Dogtown Works for Edtech at First Youth Technology Town Hall
Dogtown Media joined Microsoft, Facebook, Pandora, and other leading tech companies in Chicago last week (June 17) for a historic first Youth Technology Town Hall. Congressman Danny K. Davis and community leaders organized the event to promote STEM and computer science education in the Chicago area, tapping the expertise of technologists and iPhone app developers […]
Paid vs Free: What’s Best for Your Mobile App Idea
Fact: making your dream app costs money. Another fact: over 90% of mobile apps cost exactly zero dollars for users to download. So, if most apps are free, where did 2015’s approximately 60 billion dollars in mobile app developer revenue come from? And more importantly, what price is best for your app: 99 cents? 4.99? […]
How to Tailor Ad Content on Facebook vs Google Adwords
Facebook ads have quickly eclipsed Google Adwords as the mobile app developer’s go-to choice for engaging with potential users. That doesn’t mean they’re the superior option in all cases, however. In this post we’ll unpack the motives users have on either platform, and how you can leverage these motives to deliver useful, timely ad content. […]
Don’t Start with the Sales Funnel: Start with the Value
“Value-added marketing” is a big buzzword in the mobile app development community these days. The concept of placing end-user value above all else is buzz-worthy for good reason: in the post-advertising mobile ecosystem, generating sales has less to do with exposure and more to do with gaining trust than ever before. …And the best way […]
Huawei, Humai, and the Quest for Immortality Through Tech
In a fascinating report to Bloomberg, Huawei spokesperson Kevin ho described the company’s ongoing investments in an idea that may strike the general public as outlandish: immortality. Specifically, the company believes that mobile app developers will one day be able to design products that allow users to live on in the digital world through a […]
App Store Review Process Cut by More than a Third
New data from AppReviewTimes.com indicates that review times in the Apple iOS and Mac app stores are down approximately a third in both categories, prompting widespread approval from iPhone app developers excited about faster and more frequent app update possibilities. As of this writing, the Mac App Store average review time was down to 1.17 […]
How to Use Notifications to Retain Mobile App Users
I don’t believe I’m alone when I say that at least half the apps on my phone only reach me on a daily basis through notifications. Surely I’m also in good company when I say that apps that don’t use notifications properly are, at best, a serious nuisance. That isn’t to say that notifications are […]
Why Tech Companies Care about Maternity and Paternity Leave
If you follow tech, chances are you’ve seen at least a handful of think pieces about maternity/paternity leave policies (or the lack thereof) in the US. While it’s true that the US is one of the only western countries with a zero-paid-leave policy, the question remains: why do tech companies care so much? Is the […]
Surprising Startup Lessons from Con Artists & Salespeople
No matter how altruistic your startup’s goal, the only feature that ultimately matters for iPhone app developers is this: persuasion. Startup companies solve a lot of problems, but users have good reason to be resistant. “Another button on my phone?” “Another notification stream to worry about?” iPhone app developers struggle every day to overcome the […]
3 Design Challenges Faced by UI-free Chat App Developers
For many mobile app developers, designing simple chat bots is just a step on the path to mastering your programming language of choice. Base-level “artificial intelligence” in the form of task-oriented bots has been a feature of computer science since the beginning. (Just take a look at Twitter, where over 23 million user accounts are […]