iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Keith Shepherd and Imangi

I hope you're enjoying the iPhone app developer interview series, dear reader! I've had a lot of fun learning more about the experience of developing a program for what's probably the hottest delivery platform around! This time we have a highly polished game written by a professional iPhone app developer, Imangi, written by software developer Keith Shepherd...

Q: You wrote Imangi. How long did it take you? How many lines of code is the program?

The first release of Imangi™ was developed in about a month and half with one senior software developer working full time 40-60hrs a week. This release was around 2000 lines of Objective C code. This includes everything from learning objective C and getting up to speed with the iPhone SDK API to writing the actual game code, developing the graphics, testing, and polishing everything for release.

Q: Tell us a bit about the application, including your target market and what problem or problems your application solves?

Imangi is a unique word puzzle game that challenges your vocabulary and spatial reasoning skills. Some people have described it as playing Scrabble or Boggle on a Rubik's cube. Our main goal in creating Imangi was to develop a fun and original game that would mesh beautifully with the iPhone's touch technology. Imangi accomplishes this by combining a brand new word puzzle concept with a unique piece sliding motion.

The ultimate goal of Imangi is to create the highest scoring arrangement of words possible. Players accomplish this by sliding rows and columns of letters on a 6x8 Imangi board to form words. Words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. We found the game dynamics to be very natural for the iPhone and the sliding motion adds a new layer of complexity to traditional crossword puzzlers. Many combinations of words are possible for each game, and Imangi is sure to be challenging and fun for puzzlers of all ages.

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

The iPhone Software Development Kit is a dream to work with. Prior to working on Imangi, our professional experience was primarily with Java, C++, and C. We had never done any work with Objective C or the iPhone APIs. There was a bit of a learning curve, but the documentation and example code that Apple provides with the SDK are outstanding. We were able to get a basic working prototype built and running on this new platform in about a week.

Q: Tell us about the experience of submitting your program to the iPhone Application Store and how long it took to gain approval. Did you have to demonstrate that you weren't accessing external data like the Address Book? What else was required for your app to show up in the public store?

We submitted the final Imangi software about a week prior to the opening of the App Store. The submission also includes all of the marketing materials that the end user will see in the App Store (High resolution icon, screenshots, application description, etc). Our application was approved and available for the grand opening of the store.

We don't really have any visibility into what takes place in the review process, so I can't really comment on that.

Q: Did you develop all the graphics in the app yourself or contract with a designer to create the look-and-feel of your application?

The look-and-feel and graphics for Imangi were all created in-house.

Q: How much is your application, and how did you decide on a price-point?

Imangi is currently on sale for $3.99. Prior to the opening of the store, we had very little information on how other similar applications would be priced or what prices the market would bear. The only price points that we had were the products announced at the Apple World Wide Developers' Conference.

We knew that Super Monkey Ball would sell for $9.99 and we decided that any price under $5 would be a fair price for our game. We decided to go with $3.99 and after the store opened we were able to compare our price to others. The price still seemed fair, and perhaps even a bit low compared to other apps. We decided to keep the price, and we've had quite a few customers comment on what a great value Imangi is for the price.

Q: Are you inspired to write more iPhone applications? What's in the pipeline?

Absolutely! We are currently working on a major update to Imangi, which we hope to release sometime in the next month. This will be a free update to all of our existing customers and will include the following:

1) Speed Imangi - A timed version of our puzzle.
2) Daily Challenge - A new Imangi puzzle will be available every day for each language we support. This puzzle will be the same for everyone in the world. You can play and submit your score to the online leader board as many times as you would like within the 24hr window.
3) Friend Challenge - Challenge a friend or a group of friends to an Imangi puzzle.
4) Online High Scores - You will have the ability to submit your score for any completed puzzle to our online leader board.
5) Internationalization - We are planning to release Imangi in additional languages.

We plan on releasing a free trial version of the game as well.

We have a number of other titles in the works, but I can't comment on any of them yet at this time.

Q: If you're not a full-time iPhone application developer, what's your day job?

Full-time iPhone Application Developer.

Doesn't Keith make this sound fun? :-) Thanks for your candor and for sharing your experience with us, Keith. And a final tip: if you're still learning about your iPhone, my companion Q&A site has tons of free iPhone help for your edification.

iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Eliza Block and "2 Across"

Another installment in the iPhone App Developer Spotlight series, this time it's a young woman who is also busy working on her graduate degree in philosophy (of all things), an inspiring example for other female coders who are thinking about the opportunity presented by the App Store...

Q: You wrote 2 Across. How long did it take you? How many lines of code is the program?

It took about 4 months to get it ready for the initial release, and since then I've done another 2 months' work on improvements and updates, and it's still a work in progress. It's a little over 10,000 lines of code, and written in Objective C.

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

Yes, I found it pretty straightforward to get up to speed with the SDK. The documentation provided by Apple is excellent. There were gaps in functionality for the initial release of the SDK, but as it evolved they got filled in and in its current incarnation, it's quite complete. There are still a few "known issues" lingering that hinder functionality, but you run into them very rarely.

Q: Tell us about the experience of submitting your program to the iPhone Application Store and how long it took to gain approval. Did you have to demonstrate that you weren't accessing external data like the Address Book? What else was required for your app to show up in the public store?

