Mobile games dominate app stores

We knew this all already, but here's further evidence from Nielsen that mobile games dominate the app space. Users are more likely to download a game app over any other and are also more likely to pay for them.

Source: Mashable

UK mobile app market worth £280m in 2010

Mobile stats specialists Research2Guideance have released figures that the UK app market was worth £280m in 2010. Here are the headline figures.

• The UK accounts for around 8% of the global app market
• 860m apps were downloaded in the UK in 2010
• Free apps accounted for 757m of the total, around 88%
• Paid apps accounted for 105m of the total, around 12% 

Unfortunately, you don't get the full report unless you're able to pay them a heap of money, so I don't have any more detail. However, one interesting additional piece of information that they tease you with is that females are adopting smartphones at a faster rate than men in the UK now. Research2Guideance claim that the number of women who own smartphones will be equal to that of men by the end of 2011.
Source: Research2Guideance

Droidcon Day 2: Mobile trends that might surprise you

Day 2 at Droidcon was a more traditional conference, with presentations and guest speakers.






Mobile trends that might surprise you
Comscore's Jeremy Copp delivered some very interesting mobile trends that reminded me that I'm not the typical digital consumer.

• Only 25% of mobile owners in Europe browse the web
• Only 25% of mobile owners in Europe use apps
• But there were 15.3m extra mobile media consumers in 2010

The growth in mobile media consumption is being driven by social networking, with more people now accessing Facebook on mobile devices than via PCs.

Google is powerful on mobile, but not as powerful as on PC.

• 41% of mobile owners use their device for web searches
• 90% of PC owners use their device for web searches

Android is growing rapidly.

• The Android OS experienced 1329% growth YoY

Some things you might not realise about mobile.

• UK mobile users access Facebook for over 2,600,000,000 minutes per month
• 75% of mobile users in Europe don't use apps. That's a lot of room for growth in apps.
• UK mobile audiences consume 10bn page views per month on mobile browsers
• Only 38% of Symbian users use apps, compared to 90% on Apple and Android. Tells you a lot about the apps available to Nokia owners.
• About 11m European users access dating sites a month on their mobiles. Weird!

Droidcon Day 1: Earning money from apps in Android Market

The first day at Droidcon was a barcamp in which the community proposed talks and presentations were free-styled. There were some common themes that emerged, here's one of them.



It's tougher to make money selling apps than you think
Forget the hype, the truth is that it's actually very difficult for developers to make serious money selling apps, unless you're a game. The average iPhone app earns around $6000 over a two year period for its developer. With its bias towards free apps and high barrier to first purchase (Google Checkout), Android is even tougher. Apps featured on the Android Market homepage generally earn around $400 per day.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. Some apps are doing very well and generating serious money for their developers, especially games. Developers are increasingly looking at innovative ways to generate revenue from their apps. Here are two such methods:

Freemium
When Rovio came to publish Angry Birds on the Android platform they decided not to charge for the app, but to include advertising within the game. Angry Birds sells for 99p on iTunes (at time of writing), so we're not talking about a high price point here. The strategy worked, with Angry Birds receiving 1m downloads on Android on day after release. Some estimate that it might now be up to 10m downloads on Android.

Location based ads
Currently, only Google makes money out of Maps. How can developers make money from location apps? CloudMade have created a location-based advertising platform, which replaces Google Maps and will deliver advertising to any application that uses it.

Samsung Galaxy Tab walkthrough

Samsung have released an incredibly detailed 9 minute walkthrough for their Galaxy Tab.



Here's what I love.

Speed
Android 2.2 seems to run very quickly on the device. It looks almost as quick as the new HTC Desire HD.

Swipe keyboard
Just because I really want to try it out. Watching the disembodied hand swipe words into his presentation you can't ever imagine it working. But what if it does?

Gundam
The inclusion of the Gundam in the video calling section was even more exciting than video chat.

Ereader
The ability to highlight and bookmark individual words and sentences is a real plus for me. I'm also very interested to see how this integrates with the rest of the internet. Being able to pull up additional definitions and more information looks incredible. The book suddenly feels connected and part of the digital revolution!

Media Hub
Amazing. Just what I want. However, I know that I'll probably have to move to America to be able to use it. Hate territorial rights!

Flash in browser
Why would anyone ban Flash?

Super Mega Worm

When you're house bound, suffering from Johnny Utah knee, mobile games become your friend. After getting bored with the ubiquitous Angry Birds Lite for Android, I decided to look around for others. Glad I did because I discovered the insane Super Mega Worm, for the iPhone.



From the trailer, I've deciphered that the game's plot revolves around a mega worm that's trying to eat the world to safety. Mega Shark seems to be an influence here. I love mega animals. Hope this comes to Android soon.

Welcome new blog

This blog is an attempt to archive mobile media, which is something I love.