Does your mobile app or game offer in-app purchase? Did you know that you can easily add support for any physical or digital product available on Amazon? The new Amazon Mobile Associates API makes it possible, whether you distribute your app on the Amazon Appstore or elsewhere.

Join us live at 10am on Tuesday, September 17 for a webinar explaining Mobile Associates and how to integrate it into your own mobile Android applications. We’ll cover topics such as direct linking to Amazon product and search pages (optimized for the mobile experience), in-app product preview, and bundling virtual digital items with physical purchases. Be sure to stick around for live Q&A following the presentation.

Don't miss out:
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
10:00-11:00am PDT
Pre-register here!

Mobile app and game developers, we want to hear from you! Please complete our brief survey to help define the session content offered at AWS re:Invent 2013 as part of a dedicated track on app and game development for mobile devices. We’ll also use your input to guide the agenda of our pre-conference bootcamp, which will combine presentations with hands-on coding for a full day of intense instruction.

Register now for AWS re:Invent 2013 and join us in Las Vegas, November 12-15. Read more about the sessions and activities we have planned, and don’t forget to tell us what else you’d like to see at the conference.

Mobile app and game developers are no strangers to working in the cloud, which is why Amazon has added a dedicated Mobile and Gaming Track to its AWS re:Invent conference this year. Held November 12-15 in Las Vegas, AWS re:Invent will offer dedicated sessions and a special bootcamp tailored to mobile app and game developers like you. Register early as the conference sold out last year!

Deep dive technical sessions and hands-on labs will teach you how to scale your mobile app or game on the AWS cloud, distribute on Amazon, reach millions, increase user engagement and monetization, and more. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet Amazon teams in person, get one-on-one support, and attend a special reception.

Technical sessions during the main conference will focus on AWS features and services that speed mobile development and increase your audience. You’ll also learn how to get the most from Kindle Fire hardware without sacrificing compatibility on other mobile devices. Developer case studies will explain the tips and tricks they used to successfully monetize their apps and games. Here’s a sample of sessions to be offered:

• MBL401 - Speeding Mobile Development with Cross-Platform APIs: High-Level Amazon Services for Data Sync, Player Engagement, and A/B Testing 
• MBL301 - Coding Tips You Should Know Before Distributing your HTML5 Web App on Mobile Devices 
• MBL306 - Taking In-App Purchasing to the Next Level: Selling Physical Goods through Your App and Other Monetization Strategies 
• MBL201 - Mobile Game Architectures on AWS 
• MBL202 - A Telco's Story About Launching Voice-Command Personal Agent Service with AWS Cloud 
• MBL302 - Scaling a Mobile Web App to 100 Million Clients and Beyond 
• MBL303 - Gaming Ops - Running High-Performance Ops for Mobile Gaming 
• MBL304 - Building a World in the Clouds: MMO Architecture on AWS 
• MBL305 - Building Killzone's Servers - How We Used AWS in Our Flexible Architecture and Component-Based Design for Killzone ShadowFall and Killzone Mercenary 
• And more...

A pre-conference bootcamp will dive even deeper, with a full day of intensive instruction and live coding with the Amazon APIs, including GameCircle, A/B Testing, In-App Purchasing, and Mobile Ads. Starting with design patterns common to Games-as-a-Service and deployment to AWS, this workshop will move on to the specifics of implementation, publishing on the Amazon Appstore, and how to market your application or game on Amazon.com and Kindle Fire devices.

Join us in Las Vegas this November for the dedicated Mobile and Gaming track at AWS re:Invent 2013.

Join us at the MoDevTablet, Aug 15-17 in Seattle! MoDevTablet is a unique mobile conference event dedicated to tablet design, development, marketing strategies and training. Attending will be more than 30 mobile leaders from Amazon, Rovio, Samsung, Major League Soccer, Microsoft, and others. This should be a good opportunity to learn from some big names that have been doing tablet development for a while, and a good chance to network with hundreds of your peers.

The three day event features:

• Deep-dive workshops featuring essential tablet design, content, and cross-platfrom development strategies from industry experts, including Amazon's own Mike Hines who will share Amazon’s experience testing thousands of tablet apps.
• An exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming edition of Angry Birds Star Wars (Episode 1) — a month before the public sees it.
• Keynotes and industry insights from across the mobile ecosystem.
• A high-stakes startup competition, Disruptathon, featuring the best mobile startups from Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver squaring off for over $10,000 in prizes.

