Business ideas for 2018: Alexa skills

startups.co.uk

If you’re a tech savvy developer with coding capability, 2018 could be the year you say: “Alexa… make me some money, please”

At the end of last year, we highlighted voice recognition as one of the key technology trends for the year ahead – and this is hugely influenced by the growing popularity of Amazon’s Alexa.

In mid-2017, Amazon was said to have 70% of the voice-controlled speaker market and with a “record holiday season” for the retail giant with “tens of millions” of the Echo range sold over Christmas, that market share is only set to increase across the next 12 months.

So why is Alexa so popular with consumers? Well, not only are Amazon’s products reasonably priced (the 2nd generation Echo currently retails at under £90) – but thanks to the integration of thousands of wide-ranging skills (the skills count surpassed 25,000 last year) – Amazon’s voice devices are becoming less of a tech novelty and more of a useful aid you can’t live without.

From controlling your heating and home entertainment system to ordering an Uber or Dominos with just a simple voice command, Alexa can make your life easier in ways you might not have even imagined.

As mass adoption continues, and consumers really start to understand the capabilities of their devices once the right skills are enabled – the demand for new and innovative skills will only grow.

And with a rising demand for additional skills comes an opportunity…

Simple to create (if you have the know-how), savvy developers and even tech start-ups could build a profitable business in 2018 by creating in-demand skills that customers love.

Starting an Alexa skills business: Why it’s a good business idea

The more useful Alexa becomes, the more consumers will value it, something Amazon Alexa director Rob Pulciani is all too aware of. In a statement to CNET, Pulciani explained “Every skill makes Alexa smarter or more useful” but admitted “we can’t do that by ourselves.”

Established brands are already getting in on the action. Thanks to Diageo’s virtual bar you can ask Alexa for cocktail suggestions and Nestle’s Purina lets you find out detailed information on different dog breeds.

But while the next 12 months will no doubt see more big brands create voice-specific content, there’s also an opportunity for tech-savvy developers and start-ups to create bespoke skills – from quizzes to games – and monetise them. Big brands don’t have the agility, pace or often the innovation of the tech community and Amazon wants to incentivise developers to ensure it keeps its market-leading position within voice technology.

Pulciani added: “We want to enable indie developers to innovate and extend Alexa capabilities at a rapid pace. If our developer community succeeds, we succeed.”

And there’s definite money to be made. In the US, developer Joel Wilson made $9,000 a monthfor his two quiz skills – almost without trying. Initially launching the apps just for fun, Amazon informed Wilson he could be part of a programme that rewards developers for popular skills and then the cheques started coming.

While Wilson’s story is one of the better ones, some developers were making just a few hundred dollars for their skills via rewards (and the transparency behind how the reward system actually worked was questionable), at the end of last year Amazon announced two further monetisation updates for developers that will properly come into fruition in 2018. (The rewards programme remains in place too).

In-skill purchases and the ability to make payments via Amazon pay offer gamechanging opportunities for the year ahead. In layman’s terms, developers will be able to sell premium content or subscriptions within their skills and enable payment functionality. For instance, popular quiz game Jeopardy! is offering six additional clues a day to users for a small monthly fee. And TGI Fridays in the US will let you order – and pay for – takeout food via Alexa.

While the voice tech market is still small in comparison to the mobile app economy, Alexa is growing at a faster pace – VoiceLabs have reported that it will reach $50m in 2018 (compared to just $500,000 two years ago).

With such a fast-growing sector and more opportunities to make money than ever before, if you’ve got the coding capability, and an idea for a skill that could have premium functionality, now’s the time to capitalise on this exploding trend.

Alexa skills business opportunities

Creating an Alexa skill might not make you a millionaire overnight, but the good thing is you could consider doing it part-time, at least initially.

The secret to success will then lie in creating a unique offering that really adds value to consumers.

With household names like the BBC, Sky Sports and National Rail all integrated with Alexa you won’t want to create a skill that attempts to compete with any of them – unless of course your offering is a significant improvement on theirs.

Chris Redhead, digital media manager at True Digital, explains that most skills fall into two broad categories: “Those that provide an information response (such as Capital One’s skill which enables you to ask for your bank balance, credit card bill due dates etc), and those that perform an action (for example BMW’s Alexa skill for remotely locking your vehicle’s doors and controlling the air conditioning).”

