The Amazon Appstore team will be in Barcelona, Spain from March 2nd to March 5^th for Mobile World Congress. If you are in Barcelona for MWC, there are a number of ways that you can meet with the team and learn more about growing your business with the Amazon Appstore, Amazon devices, and the services we offer to developers.

Here’s where you can find us in Barcelona:

Mobile Premier Awards

Monday 2^nd March – Sala Apolo, Carrer Nou de la Rambla, 4pm to 10pm

On the 9th edition of the Mobile Premier Awards, you'll see the latest global app innovations, from the 16 finalists representing 10 countries. Paul Cutsinger will be part of the judgeing panel, and our team will be there during the networking hour after the show to meet with you on this galactic evening! Get a free pass using code AMAZON at http://bit.ly/RegisterMPA

Applications Developer Alliance Mobile Apps Party

Tuesday 3^rd March – W Hotel, Barcelona, 8pm to 12am

Join us at Barcelona’s beautiful W hotel for an evening of networking and fun. Amazon Appstore is one of the main hosts for this event and we’ll be hanging out and talking to developers about the Amazon Appstore, our developer SDKs and the services that we offer. We’ll have a number of Fire devices on display and several Fire TVs setup, so come along and play games such as Crossy Road, Ski Safari or Table Top Racing from our developers.  You’ll also have an opportunity to meet our business leadership team to chat about how you can grow your business and monetize on Amazon.  Or, connect with our Developer Evangelists (Simon Howard and Paul Cutsinger) to learn more at a technical level about how you publish your app to the Amazon Appstore. You can register for free by entering the code AmazonAppstore here.

Mobile Gaming Panel

Wednesday 4^th March - Hall 4, Auditorium 2, Fira Gran Vira, 3:15pm

Join Amazon Appstore Director of Product Management, Aaron Rubenson, for a panel on Mobile Gaming.  Join some of the leading developers in the industry as they discuss how gaming will evolve on mobile in the coming years, why freemium is proving such an attractive model and the impact it has on developing compelling gaming experiences and which alternative models might prove fruitful in the coming years.  

Gamelab Mobile

Thursday 5^th March - Hall 8.0, Theater D, Fira Gran Vira, 9am to 5pm

Gamelab Mobile is an exclusive conference that explores the Edge of Innovation in mobile gaming.  Discover how the latest advances in mobile and Internet technology are helping game developers to envision and create new playgrounds and forms of interactive entertainment.  During Paul Cutsinger’s keynote at 11:30 AM, learn how to generate new business opportunities by turning your game players into fans (more details below).  Drop by our Meet the Experts table, where Amazon representatives and guest speakers can provide feedback on your mobile and gaming projects.  If you happen to have your APK with you, we’ll have devices on hand for testing. 

Gamelab Mobile Keynote: How to Turn your Players into Fans

We’ve analyzed the top mobile games to see what best practices make them stand out from the crowd. Several trends emerging now will amplify those best practices and games will have more opportunity than ever to excel. In the future, the top games will have fully realized fan bases that will drive their user acquisition and engagement engines. That fan base will include players but also content creators, advocates and potential new customers – this will open up a wider range of monetization options.

In this talk at 11:30 AM in Hall 8.0 Theatre D, Paul Custinger (@PaulCutsinger) will reveal these trends and what the cutting edge games are doing today. He’ll also share specific ways game developers can use this information to evolve players into a fan base for a stronger launch, more engagement, more revenue and an extended game lifespan. This will give you concrete ideas to incorporate into your existing games and those that you create in the future.

So…

If you are in Barcelona for MWC, we would love to meet you to hear more about your app or game, so do come see us at one of the events that we are attending.

Simon Howard (@SimonH109)

We are excited to be working with Seattle indie game incubator HouseOgames to host this year's HOGJam, right here on Amazon's Seattle campus.  Join us to build games, have fun, and hopefully meet some cool people.  In addition to a great location, we have industry veterans from the Amazon to help you brainstorm ideas, offer technical support and mentorship during the HOGjam. This is also a great opportunity to get your hands on some of the latest devices and services we offer game developers such as the newly announced Fire Phone, Kindle Fire tablets and of course Fire TV.