My app was accepted three days after I originally submitted it. No demonstrations were required; I just submitted the binary and it was quickly approved. I have no idea what is involved in the approval process; I've heard stories about apps being sent back repeatedly, but I don't know on what grounds. All of my apps and updates have been approved within a week, and on the first try.

I did it all myself. But once my app was selected by Apple to be "featured" on the iTunes store, I asked a graphic designer friend, Jason Ramirez, to make a nicer looking graphic for the little poster they put up.

Q: How much is your application, and how did you decide on a price-point?

My app costs $5.99, but I also recently released a free version to let people try it out. I settled on $5.99 because $9.99 seems like the de facto upper limit for the app store. Apps priced at $9.99 or above get a lot of negative reviews from people who seem to spend their time giving 2-star ratings to apps they view as too expensive, without even trying them first. I wanted to avoid falling victim to this, and also to encourage people who don't already do a lot of crosswords to make an impulse purchase.

I'm pleased with the decision; the app is selling very well, and has a fantastic user-approval rating.

Q: Are you inspired to write more iPhone applications? What's in the pipeline?

Yes, it's been a great experience! I have another app in mind that I'm planning to write together with Eric Maland, the author of pTerm. It will be an attempt to popularize a really awesome kind of logic puzzle that isn't yet well known. I don't want to say more about it because I don't want to get scooped!

Q: If you're not a full-time iPhone application developer, what's your day job?

I'm not a full-time programmer (although I've been doing it full time for the last few months). I'm a graduate student getting my PhD in philosophy. I'm about a year away from finishing the degree. But this has been such a great experience that I'm seriously considering leaving academia to do some kind of programming full-time.

Thanks for sharing your great experience and enthusiasm, Eliza! As a reminder, if you're still getting your arms around using the iPhone my companion Q&A blog has tons of free iPhone Help too!

iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Barry Schwartz and Siddur

Another in my continuing iPhone App Developer Spotlight series, brought to you by The Business Blog @ Intuitive.com

Q: You wrote Siddur. How long did it take you? How many lines of code is the program? Written in what language?

Objective C, using the Cocoa. It took us about two weeks to launch with limited features, but we are currently on our fourth week of development. It is a lot of time, if I had to guess, 200 - 300 hours, so far. The lines of code, about 9,000 so far, specifically 1164 header file lines 7378 implementation lines.

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

It was a bit difficult to get started, but once you get to learn all the rules, it moves smoothly. There is a lack of documentation out there, since it is so new. But after working threw it, it gets much easier. We are much faster at coding this now.

Q: Tell us about the experience of submitting your program to the iPhone Application Store and how long it took to gain approval. Did you have to demonstrate that you weren't accessing external data like the Address Book? What else was required for your app to show up in the public store?

This might have been the most stressful part of the project. We first submitted our developer application under our company, RustyBrick. But it just went into the queue, so Ronnie, the co-founder of RustyBrick, decided to try submitting a new application to Apple, as an individual. We were approved right away. So then we uploaded our application to the iTunes Connect area and noticed that we had to wait for Apple to approve the app. So we waited, the wait felt like it was forever, but it was just 4 or so days until we got a rejection notice, due to a feature that was missing. So we immediately added the feature and resubmitted it.

About four days after that, it was approved. But no, the app did not make it to the iTunes Store, it was on hold due to Apple having to approve our legal contracts. Two days after the app was approved, Apple approved the legal documents and it finally went onto the iTunes store. It was a very stressful process and we emailed and called Apple, at least 5 times, to urge them to hurry, but it did not help.

The issue then was adding upgrades. The people who downloaded the app, wanted more. So we released a much richer version, submitted it to iTunes connect and it was rejected about four days later. This time due to a document saying, "iPhone Siddur," as opposed to "Siddur on the iPhone." We corrected it, resubmitted and four days later it went live. People were ecstatic, they loved the new features.

Now that people are happy, we are less stressed about waiting on Apple to approve the next releases. We submit new versions often and keep our customers up to date on what we are doing.

We have two spots where we talk about this, with detailed info on what we submitted to Apple and when. We also have an active groups area for for feedback too.

Q: Did you develop all the graphics in the app yourself or contract
with a designer to create the look-and-feel of your application?

We did everything internally. We do web design and software, so we have a staff to facilitate the branding and design of the app and logo.

Q: How much is your application, and how did you decide on a price-point?

We charge $9.99, we wanted to price it very competitively. There is nothing like this out there yet, but similar products for the Palm device run closer to $30 or more and have less features. We didn't build it for the money, but rather for the community. If we make money on it, great - but that is not our goal with this specific application.

Q: Are you inspired to write more iPhone applications? What's in the pipeline?

Yes, we have built out a few more Jewish apps, including Tehilim and Tefilah Pack. We plan on doing more Jewish apps and we have some cool ideas for generic apps any iPhone user can use.

Q: If you're not a full-time iPhone application developer, what's your day job?

I run a web development shop in RustyBrick. Although iPhone dev is not our full time thing, we do think this will pick up and we might make a division just for it. I also write about search, search engines and search marketing.

