Usage started off strong; almost one in five mobile data users were using their phone most during the 1st quarter. As the game started heating up in the 2nd quarter with a couple of touchdowns usage dipped, but then spiked during halftime. In the 4th quarter, mobile usage slowed to a crawl. Viewers were probably too glued to their TV’s to use their phones. Immediately after game time, mobile usage jumped back up. To see what people were actually doing on their phones, check out the full results here.

Its Day 1 today and the floors are buzzing with excitement and energy accompanied by some loud Rock music. The rules are simple – keep it relevant and keep it wild. After all “a single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules”. So, keep the beer flowing and the keyboard typing.

The hack day is going to culminate in the grand finale tomorrow with the demonstrations and the judging. While the teams are busy building cool stuff, the judges have their heads together to come up with equally innovative awards. If you see our CTO wearing an engineers name on his T-shirt for the next month, do not be alarmed. The engineer deserved it!

Here is an example of the atmosphere at our Bangalore office today. Simple words of inspiration by Krishnan, InMobi’s Director of Engineering.

Dear Dream Team,

Hackers every where, the war cries are getting louder, the adrenaline pumping at dizzying levels, I say to you

BRING IT ON!!! TEAM WE ARE AT WAR, ONE TO REDEEM, CONQUER & CAPTIVATE, UNLEASH UR IMAGINATION AT EPIC PROPORTION, I KNOW U WILL PREVAIL.  THIS IS WHERE WE FIGHT THIS IS WHERE WE WIN

Do not let the fog of war cloud your imagination, understand your competition, attack ruthlessly for today is a good day to kill the competition.  These are not times for long mail but I thought I will share the following; reading optional “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment, we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity” – Nehru.

1. Business Cards
   How many cards were you planning on bringing? Nope – bring twice as many! Make sure you actually do something with the cards you pick up – I like WorldCard for scanning in cards.
2. Pick Up All The Schwag
   Every company will be handing out free posters, stressballs, branded USB sticks, samples, and – in some cases – giving away phones. Take everything you can lay your hands on.
3. Hand Sanitiser
   You’re going to be shaking hands with thousands of people. Take along a bottle of hand sanitiser to help prevent picking up the MWC lurgy.
4. Throat Lozenges
   Talking everyone through your app is hard on the vocal chords – especially if you’ve spent all night at the karaoke! Rest your voice and suck on something medicated.
5. Go To Every Party
   There are dozens of parties every night. Don’t be afraid of dropping out of one and going to another. And another. And another. Stop when you get to the party serving dry-ice mojitos!
6. Throw Your Own Festival
   Take a look at the Unofficial Fringe Festival, pop along to some of their sessions, or ask if you can set up your own.
7. Power Worries?
   Take a couple of spare batteries – there’s nothing worse than demoing your app and having the phone die from lack of juice. Carry a portable charger and make sure it’s full.
8. Spare Phone
   Barcelona is a great city – but MWC attracts thieves who are desperate to part you from your gadgets and cash. Check out the official MWC security tips – and make sure you have a spare phone in case yours gets pilfered.
9. Drop By The InMobi Stand
   InMobi will be at Stand 2.1C64, Hall 2,1. I’m really looking forward to chatting to app developers about how InMobi can monetise their apps. I want to see your demos! We’re also going to have some exciting giveaways.
10. Not Going To MWC?
    Finally, if you’re not going to MWC, pop along to Not At MWC in London and hang out with the cool kids!

Got any other sure fire tips? Drop them in the comment box.

InMobi’s Super Bowl survey shows viewers were highly engaged on their mobile devices during the game, proving mobile advertising plays a critical role in an effective Super Bowl advertising strategy.

Highlights:
1. Nearly twice as many respondents used their phone during the first half of the game compared to the second half.
2. 39% used their mobile devices in response to watching a commercial during the game to:

• Look up product information
• Re-watch a commercial
• Discuss and comment on commercials

3. 30% said they used their mobile devices the most during commercials
4. 45% estimated time spent during the game at 30 minutes or more

Lessons learned:

• The Super Bowl may be TV’s biggest advertising event of the year in the U.S., but mobile is truly a force to be reckoned with.
• If you are trying to engage with mobile users, do so during the first half of the game.
• Super Bowl viewers use their phones during the game, and spend a significant amount of time doing so.