So think about what type of skill you might create and then how your skill would genuinely benefit users.

Redhead adds, “Paddy Power’s innovation manager Stephen McMeel urges developers to find their ‘raw chicken on your hands functionality’ – citing the example of setting a timer while chopping raw chicken as something that is made 10x easier with Alexa and voice commands.”

Once you’ve thought of a concept, one of the biggest hurdles for Alexa skills developers will be encouraging users to discover your skill. Despite the thousands on offer, over half of consumers only use one to three skills so you may need to get creative with marketing. If the functionality works well though and it solves a problem for consumers, it should eventually start to gain momentum.

If you have ambitions to create a voice-focused business with big turnover you could consider launching a voice app agency – where you charge setup and development fees for creating skills and then an operating cost to manage them. This could also mean expanding your reach beyond just Alexa to Google Assistant and Cortana for instance.

If the industry explodes in the same vein as web development, an agency that could work with both big brands and start-ups has the potential to be very lucrative indeed.

Insider opinion

Mark Skilton, professor of practice information systems management at Warwick Business School, discusses the impact of the technology behind Alexa:

“Alexa represents a new class of technology that is developing in the next generation of systems that you don’t code any more but ‘train, configure and use’. With the explosion of data on the internet, falling pricings of sensors, network and computing speeds, it has led to a new renaissance of what some call intelligent systems of the fourth industrial revolution.

“Alexa is agent technology that provides new types of opportunities for consumers, product providers, manufacturers and coders of software. Packaging and services can have chat bot like dialogue with customers creating new service experiences. More advanced agents can not only converse and recognise images they could take autonomous action to report and re-order stock, set or alert security and give new hands-free recommendations that interact with people and things.

“From a computer design and coding perspective data and knowledge is no longer static, but can be embedded and interactive, personalised to make products and experience intelligent.

“This could create new forms of monetisation through precision services to meet specific needs and wants rather than guessing what people want.”

Mobile Operator Messaging Platforms: A New Frontier For Advertising

minutehack.com
How will mobile advertising continue to progress in 2018?

The future of advertising is mobile. Despite the claims from print publications and other off-line advertising mediums around their continued relevance and value to brands, an increasingly large proportion of advertisers’ annual budgets is going towards mobile advertising each year.

Indeed, recent figures detailing global advertising spend from eMarketer highlighted that spending on paid media worldwide will have risen by 7% at the end of 2017, to $584.14 billion, and that this increase was mainly driven by investment in mobile advertising formats.

Indeed, in the same report, eMarketer documented that mobile advertising spend will be $142.78 billion in 2017, a rise of 33.6% from 2016.

Big brands are constantly looking for ways to reach their targets and new audiences, both in terms of the content they put out there and the platforms they adopt.

The mobile experience

As consumers continue to spend more time on their devices browsing the internet and in apps, brands need to find smarter ways of accessing millions of untapped screens. It’s true to say that Asia leads the way in terms of innovation and trailblazing new technology. That said, other regions aren’t complacent and standing still when it comes to innovation.

For instance, we’ve seen a lot of news from mobile operators around the globe in recent weeks detailing relaunches for advanced Rich Communication Services (RCS) designed to give users a more experiential, multimedia experience from their messaging platforms.

The key challenge for mobile operators is one which has been prevalent for many years – that of monetizing these messaging platforms and apps, as well as providing users with the type of experience that competing providers have achieved.

There is, it seems, a timely opportunity to utilize the appetite of advertisers and big brands to access a greater volume of targeted mobile screens, whilst also meeting the high demands of users for that all-important, multi-layered, multi-media experience on their mobile.

Mobile operators

It is a fact that mobile operators have experienced diminishing average revenue per user (ARPU), high churn rates and reduced customer loyalty in recent years.

Why? Because demanding, cost conscious mobile users were quick to trade in traditional messaging platforms and operator services for over-the-top (OTT), instant messaging (IM) which was provided using the internet and therefore free-of-charge, whilst the mobile operators have had to invest in the network infrastructure and the associated costs.