Very interesting, thanks for your candor and participation, Barry!

iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Ben Smith and Heap Dashboard

This is another entry in the iPhone Application Developer Spotlight series here at the Business Blog @ Intuitive.com. I hope you find it interesting and enlightening.

Q: You wrote Heap Dashboard. How long did it take you? How many lines of code is the program? Written in what language?

It took about three days to write Heap Dashboard. 2526 lines of code. All iPhone apps are written in Objective-C.

Q: Tell us a bit about the application, including your target market and what problem or problems your application solves?

Heap CRM provides a central location to store everything related to your customers, potential customers and past customers. It also has automated systems that help with communication with customers throughout the sales process and beyond. You can then improve your sales process over time as Heap tells you what's been effective in the past.

Heap Dashboard solves the "offline" problem for mobile users of Heap. While our iPhone web app for Heap is full featured and fast, Internet service isn't everywhere. And really the most important data that a sales agent needs is the contact info, and most recent conversations of the prospect. Which is exactly the data the Heap Dashboard stores offline. You can also create a message immediately and have it sync back to the main service when you get Internet access again.

Q: Where did the name "Heap" come from?

I was trying to give people the impression that there was a lot of ways to get data into Heap and it was ok to save information in a somewhat disorganized manner. One of the reasons (if not the primary reason) CRMs fail for companies is that people don't want to enter data into them. So Heap is really focused on giving the user a whole bunch of ways to get data into it. And sometimes that data isn't in the right area or isn't saved in a category, etc. In addition to systems that automatically detect relationships, detect different types of data, etc; Heap has a search systems that I would put up against anyone: heap find.

Which brings us back to the idea that as long as you get it in there, you'll be able to find it. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

The SDK is fine (in fact quite well documented), but I already knew Objective-C. I spent way more time fighting to get into the developer program (and the contract/approval process) so I could release the app.

Q: Tell us about the experience of submitting your program to the iPhone Application Store and how long it took to gain approval. Did you have to demonstrate that you weren't accessing external data like the Address Book? What else was required for your app to show up in the public store?

There wasn't any list of requirements that I had to meet. My app was approved once it was looked at by somebody. It's just a matter of getting someone to look at it. People say there is a big line to get approved, but that's not right. Because a line would work on a FIFO (first in, first out) method. The app store approval process seems to work randomly.

Q: Did you develop all the graphics in the app yourself or contract with a designer to create the look-and-feel of your application?

Heap Dashboard is a productivity app, so I just used the built in interface elements so that it matches the rest of the apps.

Q: How much is your application, and how did you decide on a price-point?

It's free. It's an "alternative interface" to our web based Heap CRM (customer relationship manager) product which we do charge for.

Pricing was never a decision. We just charge for the core web app [you can learn more about Heap CRM at wbpsystems.com --DT], all the things that connect to it we give away.

Q: Are you inspired to write more iPhone applications? What's in the pipeline?

We have a number of things in the pipeline for Heap CRM and our other web app, Torch Project Management. The next iPhone app will be Torch Dashboard.

Q: If you're not a full-time iPhone application developer, what's your day job?

My primary focus is on improving Heap and Torch.

Thanks, Ben, for your insight on your own experience with the iPhone application development process!

iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Deepak Mantena and Chores, Wordy, Fright and Gratuity

This is another entry in the iPhone Application Developer Spotlight series here at the Business Blog @ Intuitive.com. This one's fun because Deepak has already had a burst of productivity and has four applications of his own in the iPhone App store! I hope you find it interesting and enlightening.

Q: You wrote a bunch of apps for the iPhone. How long did it take you? How many lines of code are each program?

I've been planning and thinking about Chores in some form or another since September of 2007, before the SDK was even announced. I thought of the other applications (Wordy, Fright, and Gratuity) after the SDK was released. Completely designing all aspects of your application before diving into development leads to a quicker implementation period.

The design and testing took up the majority of my time. Thanks in part to the documentation Apple provided, the implementation period for the apps was pretty short. I feel that lines of code is a pretty poor measure of app complexity, especially when working in such an expressive language as Objective-C. That said, Chores is about 3000 lines of code, Gratuity roughly 1000 lines, Wordy about 800 lines, and Fright about 400 lines.

Q: Tell us a bit about the application, including your target market and what problem or problems your application solves?

All of my apps are targeted to anyone. Chores is a simple todo app that can be used for making lists of anything. I was frustrated by all the complicated todo apps on the market, which mostly required intimate knowledge of GTD (Getting Things Done). I was also frustrated (along with everyone else) that Apple's Notes app on the iPhone didn't easily sync back with your Mac. I wanted Chores to be easy enough for anyone to use and allow users to sync their todos back to your Mac. I made Gratuity because I wanted a drop dead easy to use tip calculator. Wordy is 'word of the day' on steroids. I feel it's both an educational tool and (in an upcoming version) a utility, allowing you to access the entire dictionary at your fingertips. Fright I made as a fun application that merged my interests in making short films with the iPhone. It's a fun way to play a little joke on your friends by spooking them with some videos. It's a real social application.

