/she gets awarded points for every action. As these points get accumulated and cross pre-defined thresholds, they can automatically unlock bonus features or functionality within the app.

Technically this should not be too hard to implement. I am not a programmer but the way I look at it, create an integer-based timer within your code and associate it with all the user actions you deem appropriate. This timer gets incremented in value every time one of these actions is performed. Let this timer be displayed on the main app screen permanently so that a user knows exactly how many points he is getting. When the timer reaches a particular value, it automatically triggers an event to enable a special feature or functionality within the app.

A good example where this could work would be a video app like Crackle. So if Crackle awarded points to a user everytime he/she tapped on a video or watched an ad or shared a video or just simply tapped on a feature etc, the timer would keep track of these user events and generate points based on each event. Once the user has reached let’s say 50 points, the timer would automatically unlock an exclusive trailer or a movie.

Such systems do exist, but they don’t reward user behavior at such a deep level. I am basically talking about rewarding almost 95% of all tasks that are performed in an app. It takes the game of incentives to another level together. If planned properly, this can be a great game mechanic for your app. 

My blogs tend to be long so I will keep this one short for now. I would love to hear your thoughts/criticisms on this. 

You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique or mail me at aabid.s@live.com for any questions.

5 reasons why you should NOT buy the new iPad.

I feel bad for electronic giants like Samsung, Sony and HTC. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on R&D (and cheap labor) and come up with some of the most advanced devices that mankind has to offer. And all Apple has to do is launch the same damn thing with slightly upgraded specs and the rest of the industry is back to being a loser.

This cycle repeats itself every year. And the world never gets over it. I think the most hard-working people at Apple were the ones who designed the first iPhone/iPad. After that, the whole company has merely just sat back and sipped coffee. And in between the numerous coffee breaks, they manage to squeeze in some work. But of course, the billions of dollars never stop rolling in.

Anyways the main purpose of this article is to give a “scientific” opinion on why you should skip this new iPad and just wait for the next one (or the one after that).

Let’s get started:

1) RETINA DISPLAY – The biggest selling point of the new iPad is the “mind-blowing” Retina Display. Well, let’s do some quick digging here. According to Apple’s own definition, Retina Display means that the human eye won’t notice any pixelation on a screen like this. Many prominent researchers have concluded that for this to happen, the density of a screen needs to be atleast 300 Pixels Per Inch (PPI). 

Apple definitely made sure of that when it came to the iPhone 4 and 4s. Both these phones have a screen density of 326 PPI which is much more than what is needed for picture perfect graphics. But the new iPad only has a 264 PPI density. That’s 10% less than what’s recommended for zero pixelation (atleast for the human eye). How exactly is this classified as Retina Display then? Either Apple decided to change its definition of what Retina Display should mean, or this is just false advertising.

Some people might argue that since the iPad is viewed from a slightly longer distance as compared to the iPhone, the lower density of the iPad is not an issue. That's a valid point, but the general consensus among all retinal scientists is that a minimum density of 300 PPI is required for the human eye to not be able to notice any pixelation from any distance. That's why it's also recommended that a good photograph should be printed in at atleast 300 PPI when using a regular printer.

Don’t get me wrong here. The new iPad definitely has amazing clarity. I personally loved some of the apps that were being showcased, but the point here is that this screen is still not Retina Display grade, and hopefully the next one will be. That’s reason number one.

2) APPS NOT OPTIMIZED – One of the biggest selling points for the new iPad is the apps ecosystem. Well, the problem here is that almost 95% of all iPad apps are not even optimized for the retina display. These apps were all built to cater to the older resolution, and given the nature of this industry, it will take atleast 6 months or more before most popular iPad apps get optimized. And the less popular apps will probably take more than a year to do this. What does that mean? It means that by the time the next iPad is out, we will have a far greater selection of apps that have been reconfigured for this screen. So there is reason number two on why you should wait for the next iPad.

3) NOT QUAD CORE – At a time when pretty much every other device manufacturer is launching phones and tablet PC’s with quad-core processors as well as insane graphical capabilities, I still don’t understand why Apple had to go ahead and include a dual-core processor. Yes they put in a quad-core graphics processor but that’s not the point here. Apple is the king of the herd when it comes to holding back specs.  

To be honest, there are really no games or apps out there that will even require quad-core processing capabilities at this time, but for tech lovers like me, technology is our version of bling. We love insane specs, and Samsung does a good job of fulfilling these desires.

If Apple had included a quad-core processor, a lot of companies would have already started planning out even more powerful apps and games that can leverage such a system. And it would have also given the signal that Apple really is at the forefront of technology. Quad-core tablets from other manufacturers have already been around for almost 6 months now. And by the time Apple does this, we might actually have 6-core/8-core processors.

By holding back like this, Apple is only slowing down the whole creative process for developers. It just makes sense to wait till the next one comes out (hopefully with quad-core awesomeness). There is reason number 3.