That said, SMS is still widely used and increasing, with mobile operators now offering messaging as a free service. Additionally, the use of Application to Person (A2P) messaging has been highly successful and is increasing; providing many different organisations with a secure and reliable communications channel – how many of us now get text messages to remind us about appointment times or deliveries which are on their way?

This is because SMS has proven to be a trusted channel of communication for businesses to provide information to their customers, as well as being ubiquitous unlike the various IM platforms which vary according the users’ personal preferences and use.

Fast-forward to the present day and there is now a commercial imperative for mobile operators to find ways of monetizing their messaging platforms and apps.

The point is perhaps best encapsulated in a recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) which found that mobile operators will face a profitability squeeze in 2018 as they attempt to balance the investment required to satisfy demand for 4G and 5G mobile connectivity and cost, with a growing number of competitive threats.

Not only this but savvy consumers are becoming more aware of the value of their user data and will, undoubtedly, become even more demanding towards their mobile operators when it comes to obtaining user incentives and discounts from their mobile network provider.

Next-generation mobile advertising

Mobile users already accept the addition of digital advertising, be it in the form of banner ads, sponsored content, pop-ups, mobile videos, branded surveys and the list goes on, provided they feel either the mobile experience is one which they really enjoy, or there is a financial or material advantage to them of accepting the advertisements on a particular platform – often it is a mix of both.

Additionally, it almost goes without saying that data is driving increasingly acute personalisation and relevancy of adverts to a level which has never been seen before, from alerting someone when there is a sale on in their favourite shop to remembering important dates like birthdays and anniversaries, so the addition of in-app advertisements has benefits beyond financial for many.

Mobile operators have arguably the best data on mobile usage available today but they need to grasp the opportunity to fully monetize this – especially bearing in mind the revenue squeeze predicted by the EIU in 2018.

Highly targeted and unobtrusive digital adverts within messaging conversations, along with monetization of apps including customer care, money such as wallets and payments, internet TV offered via mobile and IoT apps such as smart home, wearables and smart retail could provide the answer.

Indeed, having moved on from the days when poorly targeted digital adverts were more of an annoyance than a benefit, today’s technology can offer mobile users an enhanced profile, preferences and data-driven experience which delivers real value.

From the user’s perspective, their data is power, and they should make the most of the airtime they are willing to offer advertisers in the form of preferential mobile contracts, user incentives and better handsets in return for accepting this new wave of advertising content.

In a world where the lines between desired content and advertising is well and truly blurred, why wouldn’t you monetize, in whatever form that might be, your precious data and have the added benefit of highly targeted and lifestyle enhancing content from brands you are already interested in.

2018 will be an interesting year for mobile – with mobile operators under more pressure and facing financial challenges. Innovation will be key to their survival as B2C providers and although we have already seen some mobile operators looking to partner with OTT providers in a bid to win back market share, the more exciting play will be in technology deployments which enable them to regain the upper hand to win back that all important customer loyalty, drive additional revenue and boost profitability.

Think Tank: Marketers to Take Advantage of Mobile Video Advertising in 2018

wwd.com

Anne Frisbie, senior vice president of global brand and programmatic at InMobi, explains.

The new NikeConnect app gives access to game and player stats, videos and special promotions.

Courtesy Photo

Last year was a roller coaster for digital advertising. We saw digital ad spend top $209 billion globally with digital finally overtaking television spend in the process. Challenges like fraud, brand safety and viewability took center stage as marketersdemanded a cleaner supply chain.

Brands worked to increase the amount of transparency and control they had over their digital spending, augmented reality proved that it’s here to stay, and marketers doubled down on video ads — particularly on mobile.

It’s impossible to predict the future, and it’s hard to pinpoint what will dominate our industry next year. Trends come and go, some evolving to the point of full maturity and widespread adoption, but just as many start strong only to quickly fade. As we put 2017 behind us and look ahead to what 2018 will bring, one thing is immediately clear, we live in a mobile world, and advertisers must adapt to this trend.

Change is necessary for long-term success and we’re starting to see that happen with mobile. Marketers are beginning to truly embrace a mobile-first approach to digital advertising — a tactic that isn’t as pervasive as you might think. For example, during the Black Friday shopping period and throughout the fourth quarter, retail brands such as Amazon and Home Depot adapted their apps and campaigns to reach mobile users — a smart move, considering retail purchasing was nearly 40 percent mobile. At the same time, mobile video is enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity, is expected to take over 75 percent of all mobile traffic by 2023, and will be the single largest area of focus for digital marketers this year.