I think the best apps are the ones developers make for themselves first. When a developer makes an application to address a need they have, it's an extremely personal connection, and typically results in a great product. It's most often the case that plenty of other people in the same situation will be very interested in an application if the developer approaches it selfishly at first, ironically enough. All of the applications I created so far (and have planned for the future) are apps I use myself.

Chores		Wordy

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

The documentation and sample code that Apple provided was phenomenal in helping to get started with the iPhone SDK. Before the SDK, I had no experience with Objective-C, Cocoa, or OS X programming. It didn't take me very long at all to get off the ground reading Apple's docs.

Whenever learning anything new, there are of course moments where you are stumped, but thankfully those moments were few and far between when developing for the iPhone. I attribute the ease getting up to speed with the SDK to Apple's well designed and thought out frameworks, programming language, and documentation. I have a lot of respect for Jailbreak App developers, who made some fantastic apps without the wealth of resources Apple now provides.

Fright		Gratuity

Submitting my apps to the App Store was actually a pretty no-hassle process: we developers just have to ensure that our applications are compiled meeting certain criteria that Apple has clearly laid out and then simply send our binary their way along with some related metadata. Wordy was my first app officially approved. After submission, it took less than 24 hours for Wordy to be approved. This was about a week before the deadline Apple set for iPhone apps that wanted to be in the store at launch.

Chores and Fright were submitted closer to the deadline and took about 48 hours to be approved. There was a minor issue with Gratuity that the Apple engineers emailed me about before it could show up in the store. My experience talking with Apple engineers throughout this process has been really positive. I don't know too much about the approval, but it seems Apple has a pretty stringent method of testing of our apps before allowing them to be in the App Store.

Q: Did you develop all the graphics in the app yourself or contract with a designer to create the look-and-feel of your application?

While my education is in Computer Science, I have a real affinity for graphic design. For that reason I decided to keep all of the design and development of my applications in house. In the future, I'd love to work with a professional designer for the art assets in my applications, but not without my input. I'm hesitant to let someone else dictate the entire look-and-feel of my apps.

When you're creating an application, there has to be a purpose to every feature. There has to be a purpose to every button and piece of text. Every choice you make as a developer must be to serve the application. This includes the very way the application looks, which is why I feel most comfortable making design choices with my apps.

Q: How much is your application, and how did you decide on a price-point?

Chores is $4.99. Wordy, Gratuity, and Fright are all $0.99 cents. The pricing of the desktop version of Chores for OS X hasn't been announced yet, but will be soon at tapeshow.com. For a limited time, those who buy the iPhone/touch version of Chores will be discounted its full price should they decide to buy Chores for OS X when it's released. When deciding on prices, I thought about what I would be willing to pay for what I've written and also asked people whose opinions I respect that same question. I want everyone to be able to enjoy my apps, so they are very affordably priced.

Absolutely. There are a lot of ideas I've been sifting through, both free and paid apps. I've also had lots of great feedback from users of my current apps. I have several really great updates planned to the apps I've got out now. I encourage everyone to sign up to the newsletter at tapeshow.com and send me feedback. I want to democratize the whole process of software coming to market. Hearing many different people email me an idea that I've had floating around myself really encourages me to want to make an app. I've also got some great web apps that are brewing.

Q: If you're not a full-time iPhone application developer, what's your day job?

I want to make iPhone and Mac OS X software for the rest of my life. That is why I decided to start my software company TapeShow last year, even though I'm still in college. I want writing software for iPhone and Mac OS X to be my day job. I want to make the best software I can - things people enjoy and want to use. So far it has been an exciting experience. Thousands of people are using my software and have been sending me some great feedback. It's very encouraging.

Great stuff, Deepak. Really inspiring for other people who want to turn an avocation - programming and hacking little apps (and I obviously mean hacking in the positive sense) - into a revenue stream and, perhaps, a profession.

This is the future of advertising: The Audi A4 Driving Game

Have a look at the Apple iTunes Store in the iPhone Applications area, most popular free applications, and you'll see marketing evolving before your very eyes. The number three most popular application in the iPhone app store is:

For years advertisers have explored different methods of pushing advertising into the mobile space, and various attempts to have ad sponsored phone service, ads before calls, ad-funded dialup services and even location aware ads pop up as SMS messsages as you travel around have all basically fallen flat.

Now savvy car company Audi shows us how it'll be done in the future with Audi A4 Driving Challenge. Here's the opening screen, you can see they've put some effort into this:

Here's the thing: it doesn't matter if it's a fun game or not, it doesn't matter if it's better than the other driving games (like Crash Bandicoot: Nitro Card 3D), what matters is that while Ford (NYSE:F), Toyota (NYSE:TM), Chevrolet (NYSE:GM), Mercedes and other automotive manufacturers try to figure out how to utilize and leverage the ever-evolving marketing landscape, Audi has leapfrogged and taken the next step.

You watch, this is just the beginning. Soon we'll have bar-branded drink mixing iPhone apps, cookware-sponsored recipe management, rental car agency-built driving directions applications, and much more.

And along the way, I already know of some films that are developing iPhone applications to help promote and market their upcoming films. Brilliant!

We're on this road to stay, the road of moving the computer from our office to our home, from our desk into our pocket (by way of our laps).