4) CAMERA (Or the lack of it) –

Retina Display: Check.

Quad Core Graphics: Check.

LTE – Check.

Great Battery life: Check.

5 MP camera: Seriously??

I mean seriously, Apple already has an awesome 8MP camera built into the iPhone 4S. How hard was it to just put in the same camera into the new iPad? It would have cost them less to include the same hardware rather than create another lower grade camera from scratch. This is ridiculous.

At one time, it looked really stupid to use the iPad as a camera. But as always, the stupidity is now spread all over (including me). Most of us have used our iPads to click pictures and take videos. And with the advent of some great photo apps like Camera+, Snapseed, Instagram etc, it really wouldn’t have hurt to have a great camera on the iPad.

One of the reasons the Samsung Google Nexus smartphone did not do as well as expected (it’s now selling for $400 off the shelf) was because it was feature-packed with every awesome spec you could imagine, but those morons just had to spoil the show by including a shitty 5 MP camera.

The only reasonable (and confident) conclusion here is that the next iPad will have an 8MP camera. So there is reason number 4.

5) NO SIRI – Personally, I don’t like Siri. She never seems to understand fully well what I am saying and keeps asking me again and again what I just said (we all know someone like that, don't we!).

Jokes aside, Siri has a lot of potential. And as Apple refines this product with each new iteration, it will slowly become a great tool for everyday use. I can see this product being implemented in every Apple device in the future (including their supposedly rumored Apple TV).

I don’t understand why this product was not included in the new iPad. It would have only helped the company in reaching out to a much wider demographic. The fact that it was not included shows that Apple wants to wait till Siri has matured to some extent and then incorporate it. And that can only mean one thing, she is gonna be implemented in the next iPad. There is reason number 5.

So that’s it. I can safely assume that the next iPad will have a quad core CPU, an 8MP camera, higher number of optimized apps and Siri. All these will make it come close to becoming the most perfect tablet ever built. And it will also bring the device on par with other more advanced tablets (hardware-wise) being built by Samsung, Sony etc. And if Apple can do something about that Retina Display fiasco, no one (including me) will have any pet-peeves about the device.

You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique or check out my other articles on aabids.blogspot.com.

6 things you should keep in mind while making a mobile app.

Making a mobile app can be a fun experience for some, and a financially painful experience for others. It’s like the gold rush of the last century. Everyone wants to dig, very few strike gold, and almost all of them go broke. And yet, the mobile apps industry is expected to create more millionaires in the future than any other industry.

Most Indie developers who are just starting out on a great app idea don’t necessarily have a lot of funding. Hell, most of them are selling their own stuff to generate enough money. I got lucky with my first mobile game. I built it out around the time I was finishing up college and then managed to sell it to a bay-area studio. This helped me launch my career in the industry. I have produced about 3 mobile apps and some Facebook games till now and am now working as a games producer.

Anyways, based on my experience making my first app (with extremely limited funding), here are some things I feel a new mobile app developer should keep in mind when he/she decides to take the plunge.

1) Costs: It generally costs between $5,000 - $30,000 to build the first iteration of an app. If you are building a game, then the costs can start from as low as $10,000 and go into hundreds of thousands of dollars based on the type of a game you are building. Once the first version of the app has been built, you could work out a monthly app maintenance plan for as low as $500 in which your developer will do 1-2 updates a month and also manage the app on a daily basis for technical issues.

Some of the cheapest (yet good) app development companies that I have personally worked with are either from India, Latin America (Colombia, Argentina) or Russia/Ukraine.  Indian studios always come up with the cheapest quotes but they require a much higher amount of supervision and time-management. Russian companies are slightly more expensive but their work tends to be of a higher quality overall. And they are definitely better at time-management than their Indian counterparts. One of the biggest issues with Latin American companies tends to be the language barrier (unless they have a representative in the US).

The most expensive quotes I received were almost always from American/Canadian companies. The quotes were normally about 50% higher than the rest. But I have to admit that their work quality overall was generally much better than other countries.

One good way to offset your costs will be to offer some equity to your developer. I succeeded with that one (even though my developer got a majority stake). This may not always work but it’s worth a shot. This can help in getting the developer focused on the project too since he knows he has a stake in it now.

You could also save a ton of money if you decide the build the app yourself. There are a lot of software tools floating around that don’t require programming knowledge. But these can mostly be used for building more basic apps with limited functionality. As the complexity of your app goes up, at some time you will require the use of an expert.

2) Schedule: No matter how well you plan out a project schedule, it’s more than likely there will be some delays. A lot of times, the delays can happen because of the app store itself. Apple is notorious for rejecting apps for the smallest of reasons and then not providing clear cues on why it was rejected. My team would spend days just figuring out what went wrong. Even if it's approved, Apple can sometimes reject it after a few weeks or months if it finds something it doesn’t like (bad language, violent images etc). Other than that, programmers can get stuck with a bug which will completely throw them off track and take up a majority of their time.