See the full schedule and speaker list at http://modevtablet.com. Save an additional 25% on your registration with code AMZN13.

On July 9th, the Amazon Apps UK team was very pleased to present at Develop Brighton, one the leading events for the burgeoning UK games community, attended by over 1,600 games industry professionals from CEO’s to Student developers.

On one of the hottest days of the year, Matt Hatherly from the UK Apps team and I enjoyed meeting so many games developers the Hilton Metropole, at the Hotel Du Vin and on Brighton’s famous beach.

During our presentation we took the opportunity to share insights on how to develop, market and monetize mobile games that use In App Purchasing. 

The theme of our talk was that Games publishing is evolving from an art to a science, as so much more data is now available. We shared a number of tips & insights on how to monetize Freemium games, including:

1.     The more time you can keep customers engaged the more money you’ll make.

• If you create a purchasing hook early on in the game you will take advantage of customers who want to spend on day one
• Give customers a reason to come back by providing lots of content, depth and regular updates – Customers that come back, come back time and again and carry on spending not only days but weeks after the first download

2.     Finessing your range, selection and pricing of IAP items and the way you communicate to customers makes a big difference to monetization.

• The more IAP items you offer for sale, the more orders you will get
• Games with tutorials monetize much better than those without
• The way you merchandise IAP items also makes a big difference – if you merchandise IAP items like a catalogue (with tiles for each item) your app will monetize better

Thousands of UK based game developers have added their Apps to the Amazon Appstore, including hit Freemium titles from Developers including New Star Games (New Star Soccer), Endemic ( Plague), Stick Sports (Stick Sports Cricket), and we look forward to welcoming many more to the store. 

The UK team will be participating in more Developer events during the course of the year and we hope to connect with more of the UK Games community then.

The UK Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program team was delighted to host its first developer meet-up for London’s thriving tech community with the outstanding team at The Skills Matter Exchange in Clerkenwell. Developers and publishers P2 Games, Deluxe Media Europe, Miniclip, and Future Games of London provided insight into the strategies that have made them successful. They shared a lot of fantastic tips on how to design, build, and distribute apps and games in the UK (and the nearly 200 other countries we support worldwide).

Peter Sleeman, Director of P2 Games, was first to break cover in what was to become an insightful and energetic Q&A session. For Peter, creating great digital content is the first key to success.

“At P2 Games, we hold the license for Peppa the Pig, but even if you don’t hold the license for a popular character, content is king. Build a great app or game with great content and customers will discover it.”

So once you have a great app, what next? You might get 5-star reviews and your Twitter feed might be blowing up with the buzz, but developers don’t work pro bono, right? Well, Henry Bennett from Deluxe Media Europe, makers of seminal British TV show apps Catch Phrase and Bullseye, has good news.

“Amazon is a key distribution platform for our apps. The platform offers our apps high visibility in terms of promotional space along with very good monetization. Amazon has now become our second most profitable distribution platform.”

Quick to second this was Saad Choudri of Miniclip fame, creators of Extreme Skating HD, Fragger, and iStunt. He said:

“Amazon has been a strong partner for Miniclip. The revenue return we have seen through Amazon means that it is important for developers to consider Amazon in their launch strategy.”

Future Games of London, makers of the successful Hungry Shark series, were represented by Ian Harper. Ian discussed what’s required technically to generate revenue, highlighting the Amazon platform because it monetizes well and is easy to develop for. Besides supporting standard Android apps, it also provides a suite of developer tools.

“Amazon offers excellent developer tools, robust APIs, and strong monetization”.

Once the formalities had concluded, we ensured everyone had some food and a refreshing beverage. Ninety minutes of frenzied networking ensued, with the good and the bad, the wise and the young furiously chomping down on some excellent pizza, swigging beer, and trying to find a spare hand to pass a business card whenever possible. This was briefly interrupted for the moment that everyone had been waiting for… drum roll… and the winner is… “Would Tom Mleko of Dataspin.io like to make his way to the stage? You are the lucky winner of a Kindle Fire HD 8.9”.