Kudos to Audi for this revolutionary application. Oh, and try it too, it's pretty fun: Audi A4 Driving Challenge

iPhone App Developer Spotlight: Darren Andes and "Baby Tracker: Nursing"

What started out as a pleasant chat with someone who was writing some iPhone applications has rapidly blossomed into an extraordinary outpouring of interest from the iPhone developer community. As a result, I've decided to run a series of developer spotlights, probably 20 or more, over the next few weeks. It'll offer you insight into the time involved, complexity and rewards of developing a game or utility for one of the most interesting software sales environments on the planet: the Apple iPhone. I hope you enjoy the series!

I'll kick it all off with an interview with Darren Andes, who wrote Baby Tracker: Nursing

Q: You wrote Baby Tracker: Nursing. How long did it take you? How many lines of code is the program? Written in what language?

A: Baby Tracker: Nursing has ~2,500 lines of code, and I've spent over 100hrs creating the application. Baby Tracker: Nursing was written in a language called Cocoa (Objective-C) which is an Object-Oriented that extends the C language. You can get all the technical information here.

In layman's terms it is simply the language used to write all Mac OS X (Apple's OS) and iPhone applications.

Q: Tell us a bit about the application, including your target market and what problem or problems your application solves?

A: Moms have a lot to remember when bringing a new baby home. The stress of caring for a newborn, the sleepless nights, along with keeping track of breastfeeding sessions can be overwhelming. Baby Tracker: Nursing, a new app for Apple iPhone or iPod Touch, will effortlessly track your baby's breastfeeding sessions with a few simple clicks, allowing mom to relax and focus on feeding.

Baby Tracker: Nursing allows mom to easily record important details of the nursing session including the duration, and side nursed on (or both) while always noting which side was nursed on last. This complete nursing history is permanently stored in daily logs for future reference and doctor's visits.

Toss out your lists, notebooks, stop watches, safety pins in bras, extraneous ribbons and bracelets! Since your iPhone or iPod Touch is always with you, a complete detailed nursing history is only a click away.

Baby Tracker: Nursing is a real time tool and available on the iPhone App Store.

Q: The iPhone Software Development Kit has been written about quite a bit, but I'd like to know your opinion: was it easy to get up to speed with this SDK? Is it sufficiently complete that you weren't stumped as you developed your application?

A: Apple has a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), which makes it hard for developers to talk much about the SDK (Software Development Kit). Because of this, information is sometimes hard to come by and can make programming difficult. Unfortunately, there are not many ways to find solutions or help. Apple does, however, supply excellent documentation, videos and examples, and also provides the SDK for free. This is a great way to start learning how to develop for the iPhone; all you need is a good idea, lots of free time, and obviously a Mac computer...which I find to be the best computer out there (but I digress...) There are also lots of great online resources and books available to learn Cocoa.

To create applications for the App Store, either free ones or those for purchase (70% goes to the developer /30% goes to Apple) you must pay $99/yr to be a developer. This will then allow you to install your application on your iPhone or iPod touch for testing as well as attaining the ultimate goal of getting your application out to the world.

Q: Tell us about the experience of submitting your program to the iPhone Application Store and how long it took to gain approval. Did you have to demonstrate that you weren't accessing external data like the Address Book?

A: The experience was a lot better than I expected: just a lot of specific directions and steps to go through to make sure everything was in order. I heard rumors of the process taking over a month, but for Baby Tracker: Nursing it took less than a week. You do need to fill out a contract before you are allowed to sell your products so I recommend doing that as soon as possible since that did take a few weeks to approve.
As for demonstrating what the application does or what APIs it uses, Apple only wants to know if you are using encrypted information because they are selling Applications globally. Baby Tracker: Nursing uses its own database to store the information. Baby Tracker: Nursing does not use the internet or other external protocols so it is a fairly straightforward Application.

It was very exciting and rewarding to see Baby Tracker: Nursing live on the App Store! Reading the comments by mothers who are against timing is interesting but I would prefer it if the comments section was not used like a debate forum to give personal opinions about one's individual nursing beliefs. It would be much more useful if the postings were real reviews by people who actually purchased the application and then gave their critiques.

Q: Did you create all the graphics yourself or contract with a designer to make the look-and-feel of your application?

A: Yes, I created all of the graphics for Baby Tracker: Nursing. I have a graphic design background, which helped immensely in this department. I think Apple sets a very high standard with the iPhone and it is important to create easy to use applications, and also ones that are enjoyable to look at.

Q: Are you inspired to write more iPhone applications now that you've released Baby Tracker: Nursing into the wild? What's in the pipeline?

A: I have lots of new ideas in the pipeline and I am currently working on a new iPhone app that I hope to have out in the next few weeks. I think eventually the App Store will be flooded with Applications and it will be difficult to stand out from the crowd, so I'm working hard to get quality products out as soon as possible.

Q: What's your day job anyway?

A: When I am not working on Baby Tracker: Nursing I am a User Experience Lead in Web Design and Development for a Fortune 500 company.

Thanks a bunch, Darren, for being our first featured iPhone application developer in the spotlight series! If you're interested, I also have a companion interview on my parenting blog with Darren's co-developer, Heather Bancroft, which you can find here: Why track your nursing schedule?. Finally, if you're an Apple iPhone developer, please contact me if you'd like to join the spotlight series.

