Archive for March, 2010

Motally Announces 2-Way Communication for App Developers

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Motally launches 2-Way Communication, a powerful new feature that enables mobile app developers to make changes to existing tracking parameters (which includes tracking level and the conditions under which the data is sent), and to values in previously defined custom fields.  This is all achieved through the web interface in their Motally account.  We call this feature 2-Way Communication because now, it is no longer just the app that sends data to Motally, but now Motally can send data to the app, allowing developers to make changes and other updates remotely, without having to redeploy their application. This is especially useful in cases where developers have to through an app store approval process before launching their application.

TRACKING PARAMETERS
With Motally’s 2-Way Communication, developers can specify what level of data to track — whether it is at the action level, the error message level or the debug level. Tracking at the debug level is especially helpful for developers who have launched an application that might have some bugs to work out.  In addition, developers can also specify other conditions under which the tracking data is sent.  The following is a list of all the tracking parameter settings:

Device ID.   This field specifies whether the other tracking data conditions applies to a unique device ID or is applied universally.  The default (blank) applies changes to all devices.

Log level.
This field specifies what level of tracking a developer wants to capture. “Debug & above” tracks down to the deepest (lowest) level and includes debug statements, error statements, and actions.  “Error & above” tracks error statements and actions.  “Action & above” tracks actions and higher.

Connection Level.  This field specifies under which network conditions data is uploaded from devices. Choose any connection” to send data whenever users have a connection.  Select “CDN only” to send data only when users are connected through the carrier data network.  Choose “WiFi only” to send data only when users are connected through a WiFi network.

Minimum bundle size. This setting allows one to determine how often data is sent from users.  For instance, if it is set to 5, the app will bundle the tracking messages and send them over when the count reaches 5.

Maximum storage size.  This setting allows one to determine the number of tracking messages stored when the app is used but has no network connection. For instance, if it’s set to 100, up to 100 messages will be saved to be sent when the user is connected to a network.

CUSTOM DATA FIELDS
A developer who has created previously defined fields within their application can now make changes to the values for the data fields within their Motally account.  Some examples when a developer might want to make changes to a custom field. include text changes, promotion codes, adding new features, and extending admin rights.

To illustrate, a developer can program a discount code field into an application and change the value for that code, based on a particular marketing campaign. Or, a developer can change the greeting on a text to go from “Hello” to “Hola”, depending on what country the game is being accessed.  Truly, the possibilities are limitless, and is determined on the specific needs of each individual developer.

Device ID.  Similar to the tracking parameters section, one can activate these custom fields on an individual user basis via the device ID field or submit a universal update, which is the default blank setting.

Custom Data Key. This is the name of the field that the application will request from the integrated Motally library.

Custom Data Value.  This is the value that will be returned by the library when requested based on the aforementioned Custom Data Key.

With the announcement of our 2-way communication feature, Motally is once again leading the way to provide the most powerful, flexible tracking solution for mobile app developers.

Motally selected as one of 20 most promising startups by Venture Capital Journal

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Motally was recently selected as one of the most promising startups by Venture Capital Journal, a magazine affiliated with Thompson Reuters. The editors of VCJ researched early-stage technology startups from around the world to pick the 20 most promising companies for the magazine’s inaugural fantasy venture fund. The VCJ20 recognizes startups that have the potential to radically change the world and to produce outsized returns on their investments.

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Motally Delivers Mobile Analytics to Smaato’s Global Mobile Advertising Platform

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Motally is partnering with Smaato, the leading mobile ad optimization firm, to power their mobile analytics and provide mobile usage statistics for publishers, carriers, and developers on the SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) platform in over 215 countries around the globe.  Smaato’s SOMA™ platform employs Motally’s analytics to accurately track mobile usage data including carrier, location, device, internal search data, and tracking IDs. In addition, Motally’s funnel analysis feature tracks user-behavior and page navigation giving publishers and developers an understanding of how users engage, flow, and react to ads in apps or on the mobile web.

“Publishers and developers are always trying to better understand how users interact with their mobile sites and mobile apps,” said Ragnar Kruse, CEO of Smaato. “Motally analytics solve that, helping our clients further optimize their ad campaigns.”  Furthermore, Ragnar adds, “By choosing Motally to power our analytics, we are able to offer an award winning analytics solution that tracks usage data for mobile web and apps in a single interface on our dashboard, making it easy and convenient for our SOMA platform users.”

