Sunnyside Up 4.5.2012

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Draw Something back at #1

• To the surprise of many, leading game company Zynga purchased the developer of Draw Something, OMGPOP, on the day that competitor Rovio released it’s newest game in the Angry Birds series.

• But Zynga’s bet proved to be a good one: after losing the #1 downloaded iPhone app spot for 2 weeks, Draw Something is back at #1.

• According to Zynga, the game has been downloaded more than 50 million times in 50 days, reportedly making it the fastest-growing mobile game ever.

• The free version has ads; users can pay 99 cents to get rid of them.

• Opportunities:• Paid Media: In a given turn, a user could see 2-3 different

mobile ads (one small banner, and two full screen ads—with video— before and after turns)

• Paid Media: Branded drawing: Perhaps not a company logo, but perhaps a brand’s biggest celebrity sponsor (Smirnoff & Madonna, for example).

• Source/ReadMore: http://allthingsd.com/20120405/zyngas-draw-something-slingshots-past-angry-birds-in-app-store/

Thursday, April 5, 2012

what Draw something did differently to go viral

• From Nabeel Hyatt (ex-General Manager, Zynga): • Synchronos vs Asynchronos

• “Draw Something was the only pictionary-like game that adhered to the turn-based model pioneered by Words with Friends.“

• “Many of the flows are almost directly adhering to the design conventions of WWF. This is in contrast to most other Pictionary online games, including OMGPOPs own earlier title Draw My Thing, which were synchronous in nature (the opponent is online at the time).”

• “The asynchronous style of play allows you to play with friends, and it also creates a very natural viral need. You have to wait for your friend to respond to keep playing. Therefore, if you want to keep playing then you need to start a new game with another friend.”

• Word choice• “Most iPhone pictionary games have a fairly bland word

set. Partly due to OMGPOPs irreverent past Draw Something included lots of pop culture words like Lady Gaga and Frodo. These are the kinds of words that, once drawn, have a much higher propensity to be shared on Twitter, etc (for examples see:http://www.buzzfeed.com/sandanit...).

• Source/ReadMore: http://www.quora.com/Draw-Something/What-did-Draw-Something-do-differently-from-other-Pictionary-apps-that-made-it-so-viral

Thursday, April 5, 2012

what Draw something did differently to go viral • From Huy Hong (engineer at Blippy)

• Simple drawing tools. • “The limited color palette and narrow paint brush choice

prevented the conundrum of choice. This gave players the freedom to draw poorly without fear of not having any artistic talent. This guaranteed your friends wouldn't be disappointed in your stick figure drawings because of the tools and possibly your fat finger.”

• Word choice. • “Having a mix of traditional board game words alongside

pop culture references gave the game a fresh flavor that kept up with the branding/design of the app, which in itself was bright, cheery, and tastefully juvenile. This also gave players a hint that they should try to be clever or humorous with their drawings in order to convey a possibly impossible word to draw based on the limited drawing tools.”

• Focus on fun with a friend, not winning.• “All of the above helped to imply the goal of the game was

for players to meaningfully interact with their friends in the form of a game, i.e. "poking with a purpose", where you could employ inside jokes, mutual knowledge, and common world views to facilitate your drawing (stuff you can't do with a stranger). This gave you additional fodder with friends, more so like a social app than a game.”

• Source/Read More: http://www.quora.com/Draw-Something/What-did-Draw-Something-do-differently-from-other-Pictionary-apps-that-made-it-so-viral

Thursday, April 5, 2012

facebook timeline engagement stays the same (or decreases) after the switch

• Edgerank Checker, Hubspot, and MagicBean Lab have published reports that question Facebook’s original claim that the new Facebook page would increase user engagement by 46%

• Edgerank reports that “Roughly 60% of the [Timeline Pages] analyzed experienced a Decrease, while roughly 40% experienced an increase. It should be noted that converted Pages did experience slightly better results again, however, the difference is minimal.”

• Both old Facebook pages and Timeline pages saw roughly equal degrees of engagement decreases by, which suggests that Timeline is less critical for influencing consumer engagement.

• Most consumer-brand engagement continues to occur on the user’s news feed, which means that marketers should continue to prioritize their Facebook strategy and their Facebook paid media buys.

• Source/Read More: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/brands_see_fan_engagement_drop_in_first_month_of_f.php#more

• http://edgerankchecker.com/blog/2012/04/how-does-facebooks-new-timeline-impact-engagement/

Thursday, April 5, 2012

new facebook brand pages engagement drops

• Blue = Facebook Timeline • Red = Previous Facebook Brand Pages

• Source: http://edgerankchecker.com/blog/2012/04/how-does-facebooks-new-timeline-impact-engagement/

Thursday, April 5, 2012

instagram comes to android

• After a preview at 2012’s South by Southwest, Instragram has released an Android version of the popular photography app.

• The App hit over 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours of its release.

• A year and a half after Instagram was released (exclusively on iOS), it reached 30 million users (out of 180 million iPhones sold).

• The Android releases promises to bring a new audience of over 500 million activations (or installations of Android on multiple devices such as Samsung or HTC), making it more or more likely that Instagram will hit the 100 million users mark well before the 4 years Facebook took.

• Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/03/instagram-android-demum/

Thursday, April 5, 2012

start-up of the week: Urban airship

• What is it? Portland, OR’s Urban Airship is a technology that powers Push Notifications, In-App Purchases, and Subscriptions for mobile applications on various platforms (Android, iPhone, Blackberry).

• What problem is it trying to solve? Urban Airship makes it easy for app publishers of all sizes—but especially small and medium publishers—to keep their apps in use via push messaging and earning recurring revenue from their apps via in-app purchases. This would otherwise require a complex, tailored cloud infrastructure. • Push notifications keep uses engaged by reminding the

user of a particular event even (or especially) when the app is not open.

• In-app purchase are important for publishers to quickly monetize their apps: buying new levels in AngryBirds, accessing new colors in Draw Something, and perhaps buying extra features in apps like Nike Fuel band.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

start-up of the week: Urban airship

• Or as a media implication, “Media sites could use Urban Airship’s Segments to define custom segments, like Travelers or Movers, identifying them based on their change of location over time and pushing local news content only to those who would find it contextually relevant, i.e. the people actually living there.”

• In the future, a partnership with start-up Meridian is planned, which will allow push messages to be targeted by geo-located indoor spaces, so a consumer could be targeted at the point of purchases (deciding between individual mall stores or roaming the aisles).

• Source/Read More: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/03/urban-airship-segments-meridian/

• Why does it matter? At first Urban Airship relevance was limited to a set of app publishers (and brands with very robust Apps), In Jan ’12, the company bought SimpleGeo, in an effort to “combine its push notification platform with the ability to segment audiences by location, time, context, and preferences,” which creates interesting opportunities for branded apps.

• TechCrunch surmises: “So that a national retailer could, for example, offload excess inventory from stores in San Francisco by targeting its offers to people who live in the Bay Area”

“Or, as another example, a concert hall with a bunch of extra tickets for a show on a slow night, could send push notifications offering deals to all users who happen to be near the venue.”

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Thank you.Profero New York206 Fifth Avenue,5th FloorNew York, New York 10010T. +1 646 381 3500F. +1 646 843 8424

Thursday, April 5, 2012