Crowd sourcing overwhelms SXSW panel voting?

Got this email just now:

Apologies for the form letter and for any cross-posting.

We want to thank you again for being a part of the Panel Picker process for the 2009 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival.

We are overwhelmed by the tremendous response we have received on this year's interface and very excited by the overall quality of the ideas submitted. Again, we thank you so much for your participation!

We wanted to take this opportunity to pass along a few helpful tools and reminders to allow you to make the most of the Panel Picker interface.

-- We have now created a couple of "Vote for My Idea" buttons that you can place on your blog or website (to drive more traffic to your proposal). These buttons are attached below. Feel free to modify to your liking.

-- In addition to using this button, we encourage you to make full use of the "comments" section of the interface for your proposal. What do we mean by full use? For example, you can use this space to tell readers what other speakers might be on this session, or why you are qualified to lead this panel. You can also give readers more information about what you want to cover in this session. The more information you can give users of the Panel Picker about your proposal, the more likely you are to catch their attention.

-- Voting for the 2009 Panel Picker will end at 11:59 pm central time on Friday, August 29. We hope to make the first batch of programming announcements in early October.

-- If your programming idea is accepted to be part of the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival, you will be given a complimentary Gold badge to the event. However, if you know that you are going to attend SXSW whether or not your panel is accepted and are concerned about getting a downtown hotel, we recommend that you go ahead and register now. SXSW does NOT grant refunds -- so please do not buy a registration unless you are absolutely sure that you will attend the event. If your programming idea is accepted and you have already bought a badge, we will allow you to transfer your badge to another person at no charge.

-- If this registration stuff is too confusing (and it probably is), please e-mail us at interpanels@sxsw.com and we will try to explain it in greater detail. You can also e-mail us at this address if you have any other SXSW-related questions.

Thanks again for being part of the Panel Picker process for 2009!

Best regards,

Hugh Forrest
Kathryn Lasater

They've fixed things since then, but still it'd be darn interesting to know the raw numbers: how many votes have they received to date, what's the average number of votes/panel, and how many panels have received more than 5x the average vote count and how many have received less than 1/5th. I imagine there are still some at zero or close to it.

Fortunately, the entire conference isn't going to be decided based on the virtual popularity contest of the panel picker: in fact, that's only going to factor in as 30% of the total decision making process.

Now, it would only be fair if I ended this by asking that you vote for my panel too, right? Here, click on one of these spiffo new buttons:

Or... don't. :-)

Ideas needed: how do you market a breath mint?

I'm rather stymied on this one:

"I am marketing a new product, it's a special mint that completely eliminates alcohol and tobacco breath. The website is AntiPoleez.com. Could you please recommend appropriate sites or blogs to inquire regarding review of my product; or PR agencies that will efficiently place articles/reviews on the web for me?"

In a nice demonstration of why social media systems are so wonderful if you actually participate and build up a community of colleagues, I simply posed the above question to my Twitter followers (you could be one too, just follow @DaveTaylor).

Here's what they had to suggest:

	thatsoftwareguy @DaveTaylor Lots of super hot women. And a monkey. Always add a monkey to maximize sales and profits.
	leslierohde @DaveTaylor - alcohol breath is from systemic out gassing of metabolites so i doubt mints alone does the trick
	ksowocki @davetaylor how about giving them away for free for a few months at restaurants the way breath mints are now?
	AndyAE @DaveTaylor "Who Else Wants to Beat a DUI" ? ;)
	marcfuller @DaveTaylor - Gotta do it as the "real lifesaver" A part would be short personal reenactments via YouTube videos, alt enuf to go viral.
	Jymsym @DaveTaylor it's a miracle!
	PATTIwithAn_i @DaveTaylor ....I would use it! ......isn't word of MOUTH *no pun intended* the best form of PR /ADV.
	jillwhalen @DaveTaylor and of course to SEOs at conferences ;)
	stadol @DaveTaylor "Hey, you'll die of cancer---but you'll smell minty fresh while doing it! Try "Delusion", the best mint around!"
	jillwhalen @DaveTaylor I think marketing it to bar owners to sell to their patrons.
	skeptech @DaveTaylor Signs at eye level in bar toilets.
	mobienthusiast @DaveTaylor for the word of mouth videos you can tagline it with something like "it's not like kissing an ashtray"
	VincentWright @DaveTaylor If it completely eliminates alcohol & tobacco breath, I'd start with a word of mouth "challenge campaign" See WOMMA.org
	mobienthusiast @DaveTaylor re: mint I would go word of mouth and hand out samples in bars, video it for youtube viral, make it funny

Now I'll be the first to admit that not all of these ideas are the mark of genius, but there are some very powerful ideas here, ideas that could really help market this company. I think that the team at AntiPoleez.com could definitely be inspired by this.

To be fair, the original question was about what bloggers might review their product, but I think that's a tough one. Generally I am in favor of inviting bloggers to review products because word of mouth marketing is so powerful, but short of finding college bloggers who write about how much they drink - and few of those are influential to any greater population - I think that having a more creative approach is exactly what's needed here.

