在美国佛罗里达州奥兰多本月举办的2011年CTIA展会上，不少科技行业高管聚集于此探讨应用程序生态圈的发展态势，以及开发者面临的挑战等问题。在由市场调研公司ABI Research代表Mark Beccue主持的座谈会上，来自Appcelerator的斯科特·斯瓦茨佐夫（Scott Schwarzhoff）、GetJar的帕特里克·莫克（Patrick Mork）、Verizon Wireless高管Todd Murply就手机平台分散性问题，应用曝光率以及应用创收模式等问题展开了讨论。

在进入正题之前，游戏邦得先介绍这三名参会代表的相关背景：Appcelerator是一个跨平台手机应用开发平台，目前有13万左右的开发者正在使用该服务，斯瓦茨佐夫是该公司的市场营销副总裁；GetJar是一家第三方应用商店，其下载量已超过17亿次，莫克是GetJar的首席营销官；Murply是运营商Verizon旗下的应用商店VCAST App Store的主管。

iphone-apps

付费下载模式是否已出局？

他们的第一个讨论话题就是，付费下载已不再是开发者的唯一创收来源。目前的应用市场上有不少新型运营模式可供开发者选择，例如免费模式、广告赞助模式、内置付费功能、订阅服务和虚拟商品交易等。

斯瓦茨佐夫认为当前的市场存在五六种不同的运营模式，开发者应该从增加用户黏性的角度出发，从中选择最适合自己的创收模式。他表示，人们之前付费下载应用是因为大家要购买内容，但现在云计算服务、社交网络或地理定位服务，都可以通过不同途径提高用户黏性。这意味着采用不同的运营模式，对开发者来说更为重要。

Murply则表示，Verizon应用商店已经开始转向免费模式，付费下载模式不利于鼓励用户尝试新产品。开发者最好先让用户免费体验服务，然后再让他们自主选择是否付费，获得更高体验。不过他同时也表示，付费应用不会被彻底淘汰，因为不少付费应用仍可提供高级的用户体验。

他还表示，由于运营商计费系统的出现，所以Verizon希望应用商店有更多产品采用微交易模式。Verizon目前正致力于推广自己的计费系统，但还需要让它更加完善，以方便开发者采用，并同时取得用户的信任。Verizon不想卷入与苹果应用商店相同的麻烦，后者在最近一段时间因年幼儿童使用家长手机花了许多钱购买游戏内置付费功能一事，备受舆论指责，甚至还惊动了美国政客和FTC（美国联邦贸易委员会）。

GetJar首席营销官莫克也很认同免费模式，他表示开发者可以先推出免费版应用，让用户试用后再决定是否购买付费版本。不过他也提到，不同地区的用户购买意愿也存在差别，此外，用户习惯使用的付费渠道也各有不同。例如，一些用户就是不想花钱，所以不会介意免费版本中的广告植入，而另一些用户可能情愿付费下载，也不想受到广告干扰。

莫克同时也指出，使用非付费下载的运营模式，并不意味着放弃潜在收益，并以一家知名游戏工作室为例（不过他并没有指出具体名称），称该工作室转向虚拟商品交易模式后，营收比原来增加了4、5倍。

手机平台分散性的问题

在讨论这个话题之前，Beccue首先引用了ABI Research的一组调查数据来作铺垫：目前全球智能手机安装基数为8.153亿部；到2014年，全球将有17亿部手机；现在有15亿部手机安装了网页浏览器，这一数据到2014年将增长到25亿部。

斯瓦茨佐夫称手机平台不是个人电脑，不会出现操作系统和浏览器一家独大、多年称霸的情况。手机平台更有具分散性，不但各个移动设备技术标准不一，手机操作系统的等级也各有不同，甚至在服务层面上也出现了分化。今天的开发者有各种基于云的平台和后端服务供应商可供选择。

但分散性就是这个行业的固有本性，开发者只能接受这个现象，而大型开发商和代理机构更应该认识到这一点，并找到破解之道。

莫克认为，大型开发商首先得了解自己的目标是什么，是获取用户，还是提供更具深度和黏性的体验？只有厘清了这些问题，才能帮助他们找到最适合自己投放产品的平台。在多数情况下，开发者一般都选择面向iPhone和Android这两大平台开发产品，然后再决定是否通过开发其他版本的应用，或者移动网络获取其他手机平台的用户。

斯瓦茨佐夫的观点是，手机平台的分散性问题，让开发者不得不针对各个平台开发各种版本的应用，因为不同移动设备和技术标准会产生不同的用户体验。开发者不应该纠缠于开发各种版本应用的问题，而应该考虑针对不同移动设备，创建可提供同一种用户体验的产品。

HTML5 VS.原版应用程序？

当与会者的话题转向HTML5与原版应用的教量时，Murply称互联网会是平板电脑市场的终结者，但莫克却另有看法，他表示现在的用户对数字产品的使用方式已经发生转变，大家已不再通过上网搜索找到答案，而是直接点击应用程序获取内容。应用程序可以提供即时性的满足感，我们有理由将这种体验转移到其他设备上。

斯瓦茨佐夫则为开发者提出了一些建议：首先要考虑应用运行的平台，然后再考虑用户对产品的需求，以及开发技术（编程语言、SDK等）、所涉及的代码、项目可扩展性和运营的可重复性等要素。

他认为开发者不能将目光局限于iPhone平台，而应该退一步思考公司未来两三年的发展方向，再制定应用开发决策，例如到底要不要创建一款移动网页应用等。

总而言之，这三者在HTML5与原版应用并不是“非此即彼”这个观点上达成了一致，但对哪一者才能提供更良好的用户体验上则各有看法。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

CTIA: The Secret Sauce for Application Storefronts

At this week’s CTIA 2011 Wireless conference in Orlando, Florida, several industry execs sat down to discuss the ever-growing application ecosystem, and the challenges developers face, in a panel session entitled “The Secret Sauce for Application Storefronts.” The session, moderated by ABI Research’s Mark Beccue, and including Appcelerator’s Scott Schwarzhoff, GetJar’s Patrick Mork and Verizon Wireless’s Todd Murphy, wasn’t meant to detail what the so-called “secret sauce” was exactly, but was a forum for discussing the issues of fragmentation, discoverability and the more recent shift from paid applications to those using other types of monetization methods.