Advertisers have finally seen the light and are beginning to understand just how important mobile is to reach a target audience. But while mobile dominated retail marketing in the fourth quarter, there are three ways marketers can leverage seamless and effective mobile ads in 2018.

The Year Mobile Video Gets Personal

After totaling more than $58 billion in spend last year, mobile video isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get more important. As advertisers reallocate their spend and better understand its performance, I expect to see in-app mobile video usage not only increase, but also become more personalized based on user behavior. Consequently, brands will be able to truly reach their target audiences with content that is applicable and attractive.

Achieving this involves changing the way advertisers optimize their mobile campaigns — they have to be seamless, and they have to be relevant to the user. Up until recently, most have simply repurposed their desktop ads for mobile without much consideration for the nuances of the medium and the experience that follows. But if the experience lacks due to slow delivery, or content that doesn’t resonate, users will close out of the app entirely. The road to more effective personalization starts with delivery.

Video End Cards Will Help Boost Mobile Engagement

Leading digital marketers are already making use of end cards in their video ads that allow consumers to further engage with the brand after viewing the video ad. This often includes a call-to-action such as “learn more” or “buy now.” While the utilization of end cards in mobile video is important on its own, there’s so much more that can be done to activate customer interest using this tactic.

Results have shown that personalized interactive end cards immediately following 15-second videos drive up to nine times higher engagement than static banner ads. On average, about 15 percent of consumers who watch a video ad will engage with interactive end cards once the video is complete. This places engagement rates with end cards well above typical click-through rates for digital advertising.

In 2017, we saw brands beginning to leverage audience data from their DMPs and their media partners in order to create more personalized end card experiences. This allows brands to move national video advertising messages closer to one-to-one marketing opportunities. These personalized end-cards will contribute to the future of video ads, helping brands activate customer interest in-app and spur them to buy.

Vertical Video Is Looking Up

According to research from the IAB, 90 percent of time spent on a smartphone is in the vertical orientation. As such, vertical video (or horizontal videos that are wrapped to create vertical experiences) is a good format to use in apps where consumers are already used to being served interstitial ads. These ads provide marketers up to four times higher visual impact, and provide a personal television commercial opportunity. However, collectively the industry isn’t quite there yet when it comes to adopting this as a best practice.

Today, marketers primarily run video ads in landscape format. Yet more and more of our favorite apps are becoming vertical-oriented — Snapchat, Twitter and Spotify, to name a few. By not creating mobile video ads that display well in a vertical orientation, advertisers are not only leaving potential revenue on the table, they could inadvertently be causing users to jump out of the app.

I expect that marketers will fully realize this change in 2018 and begin shooting video in vertical format so it can be easily consumed by users who are already showing a preference toward this orientation.

Video Will Eat the World

While we can’t say with absolute certainty what will dominate ad-tech in 2018, mobile video is poised to continue its upward momentum, particularly in-app. A recent study by Ericsson notes that 75 percent of all mobile traffic will be through video by 2023, and almost 80 percent of programmatic ad spend will go mobile by 2019. It’s never been more critical for marketers to take advantage of what has already become a popular, if not preferred, mode of consumption for users.

Unsurprisingly, consumers have already adjusted their habits to account for a more mobile world, and currently spend more than 80 percent of their smartphone time in-app. It’s time for advertisers to dive in deep on mobile as well, and 2018 looks to be the year that this finally materializes.

Social media marketing tips for local business owners

abc11.com

You have a brick and mortar business, but is something missing? You're chatting up with the locals, hosting events, you're even posting on Instagram. But you know, you're missing something. You're having the case of the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and perhaps the truth is, you're just not being social enough?

It's now just a push of a button and a fingertip away from engaging with your ideal customer. Google has now even begun to use the term Mobile Moments in regards to the consumer's journey across devices. Social media is a 24-hour powerhouse, with users engaged in all hours of the day. There are roughly around 2.1 billion smartphone users.