One way to offset this is to make sure that developers are using pre-built code libraries to build all basic features of the app. It helps immensely because these libraries have a lot of online support, are bug free and most of them work well for any kind of an app. I have seen a few developers who try to write their own code for basic features and functions. Avoid this behavior.

If you know Agile project management, make sure you follow that. It's a good tool for assigning short sprints and building the app one small step at a time. The best tool I ever used to manage my projects was Jira. It’s a very effective tool and helps you manage multiple teams and assignments without any hassles. For online storage and sharing of files, nothing beats Dropbox.

3) Multiple Platforms: This is becoming somewhat of a norm now. A lot of developers are now building one piece of code that can automatically work on multiple platforms like iPhone, Android, Windows Phone etc. The way they do is by using industry leading app platforms like PhoneGap, Appcelerator or Xamarin (Mail me if you would like a technical comparison of the three). They are excellent platforms to build your apps on because you can easily port the app to almost every emerging platform out there with minimal investment in additional programming and time. And these platforms offer excellent support and one of the most comprehensive set of libraries for creating good, clean code.

I am sure you can yourself see the benefits here (wider reach, less coding, bigger markets etc) so I will stay away from talking about it.

4) Graphics: One of the biggest drivers of traffic to your app will be the user experience and the graphics. This can literally make or break your app so spend a lot of your time perfecting this part. Draw up a ton of graphical wireframes and also research some of the top apps to see what they do right. In terms of graphic design, I can confidently say that the best graphic designers I have worked with are almost always from the US. Indian designers are generally the cheapest but they follow a very different coloring/design aesthetic that for some reason doesn’t seem to always gel well with American clients.

You can get a decent graphic/UI designer in the US for about $70 an hour and most of them can finish designing an app in about a week. You can easily find cheaper graphic designers too. I have worked with some who charged as less as $20 an hour. But the quality suffers drastically. There are a bunch of graphic design studios in the Vietnam/Philippines area who are actually pretty good and charge about $35 an hour.

5) Testing: You can save up on this part by testing the app yourself. Dedicate atleast 1 – 2 hours a day just going through your app to look for design/technical flaws. You can also use an online tool called Testflight which is pretty helpful.

If you feel the need to get it tested by a company, then get ready to shell out about $10 an hour for testing. There are a handful of American companies who will handle your app testing needs but they generally charge upwards of $20 an hour. Indian companies charge about $10 an hour.

An app generally requires about 3-5 full cycles of testing before you can safely say it’s ready to hit the app store. In case of my games, I would allocate 2 testers who would do a 1 day test drill on the app. That’s 2 testers x 8 work hours = 16 hours of testing in 1 day. This in my view is enough to do the first round. Once you get the results, give yourself some time to go through the whole bug list and prioritize each major bug. Once your programmers have cleared them out, it’s likely that new bugs are introduced while they are tweaking around the app (trust me, this ALWAYS happens). Keep running through this cycle till you are pretty confident that the app has no major bugs. Don’t worry about the minor bugs too much because they have this uncanny ability of showing up or sticking around no matter what you do to get rid of them (like a jealous ex-girlfriend).

One last suggestion would be to scour the internet for freelance testers (I know a bunch of them). These are high school/college kids who are surprisingly good at testing apps and are willing to work for pretty cheap.

6) Marketing, PR and Distribution: So now you have a working app. Congrats! Time to hit the app store (and hopefully not get rejected). A few things you can do to market your app effectively (and for cheap) are:

a) Get into social media marketing yourself (Google+, Facebook, Twitter feed, Blogger etc). This is by far the best way to market an app and its totally free.

b) Get into App distribution: Talk to companies like PlayPhone, W3i Technologies etc and partner up with them for distribution. You will probably lose some portion of your stake in the app (unless you have the money to pay them for distribution), but these platforms are great for distributing your app to a large demographic.

c)  Include in-app advertising - Implement popular ad-servers like Admob, iAD etc. These can serve up a decent revenue stream once your app hits a few thousand downloads.

d) Create a Youtube/Vimeo video that demo’s the app. DON’T LET THE DEMO GO BEYOND A MINUTE. People just won’t watch it after the first few seconds. In my opinion, the sweet spot is 30 seconds. This is an excellent marketing tool that lets users see the app first hand and understand how it works. You can keep it very simple by just focusing a camera on the app and navigating through it (while a voice in the background explains each screen). Get a female voice-over (it helps).

e) Start attending a LOT OF Meetup groups and talking to people about your product. You will find a bunch of product/technology meetup groups in and around the city. I have noticed that the best Meetup groups for mobile apps and games are generally in New York, Bay Area and Austin, Texas. This is a great place to showcase the app and get some much needed free media coverage.

f) Try to get your app featured in the app store. You can directly request Apple to feature your app and if they agree, this will literally double or triple your downloads while it’s in the featured list.

g) Reach out to app review sites and request them to review your app. Most of the smaller sites like PocketFullofApps, Inside Social Games or iOSappsgonefree are more responsive. All you need is one good review and then you will have boasting rights. But of course, reach out to a bunch of them (I can help out here).

