Thursday, April 28, 2011

webOS gets a promo code system

Promo codes have made setting up reviewers with iPhone apps a snap. But if a reviewer wants to try a webOS or Android app, it gets complicated. For webOS, I ended up reimbursing reviewers via PayPal. Yuck. Android isn't much better as I have to send them a apk file for the application they wish to install. Better, but not great.

I just heard today that there is a new promo code system for the webOS that grants up to 1,000 promo codes per build! Woot! That's far superior than the 50 codes Apple grants which expire after 28 days.

Here's an article on it over at MobileCrunch.

According to the article, the big downside is the location of the redeem field -- right on the buy screen. Buyers see that there is a possibility of entering a promo code to get the app for free and wonder why they don't have a promo code. They leave the screen to go investigate and may never make it back! I agree with the writer -- move the field to some inconspicuous location in the store.

There hasn't been a lot of development action for webOS lately -- at least not among my clients. I really hope webOS can get cooking again under HP. It's still my favorite smartphone platform.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Using Storify to tell your app's story

Storify has opened up for a public beta and I just used it to publish my first story: "Using the iPhone Inbox as a Self-Reminder System".

Storify is another step in self-publishing your own stories -- connecting with people through social media and by-passing traditional media channels.

With Storify, you can consolidate a variety of resources about a story to help readers contextualize it. Storify will aggregate almost everything into your story: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

I found it to be extremely easy to use, but they were short on instructions. I felt like I was pretty much on my own to figure out how to format a story. I had to click on Preview a number of times to make sure the formatting was right. It was super easy, though, to drag and drop information into your story. You'll see in the story I published that I dragged and dropped a YouTube video about MailTones right at the end of the story.

It integrates wonderfully with Twitter. Sometimes a story will have so many Tweets that it can be hard to put them into perspective. With Storify, you can drag and drop relevant tweets into your story to put them into their proper context within the story. 

I'm just learning how to use it and will be creating more context-rich stories to really put it through its paces. I'd be interested in learning how you use it to promote your business or apps! Share!