Acquiring mobile users is expensive, but here's why they're worth the cost

Even as cost-per-install rates soar, the cost of loyal users is going down. Here's what businesses building mobile apps should know.

Image: iStockphoto/Nongkran_ch

Apple's App Store may have created 1.9 million jobs, but it's unclear how many of those jobs pay a living wage. After all, VisionMobile's survey data has long revealed that most developers live below the app poverty line, making less than $500 per app per month.

There are signs, however, that life is getting better for mobile app developers.

SEE: Mobile device computing policy (Tech Pro Research)

App Annie, for example, is forecasting that the App Store will generate $101 billion by 2020. More importantly, however, the cost for acquiring a loyal app user, and not simply someone who installs an app, is in decline. With roughly 30% of all mobile advertising currently focused on getting people to download apps, everyone benefits if those billions of dollars start to create real brand loyalty, and not simply app churn.

Loyalty comes at a price

The cause for hope comes from recent Fiksu data. Fiksu, which specializes in helping brands build and run app acquisition and re-engagement campaigns, issues a monthly index that tracks the cost of generating app downloads and app loyalty, defined as a user that opens an app three times. Those numbers show though the cost per install (CPI) keeps going up, the cost per loyal user (CPLU) has declined a bit over the past year.

On iOS, CPI rose 12% to $1.64, a 28% increase over January 2015. On Android, CPI went the opposite direction, declining 44% to $1.91 from December 2015 while rising 25% since January 2016:

Now, compare this to the cost of acquiring a loyal user (CPLU), which plunged 34% since last month to $2.78, and experienced a year-over-year decline of 4%:

In short, the cost of corralling new users into your apps keeps going up, but the cost of generating loyal users seemingly paradoxically has been going down.

What gives?

Are we there yet?

The Verge's Casey Newton writes that "the App Store's middle class is small and shrinking. And the easy money is gone," which is correct, but doesn't tell the whole story.

For one thing, more and more companies aren't even trying to sell apps. Either they offer in-app purchases or, if they're a big brand like a hotel chain, they generate revenue through their app. For these companies, it doesn't matter whether the App Store economy is $101 billion or $1.01, because the revenue they generate is facilitated by apps but not counted as part of the "app economy."

Selling apps, in other words, is old school.

This is implied by the Fiksu data. When I asked Fiksu co-founder Micah Adler why CPLU has declined even as CPI has gone up, he made it clear that it has a lot to do with "higher quality" of installs.And yet, big brands still need to find ways to get users to download and engage with their apps, and so should be concerned by CPI inflation. The good news is that mobile marketers appear to be getting better at generating app loyalty, and not merely app installs.

"This is because the average install this year has a higher likelihood of turning into a loyal user, compared to last year," Adler said. "So, even though it is more expensive to get a download, this is more than made up for by the higher quality."

By higher quality Adler really means better use of data, or "the ability to extract the right audiences from that data," as he told me. "By getting the right people to download the app, they are more likely to be long term users of the app."

Spending on engagement

Adler's response is understandably focused on optimization of ad spend, given that's what Fiksu does. But, lost in that analysis are the myriad other things that app developers are doing to foster loyalty in their user base.

While companies have increasingly focused on app engagement for years, it's only been in the last year that mobile marketing automation and related technologies have become more science than art. What used to be "dumb pipes" has become real-time, data-driven orchestration of notifications that nudge a user along a desired purchasing path.

SEE: On the cusp of the next wave of mobile monetization (TechRepublic)

Between optimized app user acquisition campaigns and ongoing improvements in engagement strategies, marketers are finally starting to get real value for their mobile marketing spend. That's good news for the app economy, but it's great news for every business that depends on mobile...which is every business.

Reference & Courtesy: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/acquiring-mobile-users-is-expensive-but-heres-why-theyre-worth-the-cost/

Ubuntu convergence finally impresses me

Image: Jack Wallen

It's taken me a long time to get on board the Ubuntu convergence train. I've been very pessimistic about the whole platform, based on the terrible state of Ubuntu Phone (as run on the Bq Aquaris handset).