The HOGjam starts on Saturday, August 23rd at 10am until 12am and reopens again on Sunday, August 24th from 10am to 6pm. The following will be providing during the event:

• Comfortable, creative environment for you to work on you game on your own or in teams
• Wifi (please pre-install everything you need in case it’s slow)
• Snacks and drinks
• Device bar for you to try out the latest Amazon hardware
• Mentors from Amazon
• A theme to inspire your game during the event

At the end of the GameJam, everyone gets to demo their games and get constructive feedback on how to turn their creation into a commercial product. The goal is for everyone to be creative and have a fun. There is no judging since making a game in less than 48 hours is hard enough! It’s also an excellent opportunity to show off your creativity to professionals in the gaming industry. Got a game you are working on or have published? We’d love to see that as well after the HOGJam,

Everyone is welcome from developers to designers and we fully encourage people to team up. We’ll provide full details on the rules of the HOGjam at the event so be prepared to come out with everything you need to make your game from scratch. We hope to see you there!

Event Details:

Saturday August 23rd:  10am – 12am

Sunday August 24th: 10am – 6pm

Amazon Arizona Building

207 Boren Ave N, Seattle, WA

Registration: Free

If you’re attending GDC Europe, be sure to check out the Amazon Developer Day on Tuesday, August 12^th from 10am-6:30pm in Rheinssal West, 1^st Level. Anyone with an Expo pass can attend, so plan to join the Amazon team to learn how you can build, optimize, and monetize your games for Amazon’s Fire devices and Fire OS, an Android-based platform.

Come learn more about developing for our latest devices, including Fire phone and Fire TV. Fire phone lets you create games that respond to customers in a whole new way with Dynamic Perspective. Fire TV makes it easy for Android game developers to reach a new audience in the living room. We’ll provide details on the SDKs, show you how other developers are using these features and help you get started. You’ll also hear more about the AWS services that will help you evolve your game and Appstore APIs that can help you make more money and engage more customers on our devices.

Technical evangelists from Appstore and AWS will be on hand to answer questions. We’ll also have devices for you to explore and test your games – be one of the first developers in Europe to play with Fire!

Agenda:

10:00-10:45
Reach Cross-Platform with Amazon Appstore for Android
The Amazon Developer day at GDC EU is the place for game developers to learn about building for the Amazon Appstore. Learn about the platform's reach and scale, Amazon's Fire OS, an Android-based platform, and our latest devices and services in Europe.

11:00-12:30
Engage More Customers with Immersive Game Experiences
Fire, the first phone designed and produced by Amazon, enables you to create new experiences that respond to the way the customer holds, views and moves the phone, and helps customers engage more deeply with your gamethrough the enhanced carousel. First, you'll get acquainted with Fire's hardware and the Dynamic Perspective and Firefly SDKs. Then you'll hear from experienced game developers about building innovative new games for Fire.

12:30-13:15
Lunch

13:15-15:15
Increase Your Reach by Engaging Customers in the Living Room
Fire TV can help you increase your customer base by putting your existing game in the living room, in front of people who enjoy entertainment and may not have seen your games before. Learn more about Fire's capabilities and the SDK, hear from game developers about their experience with Fire TV, and learn how to port and optimize your game for the big screen, including how to implement controller support.

15:30-17:30
Architect Your Games for Maximum Profitability, Scale and User Engagement
You'll hear about the AWS services that will help you evolve your game to take advantage of cloud patterns such as in-game asset download, saving games to the cloud, online gameplay / stats, and game analytics. We'll also teach you how to publish HTML5 games to Fire phone, and discuss services that can help you engage more customers and make more money.

17:30-18:30
HAPPY HOUR | Q&A

Register now to attend the Amazon Developer Day at GDC 2014 and come meet the Amazon team.

The Amazon Appstore developer team will be at Casual Connect San Francisco on July 21^st with developer pre-day of sessions from 10 am through 3 pm at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.  No need to be a Casual Connect badge holder, all developers are invited to join us free of charge for a day of sessions to help you learn how to build, optimize and monetize your apps and games for Fire devices.