I hope this information helps. Please understand that these are all views based on my personal experience in the industry and they could differ widely from person to person. I am happy to hear any comment/criticism regarding this article.

You can also follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique for updates about this industry. 

6 reasons why you should also build an internet browser-based version of your mobile game.

The Apple App Store is arguably the greatest casual gaming platform on earth. It has opened up the kind of opportunities for indie game developers that are currently unmatched by any other platform. It offers a very consistent hardware and software experience that developers can optimize their games for, and gives an equal chance to every game to succeed (unlike Facebook). Google’s Android is also slowly becoming a powerhouse in mobile gaming. 

One thing I want to be clear about is that MOBILE IS THE FUTURE OF CASUAL GAMING. But there are still many advantages to building an internet browser based version of your game which I will discuss shortly.

All said and done, even a mobile app store cannot guarantee long term revenues and sustainability for a casual game. There are about a 100,000 games on iOS right now and only a few hundred are actually doing well enough to sustain its creators. Some of the most successful games are the free games like Temple Run, Heads up with Ronaldo, Angry Birds, Stupid Zombies etc. These games are hugely ad supported and let’s be honest here, when was the last time you tapped on an advertisement within a game? Less than 2% of users are likely to do that. There is a higher likelihood that you will click on an ad while on a computer than on a phone.

This is one of the reasons why a lot of companies are now evaluating ways to build browser-based versions of their games too, especially after the mobile version has been around for a while. For example, the makers of Angry Birds started off on mobile and after its huge success, decided to build out the browser version. It is now available in the Chrome app store. It’s a no-brainer that at some point, they will also build out a version that will run on gaming platforms like Yahoo Games, Mindjolt, Tagged, Gaming Wonderland etc.

So if you have built an iOS/Android game, here are 6 reasons why you should consider building a browser based version of it.

1) Distribution – A browser based version opens up a plethora of opportunities for distribution across multiple geographies and demographics. There are hundreds of gaming portals like Yahoo games, Mindjolt, Big Fish Games etc who will be happy to showcase your game on their platform. Or you can just work with one game distributor like Oberon Media who will automatically distribute your game to some of the top gaming portals in the world. Oberon has existing relationships with various gaming portals and offers an easy way to integrate your game across all of them. And each portal generally has atleast a few million unique users.

2) Monetization – A successful game on mobile can get you a lot of revenue, and I don’t believe a gaming portal can really match that. But who can say no to a nice side income! Gaming portals have their own ecosystems in place (Advertising, Payments, Support etc) and can provide a decent revenue stream for your game. I have known garage developers who have been making hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for many years by just sitting at home!

Some portals will also be willing to pay you to put your games on their platform. Of course, this would depend on how successful your game has been elsewhere.

3) Demographic  - According to an Admob report, 94% of iPhone owners are over the age of 18 and an astounding 74% of them are over the age of 25.  On the other hand, the iPod Touch user base is nearly HALF (47%) composed of 13-17 year olds.  Only 31% of its users are over the age of 25.

What do you see missing here? What about kids below that 13-17 age group? Even though the main demographic for a gaming portal is middle-aged women with disposable incomes, a lot of younger kids play on these portals too. My 11 year old nephew recently got hold of an iPod Touch for himself but for the past few years, his favorite gaming destination was Yahoo Games. My 8 year old niece loves playing on the Big Fish games site and plays a lot of games that are made specifically for her. Every kid I know spends more time on these gaming portals than on an actual device. And parents prefer this too because it’s easier to supervise a kid’s playing habits on a computer than on an actual portable device. And more kids have access to a computer than to a portable device.

This is a win-win situation for your game because not only are you targeting an older demographic with the app store as well as the gaming portal but are also tapping into another, albeit smaller demographic through the portal.

4) Porting to future platforms like Kiosks, Televisions – Companies like Samsung and Sony are now building out their own app stores for their television products. The Samsung TV App store is actually doing well and you will notice a lot of casual games. Even coin operated game kiosks are embracing some of the popular iOS games like Fruit Ninja.

Games on these platforms work more like a browser. The screen is much larger and you are using actual controllers. By having a browser version, you are actually well prepared to port your game to these platforms in the future with minimal effort.

5) Better technical support and feedback – Gaming portals have their own dedicated technical teams and are happy to provide you with all the support you need to publish your game. They provide excellent production and analytics support and most of them are prompt with their payments. This can be a huge help in improving your game based on feedback that you receive not only from the game portal but also from the players.

The Apple app store is different that way. You get absolutely zero feedback from Apple. They only make sure your game adheres to their terms and conditions and then go ahead and approve it. Every time my game was rejected from the app store, their reasons for doing so were sometimes so obscure that it would take my team a few days just to figure out what was actually wrong. Gaming portals are definitely more hands-down that way.