But then, I happened to watch a video, by the wonderful people of XDADEVELOPERS, from Mobile World Congress, in which John Lee (of Canonical) demonstrates convergence with Ubuntu Phone running on an older Nexus 4 handset.

This video came just a week or so after Canonical made the first official announcement of a Ubuntu tablet to be released. This table will be manufactured by Bq and will be a part of the same Aquaris line as is their Ubuntu phone. The specs for the tablet aren't too shabby:

• Display: 10.1-inch IPS touch display (1920×1200 pixel resolution at 240 ppi)
• CPU: 64-bit MediaTek MT8163A 1.5GHz quad-core processor
• RAM: 2GB of RAM
• STORAGE: 16GB (micro SD memory card is included, adding storage expansion of up to 64GB)

All of this is fine and good...but up until now everything I have seen from Bq has been less than impressive

Let me explain.However, after digging around a bit (and watching the above video from WMC), I realize that all the criticism tossed at Ubuntu Phone has been premature.

First and foremost, we get what convergence is. You use a single device for all your needs:

• You carry your phone with you all day
• You work on your phone
• You plug your phone into a monitor and switch it to desktop mode
• You work at your desk with your phone
• You unplug your phone, switch it to phone mode
• You go home
• You plug your phone into your monitor at home and switch it to desktop mode
• You play on your phone at home
• Wash, rinse, repeat

For some of us, this doesn't make sense. Why? Because we're of an older mindset that precludes us from making a smartphone or tablet our only device. I do things that require some serious power (rendering videos and audio). But the truth of the matter is, a large percentage of people (especially of the millennial generation) have forsaken the tried and true form factor for their mobile devices. So when you consider this, convergence makes perfect sense. And, after watching the Canonical demo, the light goes off over my head and I can finally shout, "Ah ha!"

But what about...

The first question that comes to mind, when you consider this relative newcomer to the mobile space, is that of apps. As it stands, there are very few apps available for the Ubuntu Phone platform. To settle that issue, there is one thing you must consider:

Ubuntu Phone is still very much in development.

In fact, I would go so far as to say Canonical was quite premature in the releasing of devices. You see, this whole schmear isn't going to spread properly until Unity 8/Mir is released. At that point, everything changes. Once the Ubuntu desktop is in conjunction with the phone/tablet space, everything will be running the same platform, the same code. That is when things get interesting. When we finally see phone/tablet/desktop running the same release of Ubuntu, we'll see convergence finally work as it should. Why? Because all those apps we depend upon (LibreOffice, Audacity, Gimp, etc) will run on the convergent platform.

It should be noted, however, that the Bq Aquaris M10 will ship with LibreOffice, Mozilla Firefox, The GIMP and Gedit pre-installed. That's right, full-blown legacy apps running on the mobile platform. The current release date of the M10 is set for March, 2016.

Premature release of the platform

Lots of work still must be undertaken before this will come to fruition. That is why I believe Canonical was premature in releasing any devices. So far everyone has been less than kind to the Ubuntu Phone platform. What we really didn't understand (even though it was staring us in the eyes) was that we were seeing software very much in beta...maybe even alpha. It's a very rare occasion that a piece of beta software is ready for release. That was the disconnect. Ubuntu Phone has not (and is still not) ready for release.

The good news is that Unity 8/Mir are just around the corner. Canonical has given us every indication that Ubuntu 16.10 will ship with the new platform. I will, however, offer up this piece of advice. When Ubuntu 16.10 does ship (October, 2016), make sure Ubuntu Phone is ready to deliver on the promise of convergence...completely. If Canonical can pull off the full blown convergent experience (as in all legacy apps run on the platform), then they will have a major victory on their hands (as well as a platform ready for public consumption).

I hope this happens. Canonical and the Ubuntu Phone developers have been working tirelessly on this project and it needs (nay, deserves) a win of this magnitude.

Do you think Canonical's take on convergence will succeed? If not, why?

Reference & Courtesy: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubuntu-convergence-finally-impresses-me/

Are Your Kids The Latest Target Of Hackers?