The day is designed to take you from an overview of our latest devices including Fire phone and Fire TV, cover technical details about the devices, while sharing how other developers are using the innovation of Fire TV and Fire phone to reach more customers.

We’ll also be covering the following topics:

• Details on the SDKs and examples of how other developers are using these features.
• The AWS services that will help you evolve your game to take advantage of cloud patterns such as in-game asset download, saving games to the cloud, online gameplay / stats, and game analytics.
• Discussions on services that will help you monetize and engage more customers.

Finally, we’ll be covering some of the benefits available to Amazon Appstore developers.  The Amazon Mobile Ad Network is offering a new incentive. Please come visit us at exhibit #421 to learn about the Amazon Mobile Ad Network and earn a $50 Amazon.com gift card** by integrating the Amazon Mobile Ads API into your qualified app* during Casual Connect.

We’ll have devices for you to explore and test your apps– be one of the first developers to play with Fire!

Click here to register or click here to find out more information about Casual Connect San Francisco.  We look forward to seeing you there.

*Existing apps already sending ad requests do not qualify. Apps that integrate the Amazon Mobile Ads API for the first time are eligible for the offer.

**One Amazon.com Gift Card per participant while supplies last. Amazon.com Gift Cards ("GCs") may be used only to purchase eligible goods on Amazon.com or certain of its affiliated websites. GCs cannot be redeemed for purchases of gift cards. Except as required by law, GCs cannot be reloaded, resold, transferred for value, redeemed for cash, or applied to any other account. For complete GC terms and conditions, see www.amazon.com/gc-legal. No expiration or service fees. Amazon may modify or cancel this offer at any time.

If you’re in the Washington D.C. area, please come out and join Amazon Appstore for a workshop on building apps and games for Fire phone and Fire TV.  Learn more on how to get your app into the living room or create apps that respond in all new ways. This MoDev exclusive event is on Saturday, July 12 from 10am-4pm. Bring your laptops and join Amazon Developer Evangelists and Fire phone product experts for a hands-on workshop designed to get you started with Fire phone and Fire TV.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

10:00AM – 4:00PM

Artisphere

1101 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (in the Ballroom off of lower town hall)

Want to attend this event?

Whether you have an existing app or are looking to launch a new app, this is an opportunity to work directly with our team for hands-on development support. Plus, you can test your apps on Fire phone and Fire TV.

Agenda

Program Details

Fire TV

• Introduction to Fire TV
• Best practices for developing for the 10-foot experience 
• Working with the remote & controllers
• Setting up your environment & publishing to the Amazon Appstore

Fire Phone

• Introduction to Fire phone
• Exploring the Dynamic Perspective SDK
• Connecting the phone to the physical world with Firefly
• Setting up your environment & publishing to the Amazon Appstore

Giveaways + Gaming Fun & Happy Hour

We’ll cap the afternoon with giveaways, gaming fun and a happy hour for attendees and evangelists to network.

We look forward to meeting you at the Artisphere in July!

While at GDC last week, I was able to speak to over 300 developers. It’s exciting to see all the ideas and the passion that fuels them - I love being around people that are so creative and productive. Often our conversations would turn to how to take their great idea and turn it into a great business. We’d talk about how to expand their distribution channels, best practices for monetization, opportunities for promotion and, most importantly, how to continuously improve the experience of their game.

Most of the people I spoke to understood the basic premise of AB Testing — to provide more than one experience and see which performs the best. For example, it’s common in advertising to deploy several ads with different messaging or art work to a small number of customers and then expand to more with the one that performs the best. It’s similar in a game, where you could test several experiences like the difficulty of a level, the impact of ad placement, or the effectiveness of your viral mechanic, etc.

Still, most of the developers I spoke to were surprised and excited by the following 4 aspects of Amazon’s AB Testing service:

1. FREE. Anyone with a (free) developer account can use the free AB Testing service for an unlimited number of tests.
2. Cross Platform. iOS, Android and, Kindle Fire are all supported. You can use AB Testing in any or all of these platforms.
3. Deploy Instantly. Part of the power of AB Testing is that your producers, level designers, analysts (the non-coders) can instantly deploy the winning experience to all players without a re-submit to any app store.
4. Multiple goals. It’s easy to imagine testing which ad placement results in the best click-through. But, how does it impact 3 day retention or level completion or time to first purchase? Amazon’s AB Testing can help you measure an experiment against multiple goals.

