May 26th, 2010 @ BAFTA, London
ME presents the Monetising Mobile conference - putting the focus on how to make actual money from the apps revolution.
New Business Sales EMEA
Competitive Package
UK - London
The 16 best BlackBerry apps in the world this year duke it out for a $100k prize.
It's just like The X Factor. Well, except with less Irish twins doing the Ghostbusters theme, and more BlackBerry applications. So not quite so much like The X Factor then.
No, this is the final of the BlackBerry Developer Challenge, a contest sponsored by VC fund the BlackBerry Partners Fund, and designed to find the most innovative BB app from 2009. 16 have made it to the final, and the winner walks away with $100,000.
Read on for the blow-by-blow account of the finalist pitches, and the eventual result. The panel is a mixture of RIM execs, BlackBerry-focused bloggers, and the chap who runs Viigo.
Oh, and it's only 15 finalists, as the 16th had a car accident on the way to the airport to fly here. "He's okay," says compere Mike Kirkup from RIM. But he's out. 15 it is. And first up...
1. UNSYNCED MEDIA PLAYER KIK
"In a world where we have the most powerful computing devices in the palm of our hand, why do we have to wait till we get home to get music?" asks Ted Livingston, CEO of Unsynced Media Player, which is rebranding its app as Kik for release early next year.
In short, it lets you find songs, buy them, and then share them with friends. So users can type in a song title, find it, and it starts playing. "I never had to confirm the purchase," he says. How? For the first three plays, the song is free, with no ad in sight.
The service will launch with a $9.99-a-month subscription option, although users will be able to buy songs (as MP3s) for $0.99, or continue to listen to it by listening to a pre-roll advert. So Kik is a mixture of ad-supported and paid-for music. And then tracks can be shared with friends via email.
Question: is Kik stealing the music? "We're getting the licences..." says Livingston, which raises a laugh. He reckons the labels are excited by it though.
Website: www.kik.com
2. SID MEIER'S PIRATES
Cor, I loved this game on the Commodore 64 when I was a lad. Now it's on BlackBerry, although it's a tall order to follow the last presentation, which was very bullish.
So its a piratical game where you sail the Carribbean swordfighting, trading, seeking treasure and bothering parrots. It's a shame to report that the audience has started chatting - possibly a function of the Kik CEO's liveliness.
I sense Pirates won't win, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good game. Concrete Software is the publisher. Tough crowd!
3. AFP MOBILE
Handmark is up next, with its app for Agence France Presse. So it provides AFP with the tools to publish its stories for BlackBerry - "in a way that makes them money".
The crowd is chatting again - it seems only extrovert presenters will capture their attention tonight. So, AFP Mobile lets you browse headlines and click on stories, which can be shared via email or posted on Facebook.
The AFP app is being sold for $2.99 in the App World, although Handmark also works with partners on app-supported versions. And it took two weeks to develop for AFP. And AFP is looking at including premium video, which users might subscribe to.
4. DAVID
This is an app that, as far as I can make out, warns BlackBerry users when they're about to go over their call limit - the calls they get as part of their monthly tariff.
It's an "accurate, real-time, wireless monitoring product" - you monitor your voice minutes, wireless network traffic, Wi-Fi traffic and roaming traffic, and it also tracks your text messages. And measures this against your monthly plan, alerting you when you're about to go over the limit and start spending more.
It's not very sexy, but I'm sure it'll save people money. Whether that's enough to win this contest remains to be seen, though. It can export reports to CSV and HTML formats on your spending and usage.
The next version will include statistical analysis of usage, telling users what changes they should make to their cellphone tariff, as well as push support and a better graphical interface. And the name? It comes from David v Goliath - with Goliath being a user's mobile bill.
5. WICKED BLOGGING APP
Alert: best company name of the night: Screaming Toaster. It's an app developer working on BlackBerry and Android, as well as making desktop apps.
Wicked Blogging App is a subscription-based app for bloggers, in short. It has social features, so users can see who's near them. It also stores users' content in the cloud, so if they change handset or wipe OS, they get all their posts back.
It looks good - the crowd hubbub is practically drowning the presenter out at this point, which is a bit harsh. At the moment it only supports WordPress, but other blog platforms will be supported in the future.
6. FILESCOUT
Another one-man band, Filescout is file, text, zip and image manager. Not sexy at all, and thus it's lost the crowd already - through no fault of its own.
So it can be used to figure out which file category on your BlackBerry is eating up memory, as well as open up files, manipulate images and send files via email or Bluetooth.
I'm not sure if it's the kind of app that wins contests like this. But I bet it's super-useful for those BlackBerry users who download it, so it's certainly worth its inclusion in the final list. The audience chatting is getting quite rude, actually - I wonder if someone will say something from the stage.
7. PROONGO (ProOnGo - it works better without caps)
Okay, this is an app about filing expense reports quicker. Not sexy, but useful again. Unintentional comedy value is provided by the quote "We used to come back to the office with piles... of receipts". Well, you have to take your humour where you find it.
But, 17 million US workers have to file expense reports apparently, so there's certainly a market for an app that can help them. It involves taking photos of receipts using the BlackBerry, and it stores them for you on a server.
As a freelance journalist, this is GENIUS. Well, it's an improvement on my strategy of collecting receipts in my pocket for weeks, then stuffing them in a drawer, and then running round in a panic trying to catalogue them the day before my tax return is due.