To give you a little background on the three panelists, Schwarzhoff is VP of Marketing at Appcelerator, makers of a cross-platform mobile development platform used by 130,000 developers. Mork is CMO of third-party mobile app store GetJar, which has seen 1.7 billion downloads of its hosted applications to date. And Murphy leads the Verizon development community and the carrier’s VCAST App Store.

Is There a Shift from Paid Apps Underway?

The first topic up for discussion was the shift away from paid applications as the only way to monetize a developer’s work. Now, new business models are enabling different types of revenue generation capabilities for apps, like freemium apps, ad-supported apps and those offering in-app purchases, subscriptions or virtual goods.

Schwarzhoff says that there are currently five or six different business models out there currently, and determining which one is right for developers is a matter of looking at how an app engages its audience, then mapping that to the appropriate business model. Before, he said, apps were paid because you were purchasing content. Now services, like cloud services, social networking or location-based services, are offering a different engagement model. That means a different business model makes more sense.

In Verizon’s app store, Murphy said he was seeing more of a shift to freemium applications. Paid is sort of a barrier to trying a service, he said. You want to first get people into the service, and get them using it, then ask them to pay. However, he noted, paid apps are not going away entirely and there’s still value in offering a premium application experience to customers.

Murphy also said that Verizon would like to see more apps with microtransactions enabled, because of the option to offer carrier billing. Verizon is working on such a system now, Murphy said, but needs to do it in the right way. It needs to be easy for the developers to implement, of course, but it also needs to be trustworthy from a customer standpoint. Verizon doesn’t want to get into the same situation that Apple recently faced, where kids were using parents’ phones and racking up big bills via in-app purchases.

GetJar’s Mork agreed with the idea that apps need to be free to some extent, so consumers can sample them before buying. But a consumer’s willingness to pay varies by region, he reminded the audience. Plus, different consumers want different business models. For example, some consumers just want the free app and are willing to use one with ads in order to not have to pay, while others would be willing to pay for the app to remove the ads.

But using a non-paid monetization model doesn’t necessarily mean you’re giving up on potential income, Mork said. He cited one well-established game development shop (who he could not name due to confidentiality reasons) as having seen its revenue increase by 4-5 times after implementing virtual goods.
Fragmentation Issues

Before discussing the fragmentation issues, Beccue cited ABI’s research which found that the smartphone install base currently includes 815.3 million devices. By 2014, that will be 1.7 billion phones, he said. And there will also be 2.5 billion phones with a Web browser by 2014, up from 1.5 billion now.

Schwarzhoff began by saying that mobile isn’t like the PC world, where there was just the one dominant player and dominant browser for years. It’s much more diverse. But the fragmentation is now extending beyond the device and OS level to the services side. Various cloud-hosting platforms and providers of backend services are available today for developers to choose from.

But fragmentation is just something that’s inherent to the industry. “Welcome to mobile,” he joked. You have to accept it’s going to be there and developers, especially brands and agencies, need to be educated about what it means and how to overcome it.

Brands need to understand first what they’re trying to achieve, said Mork, continuing the thread. Do they want reach? A deep, engaging experience? These sorts of questions will help them determine what platform to develop for. In most cases, developers build apps for the leading two platforms (iPhone and Android) and then make determinations about if and how they will reach the rest of the mobile audience, whether that’s through apps or the mobile Web.

Schwarzhoff also noted that having different apps for different platforms, which is seen as this fragmentation problem, actually makes sense because different devices and form factors invite different experiences. Instead of thinking about all these different apps that have to be built, think about it as a single use case being used throughout the day on different devices.
HTML5 “Vs.?” Apps

As the discussion veered into the more controversial HTML5 vs native apps territory, a perennial favorite topic among application developers, Murphy made a remark that the Internet is where the

tablet market will eventually end up. Mork, however, disagreed, saying that what we’re seeing now is a paradigm shift in how consumers engage with digital content. Instead of searching the Web and and clicking through on results, we’re moving into an era of tapping apps. Apps provide immediate accessibility to content, and there’s a sort of instant gratification that comes with that. Why would we not want to transfer that experience to other devices?

Schwarzhoff then detailed what he suggests to developers looking to create a mobile app strategy. First, think about the platform, the form factors that the app will run on, then think about the

people you need to build that app, the tech involved (languages, SDKs), the code involved, the scalability and the repeatability of that operation.

So many customers have a myopic, 3-month view of mobile, Schwarzhoff said. They need to think beyond launching the iPhone app, take a step back and think about where they see their company over the next 2-3 years. With that long view in mind, they can develop the mobile strategy and determine whether or not that strategy should involve a mobile Web app.

All three agreed that the question of HTML5 vs. native apps is not an “either or”  issue, but a question what’s the best way to provide the experience you want to give your customers.（source:readwriteweb）