Just as importantly, note how a simple question to Twitter produced a wave of interesting and thought-provoking ideas. These services aren't about how to pump your URL out to others, how to easily produce more traffic to your site, but rather about how you can create an online community of people who are willing to help you out as needed - if you also help them.

Something else to keep in mind, fellow Twitter users.

What I'll be talking about at Blogworld Expo next month

I'm quite honored to be given a keynote slot and a regular speaking slot at the upcoming Blogworld Expo conference next month in Las Vegas. After much chewing on it, I've also finally nailed down my topics and session descriptions too:

KEYNOTE: HOW WE GOT HERE: The State of Blogging and Where It's Heading

Starting as online personal journals, participatory media has exploded in the last few years and is now widely viewed as a credible and legitimate avenue for corporations, groups and individuals to spread their viewpoint and perspective. Bloggers are the new investigative journalists and op-ed writers, podcasters are marginalizing commercial radio and video bloggers are offering a meaningful alternative to the same old industry pap. In this engaging session, I'll talk about what I see as the state of blogging and new media and offer up some ideas about where we're going and how you can be a part of the future of human communication

Ten Things You Need to Know about Search Engines & Findability

You've probably heard the mantra that "it's all about producing quality content", but you and I both know that without the ability for people to find you when they look for information in your space, the best content in the world will languish and wither. In this session, I'll take participants on a whirlwind tour of how search engines work and offer ten critical tips to help you maximize your findability in Google and everywhere else online. Circle this one: You won't want to miss it!

Hollywood's Achilles Heel: Movie Print Quality

If you've seen a modern movie, you know what I'm talking about, jerky cuts, rough focus spots, dirt in the print, and more. A very analogue experience, but not in a good way, especially for a film that just begs to be in true, clean, pristine high def.

After the film ended, I went and talked with the manager (of the AMC Flatiron Crossing Mall theater, in Broomfield, Colorado), and she really didn't give a damn about my complaint about film quality.

Me: "Hi. Just wanted to talk about the surprisingly poor print quality of Hellboy II, which I just came out of the theater from watching. Are you aware of the problem?"

She: "We just replaced the Hellboy II print last week. It was in pretty bad shape prior."

Me: "Maybe, then, you need to tell corporate that you need new prints every week so that movie patrons have the best possible experience."

She: "Do you know how much those prints cost?"

Me: "The problem is that if you can't project a very clean image, it becomes harder and harder for you to compete with my fancy home theater, where my HD player looks gorgeous."

She: (shrugs)

Me: "When are you going to be able to go digital in this theater?"

She: "Oh, gosh, not for at least three or four years."

Me: "Ah, well, thanks for listening."

I also peeked in at Journey to the Center of the Earth and saw that this fancy, expensive, new theater didn't have the 3D projection system upgrade (called RealD, it requires a new projector and new screen) either, which surprised me. The Century Boulder theater got the upgrade for Journey, and it's a smaller market.

Film projection quality is a major issue for Hollywood and the continued health of the movie theater business. When I can patiently wait a few months for a Blu-Ray high-def release of a movie for about the price of two evening-showing tickets and then keep the film forever, I can't duplicate the full sensory experience of a large theater, theater sound system and sense of community that comes from sharing a movie watching experience.

But if the films are going to be visibly dirty, choppy or otherwise marred, then I will continue to be jarred out of the requisite suspension of disbelief, the need to be involved with the movie world and storyline, and be brought back to the theater room itself, and that's a big problem.

This is why savvy people like Mark Cuban, owner of the Landmark Theater Chain, is pushing so aggressively for movie theaters to go all digital. Once that happens, they can have dramatically higher resolution than Blu-Ray and there's zero degradation of the print from projection to projection.

Ironically, it's exactly like the transition from LP to CD or VHS to DVD. Digital wins over analogue and it's time Hollywood got on the ball.

Help make SXSW '09 an even more amazing conference!

For the last few years I've taken a pass on attending or speaking at the ever-more-popular SXSW (pronounce it "south by southwest" to sound cool) conference and happening in Austin, Texas. Each year my friends all migrate deep into Texas and I read about all their exploits, the great sessions, the fun parties, and the general hilarity, while thinking "yeah, next year."

Well, 2009 is next year and this time I actually have a proposal in to speak at the conference. Unlike other conferences, however, SXSW takes into account audience interest with an online voting process that will either demonstrate the accuracy of The Wisdom of Crowds or ruin the conference in a half-baked popularity contest. :-)

Be that as it may, hey, I'm not above it. Register with the Panel Picker then vote for me:

      How to Screw Up Your Online Reputation

Here's my session description:

"A fun and lively presentation on what does and doesn't work in the online social media world, addressing best practices and worst mistakes. And if you do screw up, how do you fix things and recover? And (shhh) is it worth doing stupid things to just garner attention? Maybe..."