The short answer is yes. V-Tech and Hello Kitty join the depressingly long list of companies to have been hacked in 2015. This time, however, the data taken were overwhelmingly about children – their usernames, passwords, addresses, birthdays, photos, and other personal information.

At first glance, you may be wondering why hackers would bother, but there are three major reasons for targeting toy companies. First, they are an easy target. V-tech representatives admit that the company’s security was subpar. Second, children tend to reuse passwords just like adults do, so getting a password for one site may unlock most, if not all the sites that child uses, and of course, some sites require payment for various features to be unlocked, or are purchasing portals, so the child’s information may inadvertently expose a parent’s credit or debit card information.

Third, and perhaps most chillingly, it could well be about the long game. A hacker need only wait until the child is old enough to get a credit card and then steal his or her identity. It’s not like it costs anything to store the data and wait, and given how easy it was to breach V-Tech and Hello Kitty’s security, that’s as good as being handed free money.

There are two tragedies rolled into one here. The first and most obvious is that not even our kids are safe from hackers, and nothing seems sacred to them. The second is that the breach could have been avoided. It’s not like V-Tech or Hello Kitty didn’t have ample warning or ample opportunity to protect themselves against such things. Online tech portals have been screaming from the rooftops all year about the dangers, and outlining the steps companies need to take if they want to be secure. V-Tech and Hello Kitty simply opted to do nothing with the information. That makes it somewhat difficult to feel sorry for them. They got lucky for a while, skating by with minimal security. Looks like their luck ran out. How’s security at your company? If you are unsure, a network audit is probably your best first course of action.

IT Growth Outlook is Bright

With spending on hardware and software reaching record amounts, new research shows the IT industry's growth outlook has reached its highest level in five years.

Fueling the growth, according to the CDW IT Monitor, is the anticipated record-high demand for hardware and software investments. The data shows 80 percent of IT decision-makers are planning hardware spending, up 4 percentage points from October. Small businesses and local and state governments are expected to see the most significant increases.

Additionally, 82 percent of IT decision makers are anticipating making software purchases, up 7 percentage points.

Neal Campbell, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for CDW, said the data indicates that the IT spending outlook, first established in 2007, has reached a significant milestone.

"More IT decision-makers are feeling optimistic about the prospects of their IT budgets increasing, and they are anticipating significant IT investments in the next six months, especially on the hardware and software fronts," Campbell said. "We believe that organizations will continue to look at technology investments as ways to boost efficiencies, increase productivity and gain new competitive advantages in 2012."

Optimism regarding increased IT spending is the strongest among IT decision-makers in the health care, manufacturing and IT industries, according to the research.

The retail industry also continues to increase its investment optimism. IT leaders anticipate hardware and software purchases to increase by 3 and 9 percentage points, respectively, from October.

The CDW IT Monitor is based on surveys of more than 1,000 IT decision-makers representing all sizes of companies and multiple industries, across three levels of government.

Reference & Courtesy: http://www.ittechnewsdaily.com/251-growth-2012.html

Meet the Man Who Keeps Microsoft Safe and Secure

As the chief security officer for Microsoft, Mike Howard has more than a passing interest in the things he sees on the nightly news. Whether it's an uprising in the Middle East, the ongoing threat of terrorism or a natural disaster somewhere in the world, the former CIA officer is prepared for the impact various events could have on his company and its employees.

"Cybersecurity is a big issue on everyone's mind as we've become more globalized as a society and businesses have expanded their footprints and everything is digital," Howard said. "But, traditional security issues of theft, violence against employees, terrorism and natural disasters are all still paramount in terms of being the big security challenges for businesses."

This is especially true when your company is so large and so much in the public eye. Howard's security team is ultimately responsible for the safety and security of Microsoft's entire executive team, its 90,000 employees, roughly 90,000 contractors, 700 facilities in more than 100 countries worldwide and all of the visitors to those facilities. He's also responsible, of course, for all of their computers and hardware and the information it they contain.

The Microsoft security teams deals with threats of violence against executives and employees, employee violence, kidnapping threats, terrorism, natural disasters, property theft and, peripherally, intellectualproperty protection (which also falls under the purview of a separate, cybersecurity group at Microsoft).