“We’re excited to partner with Smaato and offer our mobile analytics to users who want to be able to draw actionable insights from their data, particularly as it pertains to mobile advertising, says Arte Merritt, Founder of Motally.

About Smaato Inc.

Smaato Inc. is an ad-enabler for mobile phones, pioneering with its mobile advertising platform SOMA™  (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) for the delivery of targeted mobile advertising to smartphones. Smaato is partnering with international brands, advertising agencies, media publishers and software developers for its cutting edge mobile advertising platform. Smaato Inc. addresses the rapidly growing mobile advertising market with its services (including click-to-call response advertising) and platform solution. Informa recently published its research, stating a size of mobile marketing budgets to reach $11.35 billion by the year 2011 (Informa Research September 2006).

Motally Exhibits at CTIA

Friday, March 26th, 2010

The entire Motally team went to CTIA in Las Vegas this past week.  We had a booth in the Emerging Technology section in the North Hall and were excited to see so many people to stop by to learn about Motally and our mobile analytics offering.  Lots of potential customers, media folks, individual developers, and current partners found their way to the Motally booth, beginning Tuesday when the Exhibit Hall opened through Thursday, the last day of the show.  Being at CTIA, the Motally team had the chance to also learn about some of the other mobile trends that are happening in the industry as well as witnessing the occasional celebrity sighting which included Shaun White (aka Flying Tomato) demonstrating his new video game.

This year, CTIA celebrates its 25th Anniversary of its International CTIA Wireless show.  Starting from humble beginnings as an educational conference, CTIA is now an internationally recognized trade show with luminaries across the wireless spectrum.  At its first convention in May 1985, in Washington D.C., the show had just 175 attendees, and no exhibit floor.  Today, CTIA’s annual spring show hosts more than 1,000 exhibitors, occupying more than 300,000 square feet of space.

Motally is proud to have participated as an exhibitor in the two most recent CTIA conventions, at San Diego this past fall, and most recently in Las Vegas.


Motally Welcomes John Forese as CEO and Doug Garland to the Board

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Motally welcomes new CEO John Forese, former Nielsen SVP of Product Management and new Board member, Doug Garland, a former VP at Google.   John Forese joins the team at Motally with more than fifteen years of professional experience with a background in both the mobile and analytics industries. Most recently John was SVP of Product Management at Nielsen Mobile. Previously, John was an SVP at Telephia where he led overall product strategy and had P&L responsibility across the company’s product lines. During his tenure, John helped grow Telephia into the largest provider of syndicated research and performance metrics for the mobile industry, leading to the company’s acquisition by Nielsen in 2007.

Doug Garland joins the Motally board with more than 20 years of experience leading the development and growth of broadband and mobile services and creating significant new businesses. Most recently, he was a VP of Product Management at Google, where he led the development of mobile and local ads products, as well as a number of syndication initiatives. Prior to Google, Doug was an executive in residence at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Earlier, he was a SVP at Yahoo!,where he led the launch of the broadband access business and the company´s mobile efforts. He also held executive positions with Excite@Home and leading wireless companies, playing a key role in the launch of Sprint PCS and the development of digital cellular while at PacTel/AirTouch.

As the new CEO, John will be working closely with founder Arte Merritt and the rest of the Motally team to continue growing the company.   John believes, “Robust and accurate analytics are essential for anyone that wants to leverage mobile as a media platform, and Motally’s mobile web and application tracking is exactly what publishers and developers need to make data driven decisions that improve audience size and engagement level.”  John adds, “I look forward to working with Arte and the rest of the Motally team as we continue to expand our client base and tracking services.”

New Motally Board Member, Doug Garland, adds,  ”Motally is in a great position to help developers and publishers understand user behavior through the strong analytics that the team has developed.  That understanding can help drive higher user engagement which in turn unlocks the value of today’s mobile services.  I’m delighted to be joining Motally’s board and look forward to working with the team.”

We’re excited to have two new leaders on board and we look forward our company’s next stage of growth.