Mobile Moments

In a recent study, it showed 54% of shoppers are expected to shop in these Mobile Moments (meaning online on their mobile devices). So what can help you target these incredibly tech-savvy consumers? Before we go there, here is a list of how many people are plugged into social media on some of the most popular social media apps, giving you a bird's eye view of the potential reach that a good social media campaign can have on your business:

Instagram with 300 million + users
WhatsApp with 700 million
Facebook messenger has 600 million users
(All of the above owned by Facebook)

And that's just the tip of the iceberg

But how will they know you even exist? There are still apps such as the ever-elusive Snap Chat (Which FB tried to buy out at one point), LinkedIn, Twitter, and honestly, the list goes on and on. This can be a bit intimidating if you're not up to speed with how social media functions and that's why I put together a list that would help you start off on the right track when it comes to reaching the technologically empowered shopper.

11 Social media marketing tips that can help you connect with your audience & take your small business up a notch.

When it comes to posting on social media remember that it's not just about captioning off that perfectly captured filtered image, it's about connection, networking, being socially intelligent and strategic.

1. Brand your Social Media
Stay away from those generic filters. Just because it's easily available doesn't mean it doesn't come with a price. The price of engagement, that is. Branded images allow you to have a distinctive look and appealing brand to those who pop in on your feed. Allowing them to stay a bit longer, convert into a lead and possibly a sale. No one likes murky, dark or blurry vision, why use it on your social feed? A great app to help you edit as easily as pressing a button is the VSCO app which you can download straight to your smartphone. It allows you to make your Instagram pop like it's never done before. Light and Bright are usually a great starting point.
2. Have a blog
This is something I advise all business owners to have because it allows you to have more online visibility, customer loyalty and set you apart from your competitors. You don't have to write up a novel, 250 - 350 characters work great. And you don't have to post every single day! Once a week to every other week is perfectly fine.
How powerful can your blog be?

"Your Google ranking will go up dramatically. Whereas Google and other search engines may take two or three weeks to list your new website in search results, new blog sites and new blog entries are indexed every day. From comments, you will accumulate external links both into and out of your site, and get additional ranking from Google" -via Business Insiders

3. Add Value
Make sure you're adding content that not only jives with your brand but incorporates value to your readers. Done right a blog curated, branded and socially spread the right way can have you hundreds up-to thousands of visits a month. You can easily set one up through your website hosting provider and if you're using Squarespace or Wordpress.org it is nothing but a phone-call or easy set up away.

4. Use Pinterest
Tailwind is a great app that allows you to schedule posts on Pinterest. Pinterest is like Google with images. It's a large index of beautiful digital sticky notes that you can't help but click and read. Pinterest, in a nutshell, is a visual search engine. It's not just for looking up incredibly tasty Christmas cookie recipes or how to decorate your home for the holidays, it's a social media beast! Use it wisely my friends.

5. Design your images
Canva - If you're not already using it you need to. Canva is a graphic designer that you've folded up and placed in your back pocket. If you don't do anything but create pinnable images, it is well worth your time to look into it. Plus canva has a FREE version. With this tool in your back pocket consider making your post pin worthy. Meaning, slap some clickbait on that image!

6. Cross Promote your content
Thank goodness for integration! If cash is King automation in the small business world is Queen. The best way I discovered in cross posting meaning posting one time and it posts just about on every social media channel you are on. Using an app called IFTTT (If This Then That). You can easily cook up recipes that post on Instagram and have your images also showing up on Twitter. Instagram doesn't play nice with Twitter when it comes to posting images. Instagram also integrates and allows you to post on Facebook and Tumblr, but with IFTTT all you would have to do is share it one time without choosing additional options when posting. Zapier & an FB messenger tool called ManyChat are other apps which allow you to automate and stay connected.
7. Use Strategy
With Facebook constantly changing their algorithms, Instagram no longer being what it once was there is a unique way of posting that can help you drive in more traffic to your business and using Apps such as Social Sprout or Hootsuite that can make your life much easier while your social engagement climb. They allow you to post to your Twitter, Facebook group, Facebook page etc. on a schedule. For Facebook, I recommend scheduling post directly onto Facebook as its algorithms are more in favor of a "genuine" post as opposed to a post, posted from an outside app or bot. While using Twitter, go ahead and schedule out those posts straight from your app. Tailwind (used for Pinterest as stated above) can also point toward your Instagram but I recommend having the traffic drive more towards your website.