You can give it a try right now. It’s available from the developer portal at https://developer.amazon.com/public/apis/manage/ab-testing.

Amazon returns to GDC in 2014, offering technical and business-related sessions on building and monetizing apps, fast-track app publication into the Amazon Appstore, and partner showcases.

Learn about cross platform services: from AWS to Analytics

It’s no secret that the most profitable games are the ones that keep their players engaged—usually through a combination of great content and the best use of technology.  On Tuesday, March 18, Amazon is sponsoring a day of eight sessions at GDC, on topics like game architecture, design, technology, and monetization strategies.  You will gain insights whether building a backend, expanding to additional platforms, scaling to handle more players, or exploring new revenue streams. Anyone with an Expo pass can attend, so plan to join us today!

Amazon Appstore Blast: Get your app published in as fast as two hours

In addition, Android developers who have Expo passes will be able to submit an app to the Amazon Appstore for Android and have it reviewed for potential publication in as fast as two hours. Bring your APK file to the Amazon Appstore Blast, side load it for testing and submit the app for expedited publishing.  Amazon evangelists and testers will be on hand to help check compatibility and answer any questions. (Usually no changes are necessary—75% of apps we’ve tested just work.) Come to meeting room 2546 in the North Hall to publish your app and reach millions of new customers.

Hear from successful Amazon partners

Amazon partners will also be present at GDC to show off exciting new projects and advanced features related to Amazon devices and services. Dolby Laboratories will showcase the Dolby Audio API, which helps developers create truly immersive game experiences with enhanced Dolby sound.  Marmalade, the cross-platform SDK and game development ecosystem, will highlight their new platform support for Amazon GameCircle on booth 2510, which makes it fast and easy to incorporate Achievements, Leaderboards and Whispersync for Games into your Marmalade-based game.  In addition, Amazon staff will be on hand in the Marmalade booth to answer questions about Amazon’s developer services.  Amazon’s framework partner GameSalad will also be attending GDC.  Creator of a rapid development platform, GameSalad recently debuted drag-and-drop integration with Amazon GameCircle and our In-App Purchasing API.

Session schedule

10:00 - 10:30 am Introduction
10:30 - 11:30 am AWS Architecture
11:45 - 12:45 pm Game Analytics
12:45 - 1:45 pm Engaging Your Audience with Mobile Push Notifications (w/lunch)
1:45 - 2:30 pm Amazon AppStream - New Gaming Experiences Using the Clouds for Game Streaming
2:30 - 3:30 pm What's Working in In-App Monetization
3:30 - 4:30 pm A/B Testing with Air Patriots
4:45 - 5:45 Large Scale HTML5 Games on Desktop, Mobile & Tablets with KANO/APPS

Register now to attend the Amazon Developer Day at GDC 2014 and come meet the Amazon team.

If you are attending Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, join us at WIPJam! WIPJam is an event within the event dedicated to developers, taking place in Hall M5 in Fira Montjuic (Old Fira) from February 24-27. It is the largest DevCon during Mobile World Congress and is full of sessions, training seminars, hackathons, UnPanels, and developer storytelling. We’re excited to be hosting DevCon Workshop sessions, hosting several hackathon categories, and a booth. Learn more about WIPJam here.

There are several ways you can meet and engage with our team at WIPJam. Learn more below.