According to our survey of 1000+ respondents, the Coca-Cola Polar Bears were the clear winners of the favorite commercial question, beating out runners-up: Pepsi, Go Daddy, and Bud.

Which Super Bowl Commercial Was Your Favorite?

Check out our press release on what mobile users were doing on their devices during the game, when, and for how long.

Cheers,
InMobi Marketing’s Susan Kuo, Alexis Kushner, and Kathie Green
BIG THANKS to Taimour Azizuddin, Global Research Analyst, for running the survey and providing the data!

Over a year ago, we started working with 1185Design to develop a new brand identity. After countless concepts, design experiments, and revisions, we selected this new logo. It was the one design that we felt truly represented the energy and impact of the InMobi mobile ad network. It symbolizes the constant delivery of dynamic communications, to a variety of consumers, on every mobile platform around the world.

The Evolution of the InMobi Brand

The design team took a look back at the evolution of the InMobi brand. From our origin as a company called mKhoj, to our first rebranding and renaming as InMobi, see how the brand has evolved since our inception in 2007. Click here to view the full presentation.

Help Celebrate Our New Look

We asked some trusted partners, employees, friends, and fans to show their InMobi spirit by posing in a t-shirt with our new logo. If you want to pose in an InMobi t-shirt, you can buy one here. Email us the photo and we will be sure to post it on our blog.

@Storm8 Lisa Gu and Brendan Lyall

@Sprout Kevin Hughs, Co-Founder of Sprout

@Ninjapigstudios Jordan Schuetz
Thanks @inmobi for the awesome t-shirt and water bottle. You guys are truly the best advertising company around! #EPIC pic.twitter.com/tu2RYOOI

@InMobi Australia showing #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi San Mateo showing #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi Bangalore showing #InMobiSpirit

@goodals Sridhar, VP of Corporate Development

@InMobi SEA showing #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi San Mateo Post It note logo #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi Swag Distribution #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi Paris showing #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi Nairobi showing #InMobiSpirit

@InMobi London and @Victoria_Alexis showing #InMobiSpirit

What a difference a year makes! You can download the full set of statistics from the InMobi Research Centre – here are some highlights.

World

We’re close to hitting the point when half the advert requests we get are for smartphones. While sales of smartphones have taken off in recent years – there are still millions of people using regular phones. Are you targeting them all?

Europe

In Q4 of 2010, Android accounted for around 16.7% of advertising impressions in Europe. In Q4 of 2011, it rocketed to 32% – zooming past iOS.

North America

With dozens of manufactures churning out lots of different models, it’s always really interesting to see who’s up and who’s down.

Want to see the full set of statistics? Download them from the InMobi Research Centre.

So, the question I’m often asked is:
“how many downloads do I need to get to hit the Android top ten?”

The answer is simple…. It’s just 17.

Of course, that’s only if you want to be in the top ten paid-for cookery widgets in the Tuvalu app store.

Have a bit more ambition than that? Ok! Here’s what you need to know.

Android Metrics

There are around 200 separate metrics which go in to a Google Marketplace ranking. Google are always tweaking the algorithm which determines where your app is in the rankings.

Remember, each country has its own ranking system. Just because you’re big in Japan, it doesn’t mean you’ll be top of the pops in France.

The big metrics which have the most affect are…

Velocity

Has your app experienced a sudden and sustained increase in downloads?

As you can see, this app hasn’t had a huge amount of download – less than 50,000. What it has managed is a sudden growth which has been sustained for a few days. That can be enough to propel your app up the charts.

Ratings

Is your app well rated? This doesn’t mean “no low ratings” but “are the low ratings proportionate?”

Remember to solicit your users for feedback. Be careful not to be too intrusive, or you’ll end up with reviews like this!

Length on handset

How quickly do customers uninstall your app?

If people remove the app within a few hours of install, that will drive the app down the rankings. Apps which stay on handsets longer tend to go up the rankings.