Motally Included in Alcatel-Lucent Dashboard for Developers

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

On March 12, 2010, at South by Southwest Interactive, Alcatel-Lucent announced its rollout of its packaged API (Application Programming Interaces) bundles and an associated revenue sharing model that radically transforms the application development business model.  By eliminating upfront costs for developers and opening new revenue opportunities for service providers, Alcatel-Lucent are enabling developers to use the network as a development platform in the same way they currently build applications for mobile devices and the Web.

New Dashboard Functionality
To support the bundled API approach, Alcatel-Lucent has also expanded its Dashboard tool to provide developers with a more personalized and detailed view of their applications and end users including: number of downloads, type of transactions, application performance, and revenue generation from campaigns and apps stores. This data is compiled across major apps stores — GetJar, Android and iTunes – to provide a comprehensive picture of how a developer’s application rates with consumers and stacks up against other industry applications. By making these additional tools available on its Dashboard, Alcatel-Lucent will expand its developer community reach to more than 20,000 developers.

Enthusiastically received by the developer community upon its introduction at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow last month, the Dashboard and API bundling model are being expanded with contributions from leading third party vendors: APIgee, Billing Revolution, Motally, SMaato and Zhing.

Arte Merritt, Founder of Motally says, “We’re excited to be one of the third-party vendors included in Alcatel-Lucent’s new bundled API and believe the launch of its new dashboard speaks to Alcatel-Lucent’s commitment to providing tools to its developer community.”

February Device Report

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Motally is a mobile analytics firm that tracks mobile website and application usage.  Each month, we report on top devices by region in terms of mobile website traffic.

Top Devices by Region

Below are the top devices by region based on page views of mobile websites tracked by Motally in the month of February.  The data is presented in list format, as well as in a table that summarizes the number of top devices by operating system.

It is interesting to note RIM’s strong February performance.  In February, RIM has a total of 40 Top 10 devices in the Top 10 for the seven combined regions for an average of 5.7 devices in each region.  Compare that to only 34 devices for an average of 4.9 in January.  These numbers suggest that RIM is branching out beyond the enterprise market and having success in reaching the broader consumer smartphone market.

Number of Devices in Top 10, by Operating System

OS Summary

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Motally Helps Developers Improve Their Game

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Today, Motally announces next generation game analytics for mobile developers.   In an effort to “up the ante”, we are offering additional features that meet the needs of the gaming community.  Motally’s Game analytics includes tracking around Game Level, Scores/Leaderboard, Virtual Goods Purchases, Cross Game Usage, and Conversions to Premium.  By capturing this data, mobile developers can use this information to help with game design, ad placement, game conversions, and revenue strategy.

Summary description of key features:  Game Level – Track what levels players are reaching;  Scores/Leaderboard -  Track top players and their top scores;  Virtual Good Purchases – Track which virtual goods are most popular;  Cross Game Usage – Track which games are most popular in a portfolio; and Conversions to Premium – Track conversions from free versions to the premium games.

Motally’s Game analytics is currently available in private beta.  To sign up, please go to www.motally.com/games.

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Motally speaks at Digiday Mobile in LA

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Motally founder, Arte Merritt, will be speaking at Digiday Mobile in LA on March 9th.  The panel discussion is titled, “How to Innovate with New Mobile Ad Units”. Mark Donovan, SVP, Mobile Solutions, comScore will be the moderator.  The panel session will address the following questions:  “What are the best new mobile ad units for mobile today? Which formats are driving the future of the medium and what are the ROI drivers now? What should brands look for when they want to maximize performance and create maximum impact? Discover the innovative mobile units of today and what will be the mobile ad units of tomorrow.”  Fellow panelists include:  Boris Fridman, CEO of Crisp Wireless, Eric Littman, Chairman & CEO of Medialets, Frank Barbieri, CEO & Founder of Transpera.

About Digiday Mobile — Digiday Mobile LA is a one-day event which brings together top Publishers, Agency Executives and Brand Marketers to discuss and debate how to fully utilize the next critical mass medium:  Mobile.  Digiday gives media leaders a chance to converge and discuss high level strategies and the future of Mobile Media and Marketing.   The theme of Digiday Mobile LA is centered around the question, Is Mobile The Next Critical Mass Medium?