Yesterday I had a call with Jake Ward to understand the detail behind the recent announcement of the Application Developers Alliance which I covered in this blog post.

Jake clarified the purpose and mission of the organisation, and answered a few of the questions I posed.

Firstly, and importantly, it is a not for profit organisation. The idea came from the lack of representation of developers in the industry. Research was conducted before setting it up, “We have talked to a lot of developers” Jake confirmed.

Individual membership is free at the moment, and when fees are introduced it will be a nominal amount ~$25 > $50. 

They are looking to attract developers of all platforms, and Jake told me they have already signed up 2,300 members in the first three weeks, with 500 – 700 of these being outside of the USA. Reporting a really positive reaction, largely due to being a not for profit, it is clear they are not trying to make money off developers.

These interest levels have promoted the Application Developers Alliance to undertake international activity sooner than planned. Their first non-US foray will be at the upcoming Blackberry DevCon in Amsterdam.

Clearly this answers one of the key questions from my original post - this will be an international organisation, and the discounts on services (like Rackspace hosting) will apply to any member regardless of location.

Jake seemed especially excited by the networking tool within the Alliance, describing it as “a LinkedIn for Developers” This will allow members to find skills to hire into their projects, and connect them with clients.

We discussed at length the “herding cats” metaphor, and Jake agreed that there is no one size fits all solution to address the developer community, emphasising they want the organisation to be open and collaborative to ensure it serves member needs. 

This is re-enforced by the decision that the board will have developers sitting directly on it.

So, things look to be off to a fast start. I’ll keep you updated on further developments.

Interesting news ahead of CES. The concept of a trade association for app developers has surfaced again.

Jon Potter, formerly of the Digital Media Association, will launch the Application Developers Alliance at the CES trade show. He references the lack of organization within the developer community, and the need to bring it together.

It seems the Application Developers Alliance will aim to offer members the pretty standard array of trade association benefits – member networking, business match making, discounted services and industry lobbying.

The announcement has got pretty good pick up in the tech blogosphere, and there is speculation that RIM and Google may be involved. A positive start.

Frustratingly there is scant further information. It looks like its in stealth mode at the moment, the Application Developers Alliance website link was broken when I tried it,but there is an operational Twitter account @AppsAlliance. I have messaged Jon via Linked In, so I will report back.

I’m assuming the concept has been heavily researched with developers to get this far, so the thing I’m most interested in is the insight behind the need for a trade association, the reaction from developers, and their willingness to pay.

The concept of a single addressable “developer community” is an urban myth. Developers hang in tribes around particular languages, platforms, operating systems, or beliefs. Rather than being singularly addressable, they are by definition completely fragmented. Each individual tribe requires specific attention, knowledge and understanding of its particular needs. So far I've not come across a one size fits all solution. Trying to figure all this out, is both the challenge and appeal of working in developer marketing.

During the first year of BlueVia I have been open that our goal was primarily to raise awareness. Therefore the team attended over 100 events in 2011 and we spoke to pretty much everyone that would listen. The pure marketer in me wasn’t comfortable with this less than precise method, but it worked. We were also in startup mode, and there was not the time to attempt to develop a sophisticated segmentation model of the community ahead of launch. We did kinda try, but quickly discovered there was nothing out there we could use as a framework, it would all have to be from scratch.

That changed into the second half of 2011. Since then we have been working hard on creating our own segmentation of the community, which will allow us to identify much more precisely who would benefit the most from BlueVia.

However, it hasn’t been an easy piece of work to deliver. This is why I’m so keen to hear from Jon on the approach for the Application Developers Alliance.

If you accept that generic messages to the developer community will not work, then you have to be much more targeted in the way you tailor your proposition to individual developers.

Below is just a small sample of the categorisation attributes we identified and considered during our segmentation work

• Technology – perhaps the simplest approach is clustering around the developers preferred development platform – iOS, HTML5, Android, Ruby, .Net, Java, etc. This is relatively easy but risks missing the nuances of their actual needs and drivers.
• Organization type – is the developer an independent, a startup, in academia, an agency, a charity, an enterprise? Each situation brings its own set of needs and approaches
• Business Model – is the developer seeking to generate direct revenue from app sales, advertising, text messaging, in app billing or are they seeking to grow audience and market share, are they an open source developer, or a little of everything?
• Geography – another myth is apps are global. There are very few Facebook’s and FourSquare’s out there. Understanding the regional dynamics of technology, business, and competitive conditions is vital. I hope the Application Developers Alliance is intending to be an international body, and not just focused on the USA.
• Industry Vertical – is the developing producing apps or services for a particular vertical like games, financial services, energy, health, retail, etc

As you can see, the number of possibilities can quickly multiply, especially if you look to combine these to create a rich persona.