8. Using Tags
Hashtags are not just to randomly use in a sentence just to look #cool. Used strategically it can help customers and clients better find you. Make sure to include and use Geotags towards your overall location helping those tech-savvy customers find your business and land on that beautifully curated feed you created, making them want to scroll a bit longer and visit in the future. Don't have a brick and mortar? Geotag the city you do business from.

9. Giveaways
Allow you to engage with your audience. A great way to truly use the giveaways to your advantage is by asking your audience not just to comment but to tag a friend in order to enter said giveaway. A bonus is hosting giveaways both on your Facebook business page & Instagram Accounts. If you really want to get techy, FB ads are a great way to place new eyes in front of your business. And since you got the branded images, cool looking #hashtag sentences, what prospect wouldn't you lead towards a very worthy sale. Win-Win.

10. Schedule Posts
In favor of using the latest apps, I recommend building content at least a month in advance, scheduled out around those special moments or promotions you would like your customers or clients to take advantage or be a part of. This allows you to think outside the box, giving you time to be creative and prepare for those amazing turnouts.

11. Be Authentic
People don't want to connect with a "business". They want to connect with real people, with a heart and soul behind those beautifully displaying images and perfect captions. Business is about serving people and sometimes the best way to do that is by being authentic & genuine with your audience. By allowing the consumer to get to know a bit more about your brand identity opens up a deeper relationship and brand loyalty with them. An example of this is by posting campaigns that you care about, local events that your business funds or are a part of and why. This can also help build awareness into the heart of your brand because influence in any capacity is powerful.

And a Bonus Tip

Go LIVE - Videos are the new black. Meaning, in the words of Zoolander, Videos are hot right now. If a consumer were to choose between a business that was using video versus the same type of business who wasn't using video, the consumer would choose the business capitalizing on video visibility hands down. The reason? Brand awareness. There is a deeper connection made with video and a result of higher visibility. In other words, adding a product video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%. Using tools such as Zoom can help in creating great live videos with just a push of a button.

Alas, if all else fails you can always outsource or hire someone to help you set up your social media the right way for your unique business needs.

Blockchain Bridges Gap Between App Developers and Users in a Trustworthy and Open Market

cointelegraph.com

The aspect of Blockchain technology that eliminates the need for intermediaries is one of the most cherished characteristics by its followers.

Blockchain technology will bridge the gap between app developers and users and make app stores truly decentralized and transparent by removing the middlemen.

Closing the gap

Developers and users of mobile apps have been disadvantaged by middlemen that Blockchain technology could render unnecessary. Most of these intermediaries come in the form of advertisers, publishers and app store platforms that have been essential and important elements in the past.

With current developments in the industry, particularly with the emergence of Blockchain technology and decentralization, the gap between developers and app consumers is being narrowed down and many fees and costs are being eliminated.

AppCoins is a protocol that is designed with the goal of creating a transparent and trustworthy app economy where users can directly access the app stores without unnecessary middlemen.

A trustworthy and open economy

The two most popular platforms that users download apps from are Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Despite the solutions that these platforms have brought to the mobile app economy, as their weaknesses are obvious. Both developers and consumers are presented problems in the traditional platforms that include inaccessible in-app purchases and inefficient and expensive app discovery.

Traditional marketplaces involve app developers receiving their payments through app stores, which means the user pays to the store and the store pays to the developer. This flow is highly inefficient as it involves exchange rates and fees between user and store and store and developer. Bank transfers fees, risk of chargeback and credit card fraud exist as well and could be avoided.

Deficiencies of the past

AppCoins tokens will be used to get various types of services on any app store supporting AppCoins protocol, but also to reward users. Tokens can be used to advertise apps, developers can sell and users can buy digital goods using in-app billing and users can be rewarded with AppCoins for installing and using sponsored apps.

The processing of in-app purchases inside apps through Blockchain (with the AppCoins protocol) brings several important benefits to the developer:

Developers will receive money in real time directly from the user because the smart contract implements the revenue share between the developer and the app store. No exchange rates and fees, everything in real time and in the same currency. Also, the developer does not need to trust the store because it is powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain that guarantee the transactions. The smart contract is open source and can be audited.