Turns out a bunch of my friends have also proposed panels, so if you're in a voting mood and these sound interesting, I'm sure they'd appreciate the votes too:

• My long-time pal and fellow cool Boulderite Derek Scruggs: Customer Support - From Preventative Medicine to Intensive Care
• Patrick O'Keefe on managing online communities: Are You Ready to Manage an Online Community?
• Startup promoter and generally nice guy Dave Cohen 's SXSW panel: Startup Funding Rethought- Beyond Bootstrapping, Angel, VC
• Super-smart Greg Cohn of Yahoo Developer Networks: The New Incubators: EPIC FAIL or Full of Win?
• b5media guru Jeremy Wright talking about Twitter: Microjournalism: Breaking The News in 140 Characters
• Long-time pal and women in tech advocate Dori Smith: Women in Tech (Everything You Know is Wrong)
• Fellow Linux Journal columnist Doc Searls at SXSW 09: Rebuilding the World with Free Everything
• Former Forrester big-brain Charlene Li on the future of social networks: The Future of Social Networks
• Andrew Hyde's wittily named SXSW 09 proposal: Happiness (or Not) In Startups
• Problogger Darren Rowse: Responsible Blogger/Public Relations Interaction
• Gwen Bell and her Women in Tech session at SXSW: Women Engaging Tech: Ferocity Fuels the Phenomenal
• My partner in crime Andy Beal's SXSW panel: Managing Your Brand in a Radically Transparent World
• and, while you're voting for SXSW, here's Kit Seeborg's panel too (which I'll be part of, so you gotta vote for us!): Your Name Sucks!

And if you're more of a film person, you'll appreciate that I'm also going to be attending the SXSW Film Festival too, probably disseminating @FilmBuzz stickers too!

Twitter Spotlight on: Jim Kukral

As someone who spends a lot of time on different social networks, I'm always intrigued by how others perceive them and what motives people who exemplify what I think are the best practices in using these tools. I'm a long-time fan of Jim Kukral and to help understand how he utilizes the popular Twitter service, I sent him a few questions that he was generous enough to answer for our collective benefit...

Q: Briefly tell us about your background in the online business world.

I'm an online marketing veteran who does lots of blogging on web video. I've been blogging since 2001 and have built a strong personal brand for myself online over the years, and nowadays using social media tools as well.

Q: How do you make money online?

I make money online by consulting businesses about how to be more successful online. I help them find ways to get more sales, or leads or publicity by helping them think creatively and focusing their efforts and budget on the things that make sense and can return them an ROI.

Q: On a given day, what social networks do you utilize for business purposes, and approximately in what proportion?

I mostly use Twitter and Friendfeed nowadays, but it's always changing. I maintain a presence on Facebook and on Myspace and I'm constantly trying the latest and greatest social networks to stay connected with my audience.

Q: I'm focused on Twitter. Tell me how you first learned about Twitter and whether you find it a valuable tool for marketing and customer service?

At first I didn't get Twitter and I wrote it off. I disliked it and found it to be a waste of my time. However, it was only 6 months later I realized the power of it and how I had to be there to keep my personal brand strong.

Today, when I want to let my fans or audience (followers) know about something I've done, I simply send a Tweet out to about 2300 people in 10 seconds. It's fantastic to be able to do that and get such instant feedback.

For customer service, I use it for my Scratchback.com company. I monitor what people say about Scratchback and can actively then interject myself into the conversation. Customers love being able to communicate with the company so quickly, and how the company cares enough to seek out what they have to say.

Q: How many tweets do you send out on a typical day? What proportion of them would you say are directly business / marketing / customer service related, and what proportion are more fun and social?

I send out about 10-20 tweets a day usually. Less if I'm working on a project. Twitter can take away from my time so I try to limit it sometimes. However, again, it's part of how I publicize myself and my brand so "tweeting" can be considered work too. 80% of my tweets are me telling something about me or my projects. My followers expect that from me, that's why they follow me. My followers also love when I go off-topic and talk
about unrelated things.

Q: Are there some topics, business segments or offers that you think are more suited for Twitter than others, and if so, what are they?

I think anyone who runs a business can use Twitter. Service agencies especially. Monitor what people are saying about your industry, then follow those people and become friends with them. Don't "market" to them, just befriend them.

Q: Take us through the steps of how you utilized Twitter and the other social networks with which you're involved for a recent product release.

Every single time I post a blog entry it gets updated on Twitter, every day. For product launches, I use Twitter to build hype and anticipation about a launch as well. On the day of my launch, I talk about the launch as it happens. I'm telling a story, and it works.

Q: What's your Twitter ID? Do you use Twitter from your cellphone, or just your computer? Are you addicted?

I can be found on twitter at Twitter.com/jimkukral. I do tweet and check tweets from my iphone and my computer. I wouldn't say I'm addicted. I'd say I'm grateful for the ability to have so many people who want to know about who I am and what I do. That's an opportunity you can't pass up.

Q: What's your best advice for someone just starting to experiment with Twitter as a marketing or customer service channel?

Just start chatting with people talking about your brand or your industry. Don't sell. Don't market. Look at how companies like Zappos does it. Monitor your brand by using summize.com, and when someone starts talking about you, inject yourself into the conversation and go with the flow.

Great stuff, Jim. Thanks for sharing! If you want to find me on Twitter, you can either follow DaveTaylor or, if you're a film buff (or in the industry), also check out FilmBuzz for the latest Hollywood news.