We’ll be doing plenty more of these events and look forward to seeing you there soon!

If you’re attending GDC later this month, you’re probably in the midst of planning. If you’re attending SXSW this weekend, you’re probably already booked. Regardless of which conference you’re attending (or if you’re lucky enough to be attending both like us), we hope that we’ll get to meet you! Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter (@AmazonAppDev) to ensure you get the latest info and updates from us on-site.

SXSW

At SXSW, we’ll have Amazon marketing and technical representatives at the Amazon booth (#1417) in the SXSW Trade Show. Stop by and let’s talk apps—and pick up some cool swag while you’re there. We’ll also have John Densmore (from The Doors) and Guy Kawasaki on-site for author signings (courtesy of our friends at Kindle Direct Publishing), and a series of interviews with developers who are distributing their apps on Kindle Fire. We know SXSW can be busy, but we hope you can make it to see us—hey, there’s always the SXSW Block Party!

We’re also hosting a panel discussion about self-publishing:

Democratization of Publishing: Survive and Thrive
Sunday, March 10th - 5pm to 6pm CST

Speakers:

Aaron Rubenson - Director, Amazon Appstore for Android
Libby Johnson McKee – Director, Kindle Direct Publishing, North America
John Densmore – former drummer and founding member of The Doors
Steve Carpenter – author and creator of the TV series “Grimm”

The publishing industry is evolving as authors, indie app and game creators, and musicians are empowered to self-publish and distribute real-time, on-demand content to millions of potential customers. There are more opportunities than ever to get content in front of the right audiences, but discovery continues to be a challenge as the distribution channels fragment. Hear from industry leaders on what the future might hold, and tips for getting the right eyeballs on your content.

GDC

We’ll be at the expo at GDC—ready to meet with game developers! We’ll also have our road warrior marketing and technical representatives on-site ready to talk mobile gaming, and maybe some surprises too! We’ll also be bringing back the Code Challenge. We’ll be tweeting out challenges during the conference, and if you complete them, we’ll give you some awesome prizes!

If you’re curious to learn more about the Amazon Appstore, Kindle Fire, or just monetizing your mobile games, we’re holding a session:

Making Money with Mobile Gaming: Best Practices from Amazon
Thursday, March 28^th – 10am to 11am PST

Speaker: Chirag Mehta, Manager, Developer Relations, Amazon

Have an idea for the next big gaming app? If so, you may be wondering how to monetize it. As the company behind Kindle Fire, Amazon is in a position to have a 10,000 foot view of mobile game monetization trajectories and trends. Amazon will share information on game design and monetization approaches they see successful across their store, with the hope that these insights will help developers regardless of platform. For existing Amazon developers and those interested in learning more about Kindle Fire, Amazon will also share tips on optimizing mobile games for Amazon.

We’re on the road again—this time, we’re heading to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress before heading south to Austin to attend SXSW. We’d like to give you a heads up about our sessions and other conference activities. If you’re going to be attending these conferences as well, we hope we will see you there!

Mobile World Congress

Making Money with Mobile Apps: Best Practices from Amazon on App Monetization
Wednesday, February 27^th - 1:45pm to 2:30pm CET
Speaker: Aaron Rubenson, Director, Amazon Appstore for Android

App Planet, a mini-conference within Mobile World Congress, is a place where mobile app developers can gain knowledge and network with other developers. Aaron Rubenson will be speaking about monetization trends in mobile apps and games and information about new services available to mobile app developers.

South by Southwest (SXSW)

We will be at Austin Convention Center during the SXSW Trade Show from March 10^th through March 13^th. Stop by our booth and learn more about distributing your mobile apps and games through Amazon, meet with our marketing and technical representatives, and get information about running your apps in the cloud from our friends at Amazon Web Services. We hope to see you there!