Improved efficiency, increased revenue

By the Blockchain being public and standardized, it means that the developer has to integrate the protocol API just once and it will work with all app stores that implement the protocol. The protocol is already adopted by Aptoide (one of the largest independent app stores with 200+ million users) and will be adopted by others soon.

All over, with the efficiencies as result of using the Blockchain, the revenue share can be much better for the developer: instead of 70 percent of Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store, the developer receives 85 percent with through AppCoins.

6 retail brands who are nailing the app game

clickz.com
Researching how retailers can improve their apps, everyone named a few examples of brands with exceptionally good apps. Amazon, Target and Sephora are three of the best, according to the experts.

I have 80 apps on my iPhone—62, if you don’t count those that came preloaded, like Calculator and Weather. So far today, I’ve used seven of them: Gmail, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Pocket, MyFitnessPal and Dunkin Donuts, which I use to pay for my coffee every morning. There are a handful of others I use most days, which makes me just about average, according to App Annie.

Earlier this year, the app market data and insights company found that the typical consumer uses 10 apps per day. For most people, it’s unlikely that many of those 10 are retail apps. Amazon is the category’s sole representative on Apple’s Top Chart.

Still, many retailers have their own apps, even if they’re collecting digital dust on people’s phones. Speaking to different people as I explored the state of the retail app, I asked them all, “Which retail brands do you are doing the best job?”

I was curious which ones came immediately to mind, based on their own professional expertise and experience as users. Each person offered two examples and their answers were interesting enough to merit a whole other article.

Jim Cusson, President, Theory House: Amazon and Houzz

I sought out Jim Cusson because he’s president of a retail marketing agency, one with an impressive list of clients and a belief that “the future is still being written.” That Amazon is the most popular retail app is no surprise to him.

“Much like the Amazon website, the app is just absolutely easy to use,” he says. “There’s the reduction of friction around purchases and the personalization, which they’re arguably doing better than anyone.”

Houzz is another one that stands out for Cusson.

“You can type ‘contemporary kitchen’ and like Pinterest, the app feeds you images around that,” he explains. “You can click on a scene and it links through so you can buy this lamp or engage with the designer behind that space.”

Rachel Eisenhauer, Head of Marketing, SundaySky: Fresh Direct and Sephora

SundaySky recently released a report entitled, “Retail Personalization in the Age of the Mobile Shopper.” Rachel Eisenhauer and I talked a lot about the main takeaways from the report, namely people’s desires for omnichannel, personalized experiences.

Regarding the former, Eisenhauer loves how seamless it is to start a Fresh Direct order on her office desktop and continue shopping on her smartphone, though she notes its lack personalized recommendations. She can’t say the same about Sephora.

“As soon as I open the Sephora app, it’s like, ‘These are your favorite products that you reorder multiple times a year. Do you need a refill?'” she says. “When you walk into a store, you get a push notification reminding you to use your loyalty card.”

Since everyone has a unique complexion, skin type and face shape, makeup is an inherently personal product. Eisenhauer also likes the way Sephora’s app reflects that. For example, virtual fitting rooms allow consumers to see what different products look like on them.

Mausam Bhatt, SVP of Product, RetailMeNot: Target and Warby Parker

Mausam Bhatt came to RetailMeNot, which aggregates coupon websites, from Flipkart, India’s top ecommerce platform. He lives and breathes mobile commerce for a living, and immediately mentioned Target, one of the only retailers to crack the top 40 in iOS’ Top Charts.

“They’ve integrated everything nicely around the wallet,” he says. “I’m impressed with them going in several different directions, but slowly bringing it together. Not a lot of companies have done that.”

Bhatt also lauds Warby Parker for nailing the transition between on- and offline. Mirroring Eisenhauer’s comments about Sephora, he points out that the app uses face mapping technology to recommend eyeglass frames.

“Things of that nature can make users want to install an app,” he says. “Even though glasses are an infrequent purchase… they’re an important one.”

Brands are capitalizing on the trend of stressed adults coloring on their phones

digiday.com

Two years after adult coloring became a trend, brands are taking notice. Companies like Lionsgate, Hasbro and Kellogg’s are buying up ad space inside apps, creating their own coloring apps and designing branded coloring pages.