Patrick Mork floated the idea of an app trade body back in August 2011. I will have to reach out to him to see where that went, and if he is aware of Application Developers Alliance. The Mobile Entertainment Forum (disclaimer: I’m a board member) has also spent considerable time trying to figure out how it can become more relevant to independent developers, recognizing the huge contribution they collectively make to the mobile content and commerce industry.

So news of the Application Developers Alliance is welcome, but it faces some interesting hurdles. I’d love to analyze the detail, and understand exactly what kinds of developer Jon is intending to sign up. Its well documented that many developers are very negative towards marketing activities, even if its pushing something that directly benefits them. It will be fascinating to see how the Application Developers Alliance is pitched to them.

What do you think? Do developers need a trade body and will they sign up?

Last night I had the pleasure of sitting on the judging panel for App Circus London, hosted in TechHub.

Here is a quick run down of the results and a few of the notes I made about each pitch.

WINNER: EchoEcho

This is a social location app which solves a practical problem of guiding you to the location of a friend near by. You can send your location to a friend so they can come directly to you, or pick a venue close by for you to rendezvous at. It was a clear and concise pitch, articulately demonstrating how the app removes the need for a multiple text message exchange to zero in on someones location. There was also a nice build in member get member feature as sending your location to a friend encourages the download of the app. They already have users in 165 countries even though they only launched in September, and also expose an API.

RUNNER UP: Siine Writer

A 3rd party keyboard for Android devices I have seen before, but what struck me about Siine Writer was the use of icon buttons to enter long strings of text into the device. This I've not seen before, and can be fully customised by the user by adding their own buttons, and even uploading their own images to label those buttons. I think there is a huge accessibility opportunity for technology like this, and also really interested mobile health application.

HONOURABLE MENTION: Runtastic

Yes the a 10 a penny health and fitness tracking apps in the various app stores, but this was an accomplished pitch, with a beautifully designed UI. They have already generated over 4 million downloads of their apps, and they are extending the utility and accuracy of the app by supporting external sensors. When I challenged on what set them apart from the competition, they have a nice feature where friends can track a race live and give you on the spot encouragement to squeeze every last second out of your performance.

Eeve

Social location network for iPhone. Its a photo driven event app where you create events or "eeves" and share live photo streams with friends. You can also go back and browse historical eeves to reminisce about all those awesome parties you go to. The app is currently only available for iPhone, so it we be good in future pitches if they could clarify how friends on other platforms can participate in the fun  (e.g. mobile web site) or if they are excluded.

Foodzy

I liked this one. Tracking app for the food you eat. Turns the confusing concept of  calories into "bits" which is their virtual measurement. Some nice gamification to encourage repeat use by unlocking badges and challenges.  The UI looked intuitive and engaging, and localisation of the food database was a nice touch. Some pretty stiff competition is out there so it will be interesting to see if they can carve a niche for Foodszy.

Hipsnip

A personal shopping app, the pitch was saving you the time and hassle of comparative shopping on the web and asking friends for their opinion via social media. Via the app you have access to "experts" who can make you personalised recommendations. The part that left the panel unconvinced was these experts are supplied by retailers. This immediately brought into question the impartiality of these "experts". They did say there was a rating and recommendation system build in to govern the experts, but I think future pitches need to focus on reassuring that recommendations are really legit independent.

Pugpig

An App generator focused on the publishing industry, allowing a publisher to deliver HTML that is then turned into beautiful and functional tablet based apps using a hybrid mix of native and web capabilities. Think The Times iPad edition without all the production hassle. It looked great and the demo I saw in the networking was impressive. Because it wasn't a consumer facing app it was a little specialised to stand out to the panel, and a 3 minute pitch wasn't really enough time to do something a little different to the average app justice. If it is as powerful as claimed, I'm sure they will tie up some interesting deals.

The Girl in the Spaceship

A home brew Interactive ebook aimed at young children, focusing on learning through touch, sight, sound. You have options to let the child explore the story themselves or let the app read the story to them.

Slickflick

A story telling app with photos, kind of like a photo blog. Allows you to add text to photos to tell your story. They had a concept of matching brands with users as a business plan, but I think the panel needed more detail on how this could work, and how they would cope with competition from all the existing photo services out there today.