Monday, February 24, 2014 | Room 5, Level 3, Hall M5 | 11am-1pm CET

5 Tips for Monetizing Your App in a World Moving Towards Free Downloads

Speaker: Jesse Freeman, Developer Evangelist

Focus on What Matters: Accelerate Your Development with Amazon Cross Platform Services

Speaker: Paul Cutsinger

Tuesday, February 25, 2014 | Room 6, Level 3, Hall M5 | 1pm-3pm CET

Android to Amazon: Tips for Painless Submission to the Amazon Appstore

Speaker: Dave Isbitski, Developer Evangelist

Reaching New Customers with Your HTML5 Web Apps through the Amazon Appstore

Speaker: Dave Isbitski, Developer Evangelist

1.       Adopt an Amazon Cross Platform Service in 48 hours

2.       Port Your Android App to Kindle Fire in 24 hours

Stop by our booth and learn more about distributing your mobile apps and games through the Amazon Appstore, meet with our marketing and technical representatives, and get information about running your apps in the cloud from our friends at Amazon Web Services.  Or just stop by when you need a few minutes to recharge, and play some games on Kindle Fire HDX. We will be set up Monday-Wednesday on Level 1, Hall 5, Fira Montjuic. 

Join me Thursday, December 5^th at 10:00am PST for a live webinar demonstrating Amazon’s A/B Testing service on iOS.

• Learn the five reasons to include A/B testing in every iOS app you write from now on, and how your customers benefit when you adopt A/B testing methodology.
• I’ll explain how to integrate the service into your project and add the appropriate hooks to record conversion events and enable data collection and analysis.
• I’ll also demonstrate user segmentation and teach you how to use simple and complex filters to restrict your tests to just the users you define.

If you have ever wondered why A/B testing is good for your mobile apps and games, or simply been curious about how Amazon’s service works on iOS, sign up for the webinar today.

With just a few weeks remaining before AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas on November 12-15, sessions and speakers for the Mobile and Gaming track have been finalized. We have a lot of great content lined up, with a special emphasis on using Amazon services to simplify mobile development across platforms. This includes an entire session dedicated to high-level APIs for data synchronization, retaining players and increasing engagement, and modifying live apps in the wild without having to republish them (even across marketplaces).

Sourabh Ahuja, VP of Android and Cross-Platform Development at Glu Mobile, is one of the featured guest speakers. Focusing on the problem of syncing game data to the cloud, he will discuss the details of Whispersync for Games and how it is used in Glu products. He will share his experiences using the service with data that cannot be automatically merged, using code samples to illustrate how data conflicts can be resolved manually in those cases. He will also offer tips and tricks for using Whispersync with Unity3D.

Complementing the technical sessions, office hours will allow developers to meet one-on-one with Amazon engineers and solutions architects to address specific issues or discuss individual services in depth. Office hours will run throughout the conference, but we will also designate certain times when experts will be on-hand to answer questions about specific services. Use that schedule to connect with the engineer expert in your topic of interest, then dive deep into their area of expertise.

We will offer office hours dedicated to (among other subjects) In-App Purchasing, Mobile Ads, GameCircle, Whispersync for Games, A/B Testing, Amazon Maps, HTML5 Web App Distribution, and many more. The conference is almost sold out, so register now to reserve your place and guarantee access to great developer content and expert support.

What an exciting time it is to be a modern Web Developer!  No longer confined to just a browser the web has become a platform of dynamic interactive applications and games.  With the rise of technologies like HTML5 Canvas and WebGL, to the scaling power of Node.js, those same web skills can now be used to create engaging Apps on mobile devices.  With the Amazon’s Mobile Web App Distribution program you can even distribute your Web Apps on Kindle Fire and select Android devices in nearly 200 countries around the globe.

We will be on site at HTML5DevConf giving open office hours to help answer any technical or app submission process questions you have as well as a session on optimizing HTML5 for distribution on Mobile Devices.

From the HTML5DevConf website…

The HTML5 Developers Conference continues to grow into the largest software developer focused conference in the known universe, with the finest technical speakers in the cosmos. Our core strengths are in mobile web cross platform technologies such as HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Node.js, coding and design for client side, apps and servers.

Our next conference is at Moscone North in downtown San Francisco on October 22nd & 23rd.  Registration link: http://html5devconf-oct13.eventbrite.com/
 

Hope to see you there!

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

My colleagues Peter Heinrich and Mike Hines recently sat down and chatted about all the mobile and gaming developer goodness coming at AWS re:Invent 2013 in a few weeks.

Click here to watch their exclusive interview on YouTube!

