Droidcon Kicks Off in London Tomorrow; Event Preview With Novoda’s Kevin McDonagh
This week, if you’re anywhere in Europe, it’s all about Droidcon in London. This two-day barcamp and conference exploring all aspects of developing for Android mobile devices kicks off tomorrow. Friday is the conference day with tracks covering SDKs & APIs, Development, Business and Design.
The program has a heavy and welcome emphasis on what developers and companies in the Android ecosystem need to turn their ideas into revenues. This objective is a perfect fit with the spread of speakers Droidcon organizers have brought together to advise developers on what it takes to earn a living and monetize apps.
The line-up includes execs from Device Anywhere, inMobi, Google, comScore, Sony-Ericsson, Qualcomm, Orange, Rummble, Mippin, Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola, as well as VCs and companies specialized in design and usability.
MSG Media Partner
In a nutshell, this event in results-oriented and has purposely brought together the full range of companies developers need to connect with to build and market their Android apps. Kudos to Dominic Travers, Kevin McDonagh and the organizers/enthusiasts behind this milestone event. MSearchGroove is proud to be a media partner!
You can still register here – only GBP188.00 to attend!
Tracks cover topics from growing the value of the network (business ecosystem), to creating an excellent user experience, to what it takes to earn a living and monetize apps. There are also sessions on understanding smartphone traffic and – very important (!) understanding what women – a huge and often ignored user segment – really want from Android.
So it’s all about turning good ideas into great apps, and the nuts and bolts of what is really involved to achieve this business executive.
Interview with Novoda
To give us a practical perspective on this event and the challenges and opportunities ahead for developers is my guest today is Kevin McDonagh, the director of Novoda, a software consultancy specializing in the Android platform. Kevin is also an organizer of Droidcon and London Android User group called Londroid.
MAKING MONEY ON APPS: Granted Tomi Ahonen was correct when he told us in an earlier interview that it’s easier to win the lottery than it is to make piles of cash on apps. However, some companies (including Novoda) are making a solid living developing apps. Kevin offers some valuable advice and urges developers to take the rules of retail seriously. Know your customer, delight your customer and accept the fact that you are going to have to spend money and effort to market your apps.
CONNECTED COUNTS: Kevin shares his observations on the advantages of developing for the Android platform. Chief among these is the virtual machine which enables apps to be “handed off” across devices and platforms. Data sharing, which is also enabled through open source and the platform architecture, lays the groundwork for some exciting and connected apps that effectively construct experience environments, rather than single experiences. An app that start on your phone and makes the rounds in your home to your TV or electric clock? Kevin says it’s not far-fetched; it’s quite real and – potentially – quite lucrative.
PARTNERSHIPS: Does the platform with the most developers win? Probably. So how does a company come into the fortunate position of attracting so many developers in the first place? Kevin, a professional and practitioner, has some valuable insights to share. In his view, the key to success is forming the partnerships early on – and with companies at far corners of the ecosystem. In many cases these are companies that might currently be competitors. But that is going to change.
My take: Moving forward, as devices and platforms do indeed interact/interconnect and share apps and data, companies will need partnerships with every company that contributes to the creation of the experience. From developers, to chip makers, to appliance manufacturers – everyone will have to be in on the action. The only way to get there from here is to forge those partnerships now and open as much data as possible to the developers and the players who are architecting our collective future.
Listen to the podcast here. [12:05]
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October 27th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
[...] Droidcon Kicks off in London Tomorrow; Event Preview With Novoda’s Kevin McDonagh If you can get over to London, and you’re interested in developing and monetizing Android apps, get over to Droidcon! Wish I could be there…. [...]