Dale Rankine's Forum Nokia Blog

An update to our experience selling on Ovi Store

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:29:38 +0300

A little while back I suggested that I would try and be forthcoming with our sales numbers through Ovi so that the Flash development community could see what was happening behind the scenes with us on this new sales channel. This certainly wasn’t to say that I thought Moket’s content would be the biggest selling through the store (far from it) but I thought it would be helpful since we have been in the Ovi Store from the start.

As some of you will know, Ovi’s reporting screens were removed for quote some time while they were “fixed”, and have just become available again over the weekend. Here’s what I can show you now in terms of how things have been progressing for us:

Now I know these numbers aren’t changing the world (Mills, that’s for you), but you can clearly see a big gap between the top 2 selling items and the rest. Why? Is it because they’re better games? No. Do they have better position on the deck? In a way, yes. You see, we have Cipher and GRORBS available for Nokia’s touch-screen devices (S60 5th Ed) as well as S60 3rd Ed key-based devices, and I’ve made it clear before that there’s a strong skew towards the touch screen devices (or at least there has been) on the Ovi store because the default device that was used to filter the visible content was the 5800 XpressMusic . Currently if I go to the Ovi Store, the default device is a Nokia E71, but don’t get me started about why this also isn’t a great option (they’ve taken off the S40 device they had there for some reason which escapes me at the moment).

So I think it’s fair to say that during the first couple of months selling on Ovi, you would have been doing better if your content was available on a 5800 XpressMusic or N97. Other than that, I’m not sure the numbers for us have been all that much to write home about, as they say.

Geographically it’s very interesting, as I think the top selling regions (and correct me if I’m wrong) were amongst some of the early adopters of the 5800 XpressMusic, so there are conceivably more of these touch devices in those markets (however like I said, I may be wrong). I certainly can’t think of too many other reasons as to why we’re doing comparatively well in Russia

Still, it’s early days for Ovi. There’s been a lot happening behind the scenes, responding to issues that the team knows are there, and tweaking things to try and improve the experience. I think there’s a fair way to go however, and certainly a lot of the changes we’re seeing or wanting should have happened prior to flipping the switch on this. But looking forward, I think for Flash developers this still represents an important platform to be on, and one that I’m sure will continue to mature as time goes on.

And remember if you DO have Flash content published on Ovi Store, you can have it listed on OviFlash.com to hopefully increase some awareness (and who knows, maybe sales?!) of your content.

Nokia and Adobe create $10m Open Screen Development Fund

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:31:38 +0200

Some of you may be familiar with the Open Screen Project. It's a collective of technology and content companies, initated by Adobe, that aims to bring consistent user experiences to multiple screens (web, desktop, mobile, set top boxes, consumer electronics) through standards. There are some big names in the group, including Intel, Cisco, MTV, Motorola, Universal, Nokia, Qualcomm, Palm, Toshiba and Sony Ericsson - just to name a few.

When we say "a consistent user experience across multiple screens", Flash is obviously the tool that where going to be working with. It's arguably the most mature cross-platform runtime out there, and certainly the one that provides developers with the most consistent authoring environment and language for addressing these mutliple screens. And in order to energize and engage developers in this endeavour, Nokia and Adobe announced at Mobile World Congress 2009 the creation of The Open Screen Project Fund.

The Open Screen Project Fund is a $10 million market development fund that will provide grants to developers in order to accelerate the creation of apps, content and services that leverage the Adobe Flash Platform and run across mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices.

Developers around the world are invited to submit their ideas. Proposals will be reviewed by an Open Screen Project Fund steering committee, who are seeking applications that work across devices, and showcase the key features of Flash Lite, Flash Player and AIR. While the apps do not have to run across all three screens (desktop, mobile and CE devices), at a minimum a mobile version is required.

If you have some ideas for applications that will create excellent multiple-screen experiences, then this is a great opportunity to access development funding that can seriously kick start the development. For more information and to apply, visit the Open Screen Project website.

More Flash Lite posts and information at www.dalerankine.com and www.moket.com
Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/dalerankine

What the recent Adobe mobile annoucements mean for Rich Internet Developers

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:25:46 +0200

There's been a lot announced in the past week about the Flash mobile platform, and with Flash Player 10 and AIR being the next big advancement, I thought I'd write up a post on my Inside RIA blog to discuss those announcements and what they mean if you're working with Flex or AIR at the moment.

Of course if you're already developing for mobile, the announcements basically boil down to these key points:

More devices shipping with the same version of Flash as the desktop enjoys
Greater opportunities across screens with same/similar content (mobile/web/desktop) developed in Flash
Easier packaging and Flash Lite player targeting by using the Distributable Player solution
More opportunities to monetize content

You can read the full RIA post here, which spells out the main announcements in more detail.

More Flash Lite posts and information at www.dalerankine.com and www.moket.com
Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/dalerankine