6) Localization support – It always helps to have some local language support for your game. China is a huge market and having a Chinese language version will take your game a long way. The same way, Latin America and the Middle-East are big on casual gaming too. And they prefer local language versions over any other language. India is a little different that way because most of the gaming demographic understands atleast basic English reading and writing.

Anyways, gaming portals are way better at providing localization support and targeted advertising than mobile app stores. A lot of gaming portals will even help you in building out local versions and assist you in specifically targeting a particular geography.

That’s all for now. It doesn’t cost a whole lot of money to customize your game for a portal. The main reason being most portal games are also run within a window which is slightly larger than a phone screen. And a lot of them work with HTML5 games too so you don’t have to build a flash equivalent.The main investment will be in optimizing graphics which is generally not too high.

I hope this information helps. Again, my blogs are based on my own research and experience so I welcome constructive (or destructive) feedback! I would love to hear your thoughts or hear other advantages (or disadvantages) that you see in such an initiative.

Finally, If you decide to build a browser based game and need help in distribution, feel free to reach out to me at aabid.s@live.com and I will be happy to assist.

Thanks. You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique to stay updated on my blogs and the gaming industry.

7 reasons why Windows Phone 7 could potentially beat Android in the mobile OS wars.

As the mobile wars heat up, the one OS that normally takes a backseat is Microsoft’s often ignored Windows Phone 7.  Google’s Android has slowly become a leader in this space and as of this time, more than 500,000 Android devices are being activated every day! At this rate, there will be more Androids than people in the next few years.

According to Gartner, 1.7 million smartphones using a Microsoft mobile OS were sold worldwide in the second quarter of 2011, for a 1.6% market share. In the third quarter of 2011, WP7's worldwide market share dropped slightly to 1.5%. Compare that to Android’s current market share of 25% of all smartphone shipments.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do, but recent developments in the company as well as in the mobile industry seem to point to the fact that the company might still be able to get a leg up in the competition. I will talk about 7 reasons that in my opinion can give Microsoft the much desired boost it’s desperate for.

1) Exclusive partnership with Nokia – No one builds as many phones as Nokia on the planet. With all its PR mishaps and declining sales, it still is one of the most prolific phone manufacturers in the world. The company has over 132,000 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of over $54 billion. Its global device market share was 23% in the second quarter of 2011.

In a stunning move, Microsoft managed to secure an exclusive OS partnership with Nokia. Under the terms of the deal, all future Nokia smartphones will be powered by Microsoft’s new OS and Nokia will eventually abandon its own Symbian OS. Microsoft had almost put its new OS on the sidelines when this deal happened. It’s now investing billions of dollars in R&D and strengthening its OS from end to end. This deal has become such a PR miracle for the company that a lot of other cellphone manufacturers are planning to build more Windows devices too. This may be the single biggest driver of Microsoft’s success and also help the company in entering developing countries (India, China, Africa) because of Nokia’s dominance there.

2) Consistent interface across all platforms – One of the biggest complaints about Android is the unbelievably inconsistent User Experience across a range of devices and manufacturers. Google made the business decision to let cellphone manufacturers build their own customizable UI on top of Google’s base system. This strategy is slowly turning out to be a huge mess because most cellphone manufacturers are unable to keep up with Google’s latest base OS updates. They take months, or sometimes years to optimize their UI to work well with Google’s newest iterations. Customers often complain about this but then Google is helpless. Because of this, user interest in Android has been waning and a lot of users are even switching to (or switching back in my case) to the iPhone because of its clean and consistent experience. This is one of the primary reasons why Google decided to incorporate a single UI across all devices for its upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

Microsoft on the other hand, has decided to stick to a non-customizable UI. This is actually a great business model because it helps the company in releasing updates at a much faster pace and every device (irrespective of manufacturer) can be automatically updated at the same time to the latest and greatest. The company has also made sure that the UI is consistent across its other tablet and PC platforms too. So the upcoming Windows 8 OS for PC’s has a similar look and feel as that of the Smartphone OS. And the new Xbox UI looks the same too. This strategy is drastically different from Google’s and is more similar to Apple’s strategy. And we all know how that has worked out for Apple!

3) Xbox community and integration – Google has been struggling with its social network Google Plus. It has bet the whole company on this initiative and if recent statistics are to be believed, it doesn’t look likely it will ever be able to challenge Facebook’s dominance. Let alone come a distant second place. Traffic slumped by more than 60% after the initial boom period. For that matter, even after being in the market for so many years, Facebook is growing much faster than Google+. Even Google Plus's mobile version has not gained much traction at all.