AWS re:Invent is the largest gathering of developers and technical leaders from the AWS community from around the world.  This year marks the addition of a dedicated Mobile and Gaming Track that has everything you need to get your apps and games scalable and ready to engage customers. 

Presentations are highly technical and include developers sharing their own real world experiences.  Everything from Mobile App Performance by New Relic to High-Performance Ops for Mobile Gaming by GREE and peak into Building Killzone Servers from Guerrilla Games and SCE Online Technology Group.

Besides all of the great networking you would expect at a conference this size Peter also informs us of some exciting events.  One of which is the new Game Day event, a place for developers to form teams and build a game infrastructure in the cloud.  Teams will get to use load and server failures to try and break the other team’s system.  Participants will be able to get real experience fixing systems on the fly.

Head over to reinvent.awsevents.com to register.  We look forward to seeing you in November!

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

If you are in the UK please come out and join us at Droidcon this month! We will be covering how to build apps for the all-new Kindle Fire HDX, participating in the hackathon, and conducting one-on-one technical open office hours.

From the Droidcon website…

Droidcon is the UKs largest conference dedicated to Android development and applications. It is an unique opportunity to meet the Android community, get hands on knowledge about Android development and see the latest in Android applications and technologies. 

The multi-track conference attracts the best speakers from the Android development community, on the latest topics, tablets, enterprise, design ADK. The barcamp is a unique opportunity to share and exchange experience with the 600 Android enthusiasts present at the event. The democamp is a privileged moment to see or show the latest in Android software and hardware applications.

A Hackathon and Workshops will take place after Droidcon on October 26 & 27, 2013.

Hope to see you there!

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

If you’re a developer, you know that practically everything has an online component today, including mobile applications. Going online is so fundamental to mobile development, right down to how apps are delivered, it’s no wonder that innovation in the cloud should so closely track the rise of mobile computing devices.

It may also explain the fact that mobile has already redefined software monetization, since mobile apps can reach an audience orders of magnitude larger than traditional software and take advantage of a network connection to keep them engaged. In-app purchases are cheap and convenient for customers, while developers can rely on cloud services to process transactions and make money at scale.

The landscape is always changing, though, which is one of the reasons we developed the Mobile and Gaming track at AWS re:Invent this year. It allows us to dive deep into new technologies that drive (and are driven by) mobile development like the Amazon Mobile Associates API, which extends In-App Purchasing to any physical or digital product sold on Amazon. The service creates new opportunities to monetize in your app, but it’s not the only one. Taking In-App Purchasing to the Next Level: Selling Physical Goods through Your App & Other Monetization Strategies will demonstrate through case studies and code samples how you can use this and other Amazon services to generate more revenue on mobile.

AWS re:Invent 2013 is fast approaching, so I hope you’ll take a moment to peruse the great mobile and gaming content available this year, then sign up before registration is full. It will be a fun and informative week in Las Vegas, November 12-15. See you there!

The Mobile and Gaming track at this year’s AWS re:Invent conference is coming together! As our speaker list continues to grow, we’re adding more great content every day.  Topics like mobile game architecture, scaling, cutting-edge in-app purchasing, and cross-platform development are just a few of the areas we’ll explore, mixing case studies with technical deep dives and coding demonstrations.

We’ve also got some great practical sessions in store, like Coding Tips You Should Know Before Distributing your HTML5 Web App on Mobile Devices. The HTML5 state of the art is finally beginning to deliver on its cross-platform promise, with significant advances in performance, development tools, and support for native device APIs becoming available daily. This session will look under the hood and explain how to get the most out of the technology, especially when it comes to rendering and optimization.

We’ll also discuss new ways to profile and debug your web app directly on a mobile device, a process which has been non-trivial until now. If this has been a pain point in your web app development, Amazon’s Web App Tester tool may be just what you need. It extends web app tool support, even to apps running outside of the browser.

This is just one session of many at AWS re:Invent 2013 dedicated to mobile and game developers. Take a look at the sessions we have so far, and don’t forget about our pre-conference technical bootcamp. Register now and join me in Las Vegas this November.