I am doing a better job at getting excited about this than the presenters, it's fair to say. Users get a free trial, and then it's a subscription-based model starting at $4 a month.
8. FIERCE TOWERS
Another game - this time a tower defence game (or tower defense, for Americans and search engines). It's developed by Nickel Buddy,and looks a lot like Fieldrunners on the iPhone (although I have no idea which came first).
It does seem to innovate within the genre - there are no predefined paths for enemies for example - and it's received rave reviews, with a new version coming next year. The developer is using user feedback to inform that version.
Nickel Buddy plans to release 10 BlackBerry apps next year, and the presenter stresses how proud the company is of the game. "We need more fun in BlackBerry - there's a ton of business applications out there, but we need more games". Hear hear. I don't think a game will win tonight, but Fierce Towers looks well worth a look.
9. SHOZU
Shozu has been around for years, hasn't it? Anyway, it's up for the gong here, for enabling BlackBerry users to upload their photos and videos to any social network or UGC site they want.
Shozu ties in with the BlackBerry Gallery app, allowing people to send their pics to specific albums on Shozu, Facebook or Twitter.
The app also assumes that connectivity is poor - so it can handle interrupted connections, and is efficient in terms of bandwidth. It's good, but will it win? At the time of writing, Kik has been the app that stood out as the most startling new whizzy entrant, while David and ProOnGo are the more solid-but-useful entries.
10. CBS NEWS
It's offering news up to users, as well as location-based ad campaigns. It offers breaking news and popular CBS shows.
The crowd are yabbering, and the presentation strikes a false note when talking about the "great opportunity" of RIM's sub-6% share of AdMob ad requests in the US - hammering home the point that many more people are using apps and the mobile web on their iPhones.
11. E-MOBILE
The moderator steps in, asking people to quieten down at the back. They don't. E-Mobile Today is a standalone app costing $29.95, which logs appointments, missed calls, emails and text messages.
One judge points out that this price point "hurts a lot" in the app marketplace today - too right. In all honesty, it didn't come across that well.
12. VISION FOR YOUTUBE
Right now, I'm wishing for a CEO who's happy to skateboard onto the stage in a catsuit and shout his pitch to the audience. It might at least cut through the chatter.
Vision for YouTube is made by developer Metova, and the boss doesn't do that. However, he does explain that key features include searching and browsing YouTube videos.
It was downloaded 200,000 times in July alone, with no money spent on marketing, and it only cost $40,000 to develop. Metova is planning to launch a new version using an ad-supported model, go international, and add the ability for comments and ratings.
13. ASTRAWARE SOLITAIRE
Third nomination for the night from Handmark, this solitaire game offers... well, lots of different versions of solitaire. 12, in fact.
There's a drunk man standing behind me shouting solitaire-based heckles. It's quite surreal. From experience I know that Astraware Solitaire is an excellent solitaire game. It won't win $100,000 though. I think it's safe to assume that.
It does show RIM's challenge to make a big splash in the mobile gaming industry though. On tonight's evidence, the best three BlackBerry games of 2009 are a tower defence game, a remake of an old 8-bit game, and a solitaire title. No criticism is meant of any of those when I say any such roundup on iPhone would be considerably different.
14. MARKET SIMPLIFIED
Not the best start - the opening slide to this refers to 'blackberry'. The RIM diehards in the crowd are already muttering...
Market Simplified is a finance app for traders, using push notifications. Not a great presentation, but one of the more useful and presumably profitable applications on show at these awards.
In short, it lets people trade on the go. People in the audience are laughing at the fact that the presenters didn't properly explain what their app actually does. But I bet it's making users rich. If the BlackBerry Partners Fund is looking to invest in a company that will sell up to someone big in the future, this might be the best choice. Aren't all VCs looking for a lucrative exit, ultimately?..
15. 7DIGITAL MUSIC STORE
DevelopIQ take the stage to show off the 7digital Music Store, which launched recently for BlackBerry. It sells MP3 songs, and the presenter has a dig at first presenter Kik straight away saying "You'll kick yourself if you pay 99 cents for an MP3..." Nice work.
It's a very slick store, functioning as a player as well as a way to buy music. The Wi-Fi network has dealt them a cruel hand of fate and fallen over, so the live demo isn't working. Top marks for the other presenter whipping in a different handset with the relevant page loaded.
Anyway, the 7digital Music Store is a great mobile music store, complete with a locker service to users can download low-quality MP3s over the air, and then have them swapped for decent 320kbps MP3s when they're next on a Wi-Fi network.
So it's over to the judges, who have disappeared backstage to deliberate. The consensus on my table is that ProOnGo or Market Simplified should win, but Kik might take it if the judges go for the whizzy futuristic business-model-completely-unproven option. At least they could spend the $100k on paying their royalty costs.
As I write this, there is a woman in fishnets on stage balancing on one hand on a stool while Edith Piaf plays on the PA. I assume this is what RIM believes will be a "transformative experience" for attendees. Possibly.
At least it's not Bono.
And now she's been replaced by a woman in hotpants gyrating with a snake. Really. And two of her friends with swords.
Now the judges are back. Without snakes or hotpants, but with news of the runner-up and winner of the contest.
Okay, so Kik wins an "inventive" prize of $5,000 which appears to have been made up on the spur of the moment - an honourable mention of sorts.
And the runner-up is... Fierce Towers! Congratulations. And the winner is... the 7digital Store. Hats off. And if you don't believe me on the women/hotpants/snakes thing, click here.