Security "evangelist"

In Howard's time at the company, the security team has had to evacuate employees from Beirut and the Ivory Coast, has contracted forensic psychologists to examine threatening letters and regularly provides emailed safety information and warnings to all employees who travel overseas.

But it may be his role as an "evangelist" for the company's physical security business group that looms the largest in Howard's job description. Finding ways to communicate and demonstrate the importance of security — both physical and cyber — to the company's executives is the linchpin of developing a security program that manages to keep such a large and public company running smoothly, he said.

"A lot of [Microsoft's commitment to security] has to do with the evangelizing of security on several fronts within the last decade," Howard said. "My IT securitycounterpart and I have worked diligently to really get the movers and shakers, the decision makers here to understand security and to support those security efforts and the pushing down of that message throughout the enterprise."

Howard believes that his work driving home the importance of both physical and cybersecurity is part of the reason that Microsoft's company culture has come to reflect those values.

"We brief all new corporate vice presidents on security, we bring senior executives to the Global Security Operations Center in Redmond, [Wash.] and show them what technologies we employ to keep the company safe," Howard said. "We're not just guys checking doors and responding to emergencies."

Howard believes that Microsoft has come to understand what many companies never do: That cyber and physical security is integral to the company's overall business, and even its marketing plan.

"Security is important to the entire company," he said. "Intellectual property could be compromised and it can affect the company's brand reputation or lead to lawsuits," Howard said. "This realization led to cultural shift with company becoming more security conscious."

Employee assistance

To facilitate the rollout of solid security plans throughout the company, Howard's team has had to essentially deputize every employee to be the eyes and the ears of the company. Microsoft does that with a formal training program.

"Having a training program in place is essential to any security program," Howard said. "Without it, you don’t have a well-rounded security program. We have a certain amount of full-time employees and vendors to cover Microsoft globally; we could never cover the world adequately without educating and creating awareness programs that teach people what to look for."

Today, regular Microsoft employees are instructed to stop a stranger entering a building and ask to see their badge.

"That never would have happened ten years ago," Howard said.

Howard said that good security also involves working with the company's human resources department, which offers employee assistance programs that can help workers in difficult times and potentially prevent an employee problem from becoming a security threat.

"A robust employee assistance program is very important to security issues," he said. A bad economy, problems at home, even dealing with a sick relative can be things that can trigger security issues at work and having a team in place to help solve those problems can prevent them from ever turning into an incident of violence or theft, he said.

Reference & Courtesy: http://www.ittechnewsdaily.com/153-microsoft-security-officer-keeping-company-safe.html

Small Business Cyberattacks Getting More Creative

CREDIT: Cyber attack image via Shutterstock 

Small businesses, government organizations and even online gamers were targeted last month by cybercriminals, new data shows.

Conducted by GFI Software, the study examined the most prevalent threat detections encountered in January, which included phishing emailsaimed at small business owners. The emails posed as notices from the Better Business Bureau and claimed a customer had filed a complaint against the recipient, but the notes actually contained links to malware created with the Blackhole exploit kit.

A number of government organizations were targeted by spoofed messages from the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, while gamers looking to score pirated release games [TK – What are release games? Do we mean access to these games before they are released?] fell victim to several different attacks that offered bogus beta invites in return for filling out surveys and recommending links on Facebook and Google+.

Chris Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software, said anyone on the Internet is a potential target for cybercriminals looking to infect systems and scam users.

"They purposefully cast a wide net when picking their methods of attack in order to reach as many targets as possible," Boyd said. "Whether you are a young gamer, a successful business owner or a government employee, you need to be wary when clicking on links that appear to pertain to your interests, especially when asked to submit personal information online."

Malware writers and Internet scammers also sought to attack a wider cross-section of the population by creatively piggybacking on hot news topics and highly trafficked websites. An example is the shutdown of the file-hosting website Megaupload, which led to a domain typo scam targeting both regular users of the website and visitors interested in seeing the FBI notice posted on the site. Once victims reached the misspelled URL, they were redirected to various sites promising fake prizes and seeking personal information.