For Lionsgate’s film “Wonder,” the movie studio went to coloring app Recolor to run a three-month campaign that features a banner ad at the top promoting the available branded coloring pages. When a user taps the banner, a branded page appears with four coloring pages and the movie trailer. Hasbro took a similar approach in Recolor for its October film “My Little Pony.” In September, Kellogg’s ran a campaign featuring 3-D designs of Tony the Tiger and Pop-Tarts that users can color in Recolor. And Marvel made its own coloring app, called Marvel: Color Your Own, featuring characters from its movies.

Brands say coloring app buys produce higher engagement rates than other types of in-app advertising. Coloring apps, such as Recolor, Pigment, Unicorn, ColorBox and Pixel Art, bring in loyal followings since they are driven by subscriptions rather than in-app purchases, said Adam Blacker, communications lead at analytics firm Apptopia. Most coloring app users are women in their 30s — an attractive demographic for brands. Women control 73percent of household purchases.

App Annie estimates that in-app advertising will triplein revenue to $201 billion by 2021.

“Our clients are beginning to see coloring apps as a very viable place to place their ads when it comes to engagement,” said Adam Cohen-Aslatei, vp of marketing at ad agency Jun Group, which works with consumer goods, beauty, luxury and clothing brands on placing video ads in a variety of coloring apps.

Coloring apps for adults sit among the top free and top grossing apps in the Apple iOS Store, according to App Annie data. Of the current top-50 grossing entertainment apps, 11 are coloring apps. Blacker said coloring apps began reaching the top charts in September, and in December, five coloring apps were in the top six free apps, sandwiching Netflix at No. 3.

A coloring page in the Marvel: Color Your Own coloring app.

Coloring apps are following in the direction in-app advertising is moving toward: delivering interactive ads to users in exchange for something they want. Most of the time, ads within coloring apps appear as opt-in options. Users can choose to watch a branded video to unlock specific coloring pages. Cohen-Aslatei said the completion rate for Jun Group’s clients is 91-95 percent, which dwarfs the industry average of 75 percent for a 30-second video.

Cohen-Aslatei did not reveal which or how many clients the agency is working with for placement in coloring apps, but did say that ads are bought on a CPV basis, much like video ads on other types of apps. Jun Group determines the right user in the coloring app based on first-party data and shows them the ad. Once the person clicks on the ad, and after the 15- or 30-second video plays, the person unlocks a premium coloring book. The video must be completed for the premium book to be unlocked and Cohen-Aslatei said the agency only charges clients once a full video is watched. So if a person watches only half of a video, the client is not charged. Once the video ends, the user is shown an end card with more branding.

Unlike with game apps where brands mostly have the choice to advertise using banners or pre-roll videos, some coloring apps offer different ad formats that can help boost engagement, like Kuuhubb-owned Recolor, which allows advertisers to run their own branded designs. Brands buy these on a CPM basis.

Recolor, a subscription-based app that charges its 6 million monthly users $10 a month for unlimited coloring designs, has worked with Kellogg’s, Hasbro and Lionsgate in the past six months to create their own “coloring books.”

A Kellogg’s-branded coloring page featuring Tony the Tiger in coloring app Recolor

Tero Kuittinen, co-founder and chief strategist at Kuuhubb, said branded coloring books on Recolor see an average engagement rate of 10 minutes. For comparison, the average engagement rate of a custom interactive ad is 43.7 seconds. Kuittinen said branded banners at the top of the page get an average of 60 million monthly views.

A Pop-Tart themed coloring page sponsored by Kellogg’s in the Recolor app

Brands that have launched their own coloring ads outside of coloring apps are also seeing high engagement numbers. In December, shoe brand Timberland launched a coloring book ad in a number of gaming and creative apps. Users could color in the black-and-white image of hip-hop artist Nas as a cartoon video ad for the new shoe played beneath. In the seven weeks the ad campaign ran in October and November, 230,000 people interacted with the ad, with almost half watching the entire video ad, said Mike Isabella, director of consumer engagement at Timberland.

Studies have shown that coloring apps can reduce stress and anxiety, so brands also see the apps as a means to connect with users when they are in an open and positive mood, said Cohen-Aslatei. “When you are relaxed and focused,” he said, “a brand message is a positive experience.”