We are already working on iPad editions. The iPad development costs are relatively low because of our in-house experience with Apple iOS programming and because we can share a lot of code with the iPhone editions. Moreover, I strongly believe that the iPad is going to be an important software platform. Especially for our type of software and our target audience.

But what about Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile? Are these platforms popular enough to justify the development of dedicated mobile apps? What is the popularity of these devices compared to iPhone and iPod touch? More importantly: how popular are these devices amongst Collectorz.com customers?

Well, let’s just ask them with a simple survey.

The Survey

This is the survey I sent out last week, to all Collectorz.com customers, using SurveyMonkey. To get as many responses as possible, I kept it simple. Just two multiple choice questions:

• What kind of mobile device(s) do you own? (multiple answers possible)
  • iPhone
  • iPod touch
  • iPad
  • Android based phone
  • Blackberry
  • Windows Mobile based phone
  • Nokia smartphone
  • Palm Pre
  • Other
  • I don’t own any smartphone or similar device
• How many apps have you purchased for the device(s) you selected above?
  • None
  • 1-5
  • 5-10
  • 10-15
  • 15-20
  • More than 20

The Results

After five days this survey had 12 thousand responses. More than enough to make the results statistically valid, so let’s look at the numbers:

What kind of mobile device(s) do you own?

First, the results of question one. Please note that users could select multiple options, so that’s why the numbers don’t add up to 100%.

Clearly, the Apple devices are very popular in our market. Using a SurveyMonkey filter I found that 45% of Collectorz.com customers owns an iPhone, iPod touch *or* iPad. 2.5% of my audience responded that they own an iPhone, an iPod touch *and* an iPad.
Which means that with some smart code sharing between iPhone and iPad apps, we can reach almost half of our customers with a mobile app.

Which is 3 times as many as can be reached with an Android or BlackBerry app. I know, both are built in Java, but I doubt that we can share much code between them.

Personally, I was surprised to see how popular Windows Mobile still is. However, its’ popularity seems to be on the decline. Nokia, Palm Pre? Too small to bother.

(Please note that this survey was sent to existing Collectorz.com customers only. If we have been attracting extra customers *because* of the iPhone apps, then the results may be slightly skewed in favor of the Apple platforms. However, this effect should be minimal.)

How many apps have you purchased?

I added this question to find out whether the owners of the different devices are actually buying apps for it. I mean, a particular phone may be very popular but if nobody is buying apps for it… then you have to wonder whether developing apps for that platform will be very effective.

These are the results, for the four popular mobile phone types:

The above charts confirm my suspicion that Blackberry and Windows Mobile users are less of an app-buying crowd. The numbers for Android are quite low too, but this is probably because the platform is relatively young.

Now what?

I was happy to see that our current focus on the Apple devices was justified by the survey results. All the more reason to get our iPad apps out as soon as possible and to keep improving and updating our iPhone apps.
I was a bit disappointed by the percentage of Collectorz.com customers owning Android and Blackberry devices, especially compared to the Apple audience. But we will stick to our plans to create Android and Blackberry apps. The market seems big enough to earn back the development costs. So we just hired a new Java programmer and he has already started on the Android apps

Apps for Windows Mobile, Nokia or other phones? Don’t think so…

Our Collectorz.com online media database systems use Amazon searches as a fallback, only for items that are not in our own databases yet. Users of our Windows or Mac software can use that downloaded data (*possibly* containing Amazon data) for cataloging their CDs, DVDs, books or video games. Then, if they also have our iPhone app, they can export the data to the mobile device. Our iPhone apps do not access the Amazon data feed directly.

But last week, I received an email from Amazon, saying that we must stop using Amazon data in mobile apps, because it is a violation of their agreement. Or else they would turn off our access to the Amazon data feed. So to play it safe, we removed our iPhone apps from the App Store.

