BuzzCity Tours - June 2011

The month of June is set to be a busy month for our team as they attend events in UK, Singapore, Africa, France and Taiwan. Here's an update of the various events our team members will be attending:

1. Daniel and Hawa from our South Africa office will be networking with industry experts at two events in Capetown, South Africa from 1^st to 2^nd June - Socialmedia World Forum Africa and AppsWorld Africa 2011.
2. The BuzzCity Developer Garage which is a channel for developers to share experience, trends and insights on developing sites and applications on mobile internet, will be held on 3rd June at BuzzCity's HQ office (Singapore). Mr Tan Yinglan, Head (Projects) at National Research Foundation and Tam Hock Chuan, Managing Director, Investments, at SingTel Innov8 will be speaking at this event.
3. Joey from our Singapore office will meeting with professionals from the developer community at Planet of the Apps in Singapore from 8^th to 10^th June.
4. Over in London, Ryan from our Paris office will sharing BuzzCity’s latest developments with mobile, internet and media experts at the Open Mobile Summit held over 8^th and 9^th June.
5. Not too far away in Paris, Anna and Camille will be meeting up with mobile industry professionals at Buzzness Mobile 2011 held on 8^th and 9^th June as well.
6. Anna will be on her toes again from 14^th - 16^th June at The i-Media Agency Summit in Brighton, UK where she will be meeting leading experts from the digital media, PR and communications industry.
7. The BuzzCity Roadshow in South Africa will be held on 14^th and 15^th June in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively. The event venue for the Johannesburg Roadshow will be at The Venue Melrose Arch and for Capetown it will be held at African Pride Crystal Towers, Century City. More details such as who the speakers will be and the confirmed programme will be updated soon.
8. In Singapore on 16^th and 17^th June Jeffrey and Meredith from our Singapore office will be attending the event for digital marketers, AdTech Singapore, where they will be sharing the latest updates from BuzzCity.
9. In Singapore on 16th June again, BuzzCity CEO, Dr KF Lai, will be speaking in a panel discussion at Echelon 2011 on the topic 'Telco: Asia's Goalkeepers?"
10. Dr KF Lai, will be attending and speaking at the Chinese Carrier Conference on 20^th and 22^nd June on the topic ‘Mobile Challenges in Asia’
11. The annual CommunicAsia2011 held from 21^st to 24^th June in Singapore will be attended by Jeffrey and Meredith who will be networking with professionals in the communications industry and attending various industry related talks.
12. Dr Lai will be speaking at CommunicAsia’s CEO Power Panel on 23^rd June in which the topic will be ‘Don't leave home without it! How will the Mobile Wallet empower emerging economies?’
13. The BuzzCity Roadshow in Thailand will be held in Bangkok on 24^th June at the Arnoma Hotel at 99 Ratchadamri Road. More details can be found here.

Feel free to email feedback [at]buzzcity.com to arrange a meeting with any of our colleagues at these events.

App Monetisation Secrets (Part IV)

By Romulo “Je” Alipio, Executive Producer, Games

Try & Buy, Virtual Goods, Mobile Ads, Mobile Rewards, Service Subscriptions, Upgrades & Updates, Cross-selling, Mix & Match . . . the number of revenue strategies has blossomed along with the market for mobile apps.

Which strategy works best? Which is the most lucrative?

I can't answer that . . . because there is no single monetisation strategy that will work across markets. You really have to do your research. And it's extremely important to have a business model in mind from Day 1. Waiting until a new app is finished before sorting this out is a sure way to lose money.

Don't despair, though. While it's particularly difficult to build a game that will be successful in both developing and developed markets, I think there are three inter-related key variables for developers to keep in mind as they create games and take them to market.

The BuzzCity Report (Vol 1 Issue 2)

The BuzzCity Report for the first quarter of 2011,  as before, includes detailed statistics and analytics, which maps the trends and forces that are shaping the mobile internet advertising. 

In this latest edition we report on:-

1. The number of ads served on our network increased 38% globally over the past three months, to 23.2 billion ad impressions.  This means more reach for advertisers and opportunities in new markets for content developers. By the end of March 2011, our network served more than 9 billion ads per month.
2. Countries that stand out this quarter include Spain (225% increase) and the USA (+72%). Others that have continued strong existing growth trends include Egypt (+144%), China (+130%), Mexico (+93%), South Korea (+92%), Thailand (+92%) and Turkey (+82%).
3. The continued consumer demand for mobile content, 
4. The most successful tactics currently used to promote apps (essential reading for all developers), 
5. How the live music industry is responding to the challenges and opportunities presented by the mobile internet .

To download the latest report, please visit  reports.buzzcity.com

BuzzCity Tours: May 2011

Join our team in the month of May as they attend events in UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Africa.Here's an update of the various events our team members will be attending:

1. KF and Meredith will be networking with industry professionals at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum (MMAF) 2011 in Singapore (3-5 May). KF will also be speaking at the social media panel (4th May) on the topic ‘Mobile is Critical to Social Media, but is it Vice-versa?’ 
2. The BuzzCity Roadshow will be held in Malaysia on 4th May at Boulevard Hotel in Kuala Lumpur”. This event will bring industry executives in Malaysia together to share their best practices, challenges and media understanding.
3. Hawa will be attending Mobile Web East Africa 2011 in Nairobi (25 - 26 May) to meet up and network with global digital marketing experts.

Feel free to email feedback[at]buzzcity.com to arrange a meeting with any of our colleagues at these events.

App Monetisation Secrets (Part III) : 2007 - 2011

By Romulo “Je” Alipio, Executive Producer, Games

Apple's introduction of the App Store in 2007 revolutionised the mobile industry. Games and application developers were freed from the shackles of phone manufacturers and carrier portals. They could sell directly to consumers and in multiple markets. Development cycles shortened, go-to-market strategies were refined. But the iPhone platform only represents three percent of the global market and all the hype led even more developers to try their luck, making it harder and harder for a single app to stand out (and be profitable).

Faced with yet another crossroads, developers innovated and found a new business model: freemium, a mix of free content and premium paid services.

There are at least half-a-dozen freemium models. Each offers a potential solution to the issue of distribution and profitability. The techniques can be used anywhere – websites, wapsites, OEMs, on-deck portals, indie store fronts like Djuzz and even via email. But of course there are also pitfalls. Today, join me, as I try to make sense out of Try & Buy, Mobile Ads, Virtual Goods and more.

App Monetisation Secrets (Part 2)

By Romulo “Je” Alipio, Executive Producer, Games

At the turn of the millennium (which sounds very cool to say, but was really just a little over a decade ago), app developer houses were popping up all over the place. 

Large developers made money by selling content directly to phone manufacturers like Nokia.  Sometimes they received one-off payments, but more often revenue sharing was the preferred model.  Garage developers, meanwhile, struck deals with bigger companies, which could bundle their content for sale to the Nokias and Ericcsons.

But as the number of development houses mushroomed, margins became smaller and smaller and it just became too difficult to turn a profit. Pay-per-download seemed the way to go, but like the other models, this revenue stream was highly dependent on the carriers, which created a number of problems for developers.

Demand for Content Drives Syndication

By Hisham Isa, Vice President (Marketing)

While most analysts and observers think of BuzzCity as a mobile ad network, we've been quietly and quickly building up another side to our business: content syndication.

As of this month, we now syndicate content to more than 1000 partners across the globe!