Some approximate figures as of December, 2011 are:
Facebook: 800+ million users
Twitter: 300+ million users
LinkedIn: 131+ million users
MySpace: 50+ million users
Google Plus: 40+ million users

Anyways, Microsoft already has some advantages here. It has a pretty sizeable Xbox gamer community who can be easily integrated with the company’s mobile offerings because of XBOX live. Xbox live is already built into the mobile OS. A presence of a good default games selection would definitely help (Who wouldn't want to try out HALO on a smartphone!). And on top of all that, Microsoft’s Hotmail service is still the world’s largest email provider with a user base of more than 360 million accounts. Gmail comes third after Yahoo.

Because of these reasons, Microsoft stands a good chance to build out a strong and dedicated mobile fan following if it tightly integrates all these services.

4) No Carrier IQ software fiasco (yet) – As of now, Microsoft has not been hit by any major legal nightmares with its mobile OS. Android is currently being hammered by legal groups because of the whole Carrier IQ software deal. For the uninformed, a hacker recently showed a video which provided proof that a software named Carrier IQ currently resides on every device running the Android OS and logs user actions and keystrokes. It’s so intrusive that it even logs your passwords as well as any secure website that you are visiting. Thousands of customers are upset about this and new lawsuits are springing up every single day against Google as well as cell-phone carriers who supported this software.

This seems the right time for another mobile OS to spring into action and showcase its ‘secure’ abilities. And Microsoft is already doing that by announcing the launch of its first Nokia handset with the updated Windows Mango version in January. And it’s obviously touting how much more secure its OS is (sure).

To add fuel to fire, Microsoft recently announced that it will give out 5 Nokia smartphones to anyone who can give them a great story on how they were affected by this Carrier IQ mess! Call it a PR stunt, but it still works.

5) Stronger partnership with Facebook – Microsoft enjoys a great relationship with Facebook. Facebook has even incorporated Bing search into its core search functionality. This partnership is crucial for Microsoft because it helps the company in gaining access to over 800 million Facebook users and understanding their habits and interests. This in turn helps the company in customizing its offerings to suit the customer better. And of course, in case you didn’t know, Facebook despises Google. Put them both in a room and only one will come out alive.

6) Gesture based integration – One of the greatest technologies that Microsoft has been working on is gesture-based systems like the Xbox Kinect. This technology has unparalleled scope if it’s incorporated properly into Windows Phone 7. Just imagine being able to move from screen to screen on your Smartphone by simply waving your finger, or being able to open an app by simply pointing at it. Both Android and iOS are touch-based systems so Microsoft has the potential to literally disrupt this industry if it builds out a mobile equivalent of Kinect. And it’s a no-brainer that Microsoft will eventually build out such a system.

7) Better enterprise software integration – Think about it, which is the word processor you use the most? MS Word? Yup! How about presentations? MS PowerPoint? Yup! Microsoft has the world’s most popular office suite and can easily appeal to enterprise users by tightly integrating MS Office onto its mobile OS. It has already done this but because of low consumer acceptance of its devices, has not succeeded. All this can change once the Nokia initiative takes off. As its OS becomes more widespread, both enterprise users as well as gamers will relate better to this OS and help drive its success. Android on the other hand, has not found wide acceptance with its enterprise software (Google Docs, Google Chrome OS) even on the PC platform and the mobile version of Google Docs is a joke. And lastly, it does not have a gaming equivalent to Xbox.

These are some really interesting times in the industry. For a few more years, it’s unlikely (read impossible) to beat Apple’s dominance but whoever comes second place will be the fight to witness. I would love to hear your thoughts on other reasons why Microsoft may or may not have a chance for a good fight.

You can follow Aabid on Twitter @aabidsiddique to stay updated about his latest articles. You can also check out his latest articles on the Pocket Full of Apps website (www.PocketFullOfApps.com).

5 hassle-free ways to reward/pay an online customer without asking for too much personal information.

Most smaller gaming companies today struggle with this one. How do you pay or reward an online player without having to deal with too many legal and transactional hurdles? Especially when the payments are really small (micropayments), like a dollar or worth around a dollar. Indie game developers often like to offer tiny cash incentives to their players but opt out of it because of all the associated legal hassles.

Some of the major issues companies face are:

1) Asking for personal information - A lot of companies need a customer’s address and other contact info to mail a reward or transfer any money to their account. This almost always is a deal killer because most customers are wary of sharing any such information.

2) Game studios themselves can find it a little embarrassing to transfer such small amounts to a user. One alternative is to offer virtual gifts (coins, game points, virtual toys etc) but let’s be honest here, not everyone likes these things. Anything that has actual cash value is always preferred more. 

3) Sweepstakes: A lot of times, people who win online sweepstakes don’t even bother claiming their prizes if the prize is actual money. Because the company offering the prize money needs all kinds of personal information from the user. And because of this, a lot of users don’t even bother claiming them.

      My team built out a trivia game a while ago that would give out a $100 each day to a player who finished all 10 questions correctly and then entered his/her name into a daily sweepstake. Surprisingly, most of the winners didn’t even bother claiming their prizes inspite of repeated emails to them informing of their win! After some research we found out that no one was interested in filling up the claim form because it asked for too much personal information. But because of legal reasons, that was the only way we could actually pay a user.