What’s Next

Of course, I tried contacting Amazon to discuss the issue, but it took 10 days to get someone on the phone (see below).
In the meantime, I found that Bruji (one of our competitors and the creators of PocketPedia) had received the same email and had an unfruitful phone call with Amazon a couple of days later:

Amazon made it clear that they are not okay with Pocketpedia2, even though it censors their data. We were told that even the most common of attributes, the title, cannot be synced to a mobile device.

That didn’t sound like there was much hope we could modify our iPhone apps to meet Amazon’s demands. So it slowly dawned on me that the only solution would be to stop using the Amazon Product API in all our products. Mobile applications are a big part of Collectorz.com and they are only going to be more important in the future. If we cannot do mobile apps while still using Amazon data, then Amazon will have to go.

So a couple of days after Amazon’s cease and desist email, we started on a huge project: Making Collectorz.com Amazon-Free.

My phone call with Amazon

Finally, last Thursday I was allowed a call with “the powers that be”. Here’s a summary of my conversation with two very reasonable guys at Amazon:

Alwin: What exactly is the nature of the problem, as we are not directly using the Amazon Product API from the iPhone apps?
Amazon: Any usage of Amazon data on mobile devices is not allowed. We can’t tell you why, that is just our policy.

Alwin: No problem, if that is your policy, then we will have to deal with it. So does that mean that the only solution would be to either stop doing mobile applications OR stop using the Product API?
Amazon: We don’t need you to stop doing iPhone applications, but you just cannot use any Amazon data on them.

Alwin: Okay, but then for us, the only solution is to stop using the Amazon Product API altogether. Can you please confirm that once we completely stop using the Amazon Product API, we can put our iPhone apps back in the AppStore?
Amazon: Yes, if you do not use the Amazon Product API anymore, you can put all iPhone apps back into the App Store.

Alwin: Great, good to hear that. Now, would it be possible to address this problem per program? For example, if we stop using the Product API for movies, can we then bring our Clz Movies iPhone app back to the App Store?
Amazon: Yes, that would be possible, but we *will* verify that you are not doing any searches in the Movie category anymore. We can track that on our end. But please make sure that you will stop ALL Product API searches as soon as possible.

Alwin: We will probably be ready to stop Amazon searches for movies and games next week. Implementing alternative sources for books and music will probably take longer, say about six weeks. Is that okay?
Amazon: That is okay.

Alwin: Thank you. Can you please confirm that you will keep our Product Access Key enabled during this period, while we implement alternatives?
Amazon: Yes, we will keep it enabled. As long as you don’t suddenly start doing more searches to populate your own databases. Please know that we will closely monitor your API usage.

Alwin: That will not be problem. You will probably see the number of searches decrease next week, maybe even tomorrow. One final question: would it be possible to re-open our Associates accounts? Our users like getting the Amazon links, so we would like to keep delivering Amazon links in our software and on our website (and of course make some money from the affiliate fees).
Amazon: Yes, we can do that. Please email us with the details and we will re-open them. Also, please email us your plans and planning and keep us posted on your progress.

Alwin: I will.

A good conversation IMO. These guys were very reasonable and clearly willing to help us resolve this problem. I am also happy to receive confirmation that our Amazon-Free strategy is accepted as a good solution and that we can tackle the issue one program at a time.

The Amazon-Free Project

Sooo… we’ve got some work to do… My guess is that the entire Collectorz.com team will be working on this Amazon-Free project for the next couple of weeks at least, probably longer. We will be removing all usage of the Amazon feeds from our online database systems, and replacing it with alternatives where needed.

For Movie Collector and Game Collector, we aim to be Amazon-Free within a week from now. Our online databases for movies and games are pretty complete already, we only used Amazon searches there as a fallback datasource, for barcodes that were not in our own online database yet. We are now adding a couple of freely available lists of DVD and Blu-Ray barcodes. Plus we have implemented a new tool in our content management system that lets our admins spot and add popular missing barcodes with just a few clicks.
If all goes well, I expect to re-launch our iPhone apps for movies and games in about 2 weeks. The Clz Movies app is the most popular by far, so that will return most of the App Store profits as well.