Congratulations to all, it was a fun and positive evening with a high standard for the apps on show.

Despite refusing to charge end users for their services, it seems Google are getting increasingly comfortable charging developers to use their APIs. Previously you only had to pay to use the Google Maps API if your site or app was charging users. Following Wednesdays announcement there is now a second trigger for charging, as Google has introduced throttling on the API. This follows on from Google introducing charging for their translation API back in August.

The charging structure will work like this. Up to 25,000 standard API calls, and up to 2,500 calls of the Styled Map feature per day will be free of charge. You can then purchase additional calls or license the Premier version of the API.

Pricing is around $4 for every additional 1,000 map loads, and a Premier license "starts at" $10,000 per year. This compares to the Bing Maps model of 125,000 sessions or 500,000 transactions per year for free, then upgrade to their Enterprise license, the pricing of which is not published. Its a "give us a call so we can talk" type of deal. 

This move seems to confirm a significant strategic shift for Google.

It will be interesting to see how other location providers respond. Do they also attempt to cash in on location (like the Mobile Operators have long been criticised for doing) or do they attempt to steal market share from Google by changing their fees? It will be interesting to see how or if this spikes interest in the range of free alternatives like the BlueVia Location API, OpenStreetMap, and MapNik. I'm not sure if Fireeagle is still alive?

My other concern is I hope this move does not shift mobile app developers to purely relying on the phones GPS location, rather than using server side location look ups. Ewan over at Mobile Industry Review wrote an entertaining piece on the benefits of server side look up's here, which is worth a read.

What will you use?

If you work in a place where magic happens, O2, Wired UK, and FourSquare have teamed up to create a UK Innovation badge. We will be crowd sourcing innovation locations across the UK. If you check into one of these you will unlock the UK Innovation badge.

The badge launches at next weeks Wired 2011 Conference, with the nationwide launch happening shortly afterwards. 

Nominate your innovation location by completing the entry form on the Wired UK Facebook page.

I have a 20% discount code for an awesome upcoming event in London focused on entrepreneurs and technology startups. Check out a great line up of speakers including Jason Calacanis,David McCandless,  Morten Lund,  Sam Ramji and more, see http://p0wer0f1.com/ - drop me a message if interested.

Click here to download:

Final_P1_Postcard.pdf (860 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

Final_P1_Postcard.pdf (860 KB)

So the whole worlds tech press (and a lot of its consumer press as well to be fair) were gazing towards Cupertino for the latest Apple product announcement. No one does geek showbiz like Apple. Facebook's recent #F8 was testament to that.

The blogosphere has been alight with rumours of iPhone 5, but ultimately the fanboi's were left disappointed.

Instead the company announced it was giving away the iPhone 3GS on two year carrier contracts. Only Apple can make "news" from discounting obsolete product. Kudos!

The already announced iOS5 including iCloud will be available for download from October 12th.

From the hardware perspective, iPhone 4S was announced. Highlights vs. iPhone 4 include:

• Apple A5 chip 
• 1 GB of RAM. 
• First iPhone with a dual-core processor and dual-core graphics. 
• It is “up to seven times faster” than the previous iPhone
• New antenna system that allows it to switch between two antennas for better sound quality and download speeds. 
• New 8-megapixel camera that can take 3264×2448 images, an increase of 60% from the iPhone 4. It is capable of taking in 73% more light than the iPhone 4 and is 33% faster. 
• 8 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of video

A selection of coverage from the event can be found here:

TechCrunch

GigaOm Live Blog

Mashable Live Blog

Gizmondo

Mobile Entertainment Twitter Feed

Herald Sun

Other notable news...

500,000 apps on the App Store, with 140,000 are iPad specific. 18 billion apps downloaded total so far, at a rate of 1 billion per month. Apple paid more than $3 billion to developers so far.

iOS app called Cards. You can make your own cards right on your phone, and Apple will print it out and send to you. If you mail it in the U.S. you’ll get a push notification to your phone when it arrives at the destination. $2.99 to mail in the U.S., and $4.99 internationally. After hearing Touchnote declare it was hard making money this morning in London, tonight they must be shitting themselves.

A side show from the announcement was the fact the Apple.com has seemingly been hacked. I grabbed this screen shot.

Learn how the guys at Facetones have taken advantage of the marketing support on offer in the BlueVia Marketing Toolkit.