At that point, I decided to do some research and find out different ways that we could pay a user without ever needing their personal information. The one thing I realized was that it was pretty hard legally to pay small cash prizes ($1 or more) to a user. The only alternatives were products that had ‘real cash value’. Not virtual toys and stuff, but paid services that we could offer as a reward. Here was the list I came up with. The only thing you will ever need to distribute these prizes is an email address. 

1) Redbox DVD rentals. These DVD’s rent for $1 a day and it’s very easy to give these out as prizes. As you may know, Redbox gives out free rental codes on a regular basis which can be redeemed for a one night DVD rental. A studio could buy these codes in bulk and offer them as prizes. They also have this for the Blockbuster Kiosks.

2) iPhone, iPad and Android paid apps, songs and other media – Most apps sell for 99 cents as you already know, so a studio could offer a bunch of paid apps as payment. The way this can be done is by using the “Gift an App” feature found in the iTunes application.

3) Longer game playtime (Gaikai, Big Fish, Tagged etc) – Big Fish games offers their games in a way that the first 30 minutes of gameplay is free. A studio could offer the players’ longer playtimes (60 minutes of free playtime) as prizes. In a similar vein, Gaikai, Gamestreamer and Onlive offer cloud streaming of hardcore console games. Studios could offer digital copies of these games/demos as a reward.

4) Groupon/Living Social deals – These can be offered if the prizes are of a higher value. Groupon allows a person to gift a Groupon deal to someone else.

5) Subscriptions – A lot of publishing companies offer newspaper/magazine/game subscriptions. These can be gifted to a player too. I was supposed to implement this in one of my games and it actually works well.

I am gonna keep this list open for now. I am sure there are many other ways to reward a user and it would be great to hear from the readers on suitable alternatives.

You can follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique or mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com. 

How to build a business around buying and selling pre-owned (used) mobile games and apps.

Everyone loves a good bargain, isn’t that right? When you have pre-owned cars, phones, console games etc, then have you ever thought of owning a ‘pre-owned’ mobile game or app? This may sound weird and an unfeasible business model to a lot of people, but give it some thought (and read this article completely!) and such a business might actually make sense. I am surprised that no one in the industry has fully explored such a model.

First of all, what are the reasons people buy or sell pre-owned goods? Let’s run down a quick list. Let’s call this List A:

1) To save money.

2) To get rid of a product that they don’t use that much.

3) If they are not satisfied with the purchase and the return period has expired.

4) They just got bored of using the product after a while.

5) They found a better product.

6) In the case of a console game, they basically completed all the levels and finished the game.

Now what if you took the same principles and business models around the pre-owned goods business and applied it to mobile apps/games? Such a business has the potential to become a huge industry if it’s done the right way. By the way, I am using the terms ‘Apps’ and ‘Games’ interchangeably in this article. They both mean the same thing here.

First of all, how would such a system work? I did some research over the weekend (yup, my weekends are pretty lame) and came up with a plan that could potentially work. So here it is:

1) A user (let’s call her Norah) buys a mobile game named Rockstar for let’s say 99 cents. The game is built by a company called Bringit Studios.

2) She plays Rockstar for a while and then for reasons explained in List A (or some other reason), decides to sell the app.

3) She then puts Rockstar up for sale for half the price (49 cents).

4) She either sells it directly to someone she knows, or puts Rockstar up for sale through a third party pre-owned apps seller (like an Ebay or Craigslist mobile apps equivalent).

5) The sale goes through in a way that she gets to keep 50% of the sale, 40% goes to Bringit studios and 10% goes to the third party seller. Or if she sells it directly to someone she knows personally, then she gets to split the revenue 50:50 between herself and Bringit studios.

      Now if Bringit Studios sold a 100,000 of their iPhone game apps for a dollar. The revenue is $100,000 The 70:30 revenue split with Apple gives Bringit $70,000. This is the studios initial revenue. Now if let’s say 30% of the buyers decided to resell it for half the price. After doing the math, the studio would make another $7,000 to $10,000. And I am not even considering the revenues from in-app purchasing and advertising. That in itself would bring about a decent amount of revenue to the studio.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But obviously it’s not as simple as that. So what are some of the issues here?

1) The first one is the app store policies itself. Apple or Google will obviously not allow such a system to work because it can potentially cannibalize new app sales. One reason they might consider such a model is if they were getting a share of the sale too. So if Norah sells the app and a portion of it goes to Bringit Studios as well as Apple/Google, then it’s a win-win situation for all of them. But the mobile gaming industry in general is still in its infancy. So I feel it will probably be a long time before Apple or Google (or Microsoft) even consider implementing such a system.

2) The bigger and more successful studios would not want to do this for their popular games because they are anyways making a killing from new sales. Such a system will work best (atleast initially) for the less popular games and studios.