Banner advertising is a great way to get quality users. If you’re using “pay per download” service, the users are only getting your app in order to get free stuff. They don’t care about your app and, subsequently, are quite likely to delete the app quickly.

Featured

Surprisingly, being featured in the Marketplace isn’t so useful to ranking.

Users see the featured app and download it, but they often “bounce” – that is, uninstall the app fairly quickly because it wasn’t something they were specifically looking for.

Burst Campaigns

One of the quickest an easiest way to drive customers to download your app is through a burst campaign.

This is where you spend your marketing budget in a relatively short time.

Rather than spread your budget evenly over a month, you can spend the majority of your budget in the first week, once you start climbing the rankings, you can reign in your spending.

If you want to get started with your first campaign, sign up to become an InMobi advertiser – we’ll give you $75 free when you use code “Developer75″.

Here’s a little about the event:

“Apps for the games” is the focus of the 2012 Winter Hackathon.

More than a million people – athletes, media personnel, sports administrators, spectators – will visit London in July/August 2012 for the summer games.

We can assume two things about them: most will want to engage with the city outside of the games, and almost all will have a mobile phone.

We’re devoting our Winter Hackathon in late January 2012 to the creation of mobile apps for these visitors – from event and location finders to shopping and leisure services – to help them to explore and enjoy the delights of the city and surrounding counties.

InMobi will be there handing out free gifts. We’ll be presenting the winner of the “London for Free” category with a $250 voucher to get their marketing campaign started.

What are you waiting for? Sign up now!

Let’s assume that you sell your app at 99 cents – or 99 pence – or any “cheaper than a cup of coffee” price point.

Most app stores charge you 30% for the privilege of selling your app. So, straight away, you’re at 70c per user, per app.

Still, 70c isn’t bad, is it? One thing we’re very keen to talk about at InMobi is the lifetime value of a customer.

Imagine if you sold your app on the first day of the Apple App Store in 2008.
A user downloads your app for 99c – she then upgrades her phone to the 3GS and downloads the app again. You don’t see another penny.
She upgrades to the 4GS – and again downloads your app – still no more money for you.
In mid 2012 she upgrades to the iPhone 5G (she loves her phones!).

You have been selling your app for four years. How much is that customer worth to you?

Customer Lifetime Value:
(99c * 0.7) / 4 years = 17.5c per year

After four years, your dollar app has earned you less than 20c per customer per year! For every year that your customers upgrade their phones and download the app again, it gets worse.

After five years, it’s down to 14c. Can you afford to support old customers who are barely bringing in the cost of a stick of chewing gum? Can you keep adding new customers to subsidise the old ones?

The Case For Advertising

How can giving your app away get you more money that charging 99 cents can? It’s pretty simple when we look at the lifetime value of a customer.

We aim pay to a developer – on average – 10 cents every time their customer clicks on an advert.

So, over four years, you need each customer to click two adverts per year and you’re already doing better than selling an app at 99 cents.

We know – from years of experience – that the average clicks through rate is 1%. That’s not a lot.

But if your app is used every single day – and your customer sees just one advert during that time – you’re showing over 300 adverts per customer. Statistically, we would expect you to get a little over 3 clicks.

10c per click. 3 clicks per year. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that 30c per customer per year is better than the 20c / customer / year you would get from selling your app.

If you can put two adverts in your app (say one on the splash screen and one when they exit)…

  2 adverts per day
  * 365 days
  * 1% Click Through Rate
  * 10c per click
 = 70c per customer per year

You could be earning the same amount every year as you earn from a single sale. Worth thinking about, isn’t it?

The Bonus

Ok… ok… 70c per customer per year probably isn’t going to be enough to let swim around in your riches like Scrooge McDuck.

Well – not if you’ve got the same number of free customers as paid customers. Here’s the thing – free apps are downloaded around ten times more than paid apps.

Ten times the customers. More revenue per customer. Continual income…. It’s starting to look good, isn’t it?

If you’re interested is working out what you could be earning, download our Developer Economic Toolkit.

You can get started with InMobi by signing up at www.inmobi.com/promo and use promo-code Terence70. Or, take a read through our Developer Wiki.