"While cybercriminals may not be picky about their choice of victims, their choice of tactics is anything but haphazard," Boyd said. "Cybercrime campaigns are designed to cripple systems and steal personal information."

Reference & Courtesy: http://www.ittechnewsdaily.com/254-small-business-cyber-attacks.html

Speed Up Windows on What Should be a Fast PC

A number of factors could be slowing down a PC. Let's look at some of the common ones, starting with the issues that are the easiest to detect and to fix.

Defrag the Hard Drive

I'll be honest; it's been at least a decade since I've seen empirical evidence proving that afragmented hard drive slows a PC. But a lot of people insist that it does, and defragging certainly won't hurt. To defrag your hard drive:

1. Click Start and select Computer or My Computer.
2. Right-click your C: drive and selectProperties.
3. Click the Tools tab, then the Defragment now button.

Check For Malware

A malicious program working in the background could slow down your PC while also doing more serious damage. If your PC is infected, chances are that your existing antivirus program is compromised. Try something else. I recommend using the free version of either SUPERAntiSpyware orMalwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Or the AVG Rescue CD, which scans in a non-Windows--and therefore non-infected--environment.

Remove Hard-to-Kill Malware

Are you sure the problem is malware? People often jump to that conclusion when there's something wrong with their PC, and in my experience that conclusion is more often wrong than right. There's a lot of malicious code in this world, but there's even more code that's merely incompetent. There's also a fair amount of worn-out hardware.

On the other hand, if you're experiencing any of the following symptoms, you quite likely have malware:

• Your security software doesn't work properly, or refuses to update.
• Common programs for configuring and repairing Windows, such as MSCONFIG and System Restore, don't work.
• Messages from a program you never installed pop up and tell you that your computer is infected, your hard drive is dying, or you have some other serious problem. (See Watch Out for Rogues for more on this issue.)
• Your browser's home page keeps changing to something you don't want, and/or your search results aren't what they should be.
• Your computer slows down sometimes for no apparent reason. (This may not be malware. See Very Slow PC for more on this.)

But what if you've got one or more of these symptoms, yet nothing in your battery of malware-fighting programs finds something evil?

The solution is to use a Linux-based malware-fighting program that boots off a flash drive or CD-ROM. By working outside of Windows, and outside the hard drive's boot sector, these programs can better get around the malware's defenses.

I'm going to recommend two of them, both of which can boot off flash drives or CDs. They're AVG Rescue CD and Dr.Web LiveCD or LiveUSB. If one doesn't do the trick, try the other.

Top IT skills wanted for 2012

Takeaway: A new Computerworld survey indicates the nine IT skills that will be in demand in 2012.

Nearly 29 percent of the 353 IT executives who were polled in Computerworld’s annual Forecast survey said they plan to increase IT staffing through next summer. (That’s up from 23% in the 2010 survey and 20% in the 2009 survey.)

Here are the skills that the IT executives say they will be hiring for:

1. Programming and Application Development–61% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months, up from 44% in the 2010 survey. This covers the gamut from website development to upgrading internal systems and meeting the needs of mobile users.
2. Project Management (but with a twist)– The twist is that they’re not going to just be looking for people who can oversee and monitor projects. They also want people who can identify users’ needs and translate them for the IT staffers-the increasingly popular business analysts.
3. Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support.
4. Networking-This demand is being fueled partially by virtualization and cloud computing projects. The survey also revealed that execs will be looking for people with VMware and Citrix experience.
5. Business Intelligence-Computerworld interprets this uptick to a focus shift in many companies,  from cost savings to investing in technology. That will be nice if it pans out that way.
6. Data Center-Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.
7. Web 2.0-Tech skills centered around social media will be in demand, with .Net, AJAX and PHP as key back-end skills, with HTML, XML, CSS, Flash and Javascript, among others, on the front end.
8. Security-Although down from 32 percent in the 2010 survey, security stays a top concern of IT executives.
9. Telecommunications-The survey indicates a demand for people with IP telephony skills, and for those familiar with Cisco IPCC call center systems.

Article from:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/