3) The biggest criticism of this concept would be that studios in essence or not selling the app itself to the consumer, but they are selling a license to purchase the app. So Norah only gets a license that gives her an instance of the app on her phone. Well, a license is always transferable to another user  as long as the eco-system allows it (case in point: Serial Key Numbers). Thats the primary reason why bigger platforms like the Apple app store or Android won’t be interested in this now but smaller gaming platforms like OpenFeint, W3i or Playphone can make such a system work because they build their own policies and all their apps are downloaded from their own app store. I have built games for the Playphone App store and they have the resources to implement such systems. But the main catch here would be that app developers will have to work through these platforms to resell an app.

The best example is products itself like MS Office. A user can download a trial copy for free, and then all he has to do is purchase a serial number in order to validate this application. Millions of users use MS Office and then sell these serial numbers to other buyers. And since only 1 instance of such a serial number is legal, the new buyer gets complete ownership of the license. This is exactly the premise that I am basing my idea on. An app can be serialized, and then only 1 instance can be allowed. This gives a chance to a license holder to resell the app. My whole concept deals with a business model that helps studios generate extra revenue. And I am discussing a model that in real life has worked for every single industry known to mankind. If the pre-owned business works elsewhere, then why can’t it work here?

4) As always, there will be resistance to such a system, because the pre-owned goods business has always been looked down upon by product creators. In the end, the customer always wins so sooner or later, someone will start doing this (if someone hasn’t done it already).

      Alright now let’s talk a little about its advantages:

      1) This method can actually benefit Bringit Studios. Most mobile games/apps have a very small shelf life. By giving Norah a chance to sell this app, they are making sure that the game is still being circulated within the gaming demographic. And every new user brings with him/her a new revenue making opportunity.

      2) Most mobile games don’t have a lot to offer in terms of in-app purchasing. There is only so much that Norah could potentially buy within the game after which she would either get bored or would not want to buy anything else in the game. And at some point, she will probably move beyond this game and play other games too. By giving her a chance to sell the app, Bringit gets to make some money, and when the new buyer starts playing the game, Bringit has another chance to make more money through in-app purchasing, advertising and as well as from the actual sale of the app itself.

      3) Let’s just put it this way, how many apps do you currently have on your smartphone that you haven’t used in a while? And how likely is it that you will actually ever use them again? So how about selling them off the same way you sell your other used stuff on Craigslist or Ebay? Sounds compelling? I am sure it does!

      

      4) With this method, Studios will actually encourage higher spending habits among its demographic. Because if Norah has the opportunity to sell an app after she has used it for a while, then there is a higher likelihood that she will actually buy it in the first place.

      5) And of course, this is software we are talking about here. So the buyer is getting a product that’s basically as good as new.

So what's the best way to actually implement such a system? There are definitely some nuts and bolts here that need to be tightened in order to make sure this model can succeed. Based on my limited intelligence and experience, this is how the system can work:

1) The best way to build such a business is through 3^rd party gaming platforms like Playphone, W3i, OpenFeint etc. These companies can build an online pre-owned apps store within their platform and encourage studios to work with them and make their apps available for sale in such a store. So all the transcations will happen within the realm of this store itself. It can function pretty much like eBay where users can buy/sell their apps. The ideal scenario would be if Apple or Google themselves allowed it, but they won’t do it unless this becomes a really lucrative industry. It’s best for smaller gaming platforms to indulge in such an initiative and become leaders in this space before the big boys start encroaching in.

2) Paying actual cash to a user is always a legal headache for companies. So instead of money, Norah can get paid in ‘digital currency’. So the approximately 25 cents that she made on one sale can be equivalent to 25 digital coins. And she can use this currency to buy other games/apps in the store itself. This way, the money will get circulated back into the app store, which would be awesome for the gaming industry itself because the money never leaves its ecosystem.

3) To make sure that these apps are not being constantly sold off multiple times at increasingly lower prices and also to avoid unhealthy competition between sellers, Studios can put limits on how many times their apps can be re-sold. So Norah could only sell it once and then the new buyer is not allowed to sell it again (because he/she already got it for a discount).

4) Once Norah sells this app, the app is automatically disabled or deleted from her phone. Only one instance of this app can be available for use at any time.

5) Now if the game itself is free and depends completely on in-app purchasing. Then Norah can find out the exact value of the app based on all the purchases she made, and then sell it.

6) Norah could potentially ‘loan’ this app to her friends too. This is a whole different story but the same business models that I have explained in this article can work for this too. I would be happy to explain this system in a future article.

If pre-owned goods can do well as a business in other industries, then what's stopping companies from incorporating the same mechanics into the apps industry?

I try my best to keep these articles short but that doesn’t seem to happen. I am happy to explain this concept further and clarify any questions you have. And of course, I would love to hear your comments/criticism about this idea. You can mail me at aabidsiddique81@yahoo.com or Follow me on Twitter @aabidsiddique. My personal site is at www.aabid.me.