In addition, we’re hosting a session during SXSW Interactive: 

Democratization of Publishing: Survive and Thrive
Sunday, March 10^th - 5pm to 6pm CST
Speakers:
Aaron Rubenson - Director, Amazon Appstore for Android
Libby Johnson McKee – Director, Kindle Direct Publishing, North America
Colleen Hoover – New York Times best-selling author of Slammed and Hopeless
John Densmore – former drummer and founding member of The Doors

The publishing industry is evolving as authors, indie appand game creators, and musicians are empowered to self-publish and distribute real-time, on-demand content to millions of potential customers. There are more opportunities than ever to get content in front of the right audiences, but discovery continues to be a challenge as the distribution channels fragment. Hear from industry leaders on what the future might hold, and tips for getting the right eyeballs on your content.

For those of you who attended AWS re: Invent or AnDevCon, it was great meeting you. It’s always a pleasure to be able to meet with our developers face to face. For those who were unable to attend, we’ve pulled together some of the highlights from our participation at both AWS re: Invent and AnDevCon.

Although we’ve assembled this recap here, we were live-tweeting highlights during both of the conferences. If you don’t already, follow us on Twitter (@AmazonAppDev) to receive those highlights during future conferences, as well as other short bursts of information of interest to mobile app developers.

AWS re: Invent

In addition to videos of the keynotesessions during AWS re: Invent, our friends at Amazon Web Services have posted videos of the mobile app-focused sessions:

• Distributing Apps through Kindle Fire and Amazon Appstore
• Monetizing Your App on Kindle Fire: In-App Purchasing Made Easy
• Developing Mobile Games in the Cloud
• TinyCo’s Best Practices for Developing and Monetizing Mobile Games

Copies of the presentations are also available on the AWS Slideshare.

AnDevCon

At AnDevCon, Ethan Evans, Director of App Developer Services at Amazon, presented the keynote session on best practices for developing mobile apps using both native code and HTML5. Ethan discussed the success that his team has had developing the Amazon Appstore app using native code, connected to HTML5 using a JavaScript bridge,allowing them to roll out updates to the store more efficiently.

We are heading to many more developer conferences soon. See you in 2013!

The Amazon Mobile App Distribution team will be on-site at Amazon’s first developer conference, AWSre: Invent, all this week. Stop by our booth and meet with marketing and technical representatives—we’ll be there to answer your questions about getting your apps optimized and marketed on Kindle Fire.

As a mobile app developer, here are some sessions that may interest you:

Distributing Apps through Kindle Fire and the Amazon Appstore for Android
November 28^th– 10:30am to 11:20am

Aaron Rubenson, director of the Amazon Appstore, will provide an overview of the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program, the Amazon Mobile App SDK, and resources available to developers for Kindle Fire tablet optimization. Learn how to grow your business by engaging new customers and monetizing your apps.

Monetizing Your App on Kindle Fire: In-App Purchasing Made Easy
November 29^th– 10:30am to 11:20am

Mekka Okereke, developer services lead for the Amazon Appstore, will discuss how in-app purchasing can help you monetize your app and grow your business, as well as how to integrate the Amazon In-App Purchasing API into your mobile apps.

TinyCo’s Best Practices for Developing, Scaling, and Monetizing Games with AWS and Amazon
November 29^th– 3:00pm to 3:50pm

Suli Ali, Co-Founder and CEO of TinyCo, will share their best practices for developing engaging titles that work across mobile platforms. TinyCo has learned how-to scale their AWS app servers and databases to handle viral demand, and they will talk about what they learned while they were developing their gaming platform and code libraries. Additionally, TinyCo was successful marketing and monetizing their game with the Amazon Appstore and Kindle Fire, and they will explain how-to integrate with Amazon’s in-app purchasing service.

To learn more about our participation in AWS re: Invent,read our earlier post here. We hope to see you there!

Next week we’ll be at the APPNATION conference in San Francisco on April 27 and 28 at Moscone Center South.  The conference is intended primarily for developers and entrepreneurs like you to learn and share best practices about getting exposure for and monetizing apps. 

Our very own Jon Fleming, head of business development, will be on a panel moderated by Noah Kravitz, editor-at-large for TechnoBuffalo, called “So Many App Stores, So Little Time” along with Jud Bowman, Appia CEO, and Trevor Cornwell, appbackr CEO. 

We’ve negotiated a discount of 50% off the full-conference, all-access pass to APPNATION 2011.  You can redeem this discount online with the priority code: “APDI50.”  The code is good until Tuesday, April 26th at 11:59pm.

We hope to see you there!