For Music Collector and Book Collector, we are more dependent on Amazon searches. So we will have to add complete alternative sources for barcode lookups and cover images. This will be a lot more work and thus take longer (4 weeks? 6 weeks?).

All other projects we were working on have been put on hold at the moment (Connect editions for music and comics, major upgrades for Movie and Book Collector, small Mac updates, etc….). All of us are working to free Collectorz.com of Amazon.

But can you imagine how happy I am that we started to create our own online media databases 5 years ago? Best idea ever

Subject: Your Amazon Associates Acount

It has come to our attention that you have created applications for use with mobile devices which use Amazon.com content. The use of a mobile application in conjunction with the Product Advertising API or the Associates Program without our express prior written approval is not permitted.

As a result, we must insist that you cease this use of our services immediately. Moreover, because of this violation of both the Product Advertising API License Agreement and the Associates Operating Agreement, your Associates accounts have been closed and your access key turned off.

We thank you for your understanding and wish you the best of luck in the future.

And indeed, in Amazon’s Terms of Service for the usage of the Product Advertising API, we found the following:

“You will not, without our express prior written approval requested via this link, use any Product Advertising Content on or in connection with any site or application designed or intended for use with a mobile phone or other handheld device.”

So, what does this mean?

Well, I am not sure, as the only information I have at the moment is in the above two quotes.

But here’s my understanding of the situation:

• Amazon does not seem to allow the usage of any Amazon data in mobile applications. They must be referring to our iPhone applications, but it’s not even clear which ones. I am guessing Clz Music, Clz Movies, Clz Books and Clz Games. Our comics app Clz Comics does not use Amazon data and never has.
• Because of this violation, they have “turned off our access key”. This means that they have blocked our access to all Amazon XML feeds. Which would mean our software and our servers cannot do ANY Amazon searches anymore.
  At the moment, the Amazon searches still seem to be working, but I expect this to stop functioning any moment now.

Our actions so far:

To (hopefully) prevent the disabling of our access key for the Amazon feed:

• We have removed all our iPhone apps (except Clz Comics) from the Apple App Store. I have no idea if they will ever be back. Time will tell.
• We have contacted Amazon to let them know about this removal, requesting that they keep our access key enabled and re-open our Associates accounts.
• We have emailed all our existing customers, telling them about the removal of the iPhone apps and the possible disabling of the Amazon searches.

We are not the first: Delicious Library and PocketPedia

I just learned that we are not the first to have our iPhone apps pulled because of using Amazon data. The same thing seems to have happened earlier, to both the Delicious Library iPhone app and the PocketPedia companion app for Bruji’s [..]pedia software.

And now ?….

And now we wait.
Currently our Amazon searches are still working. That’s my biggest concern. Over the years we have build pretty good online media databases of our own, for CDs, movies, books, comics and video games. So our Windows, Mac OS X and online Connect editions will continue to work, even without Amazon data. Maybe with reduced coverage for barcode searches, but even that is something we can improve on (with a lot of manual labour).

As for our iPhone apps.. Well, it was fun while it lasted. Maybe we can bring them back later, modified to never use Amazon data or images.

Anyway, I will keep you posted on the developments.

Here’s an update on our experience selling iPhone apps.

Sales

I was expecting to sell just enough of them to my existing customers, so that we could cover the costs of development. Then after that maybe get some positive effects from the cool looking screenshots on our website, convert a couple more visitors into buying our stuff.

But overall, sales are higher than I expected, much higher in fact. Here’s a weekly sales graph:

I’ll keep the absolute sales number to myself
But for each of the apps you can see a high sales peak when we announced it to existing customers of the respective Windows software. For the movie, book and music apps, there was a second, smaller bump later, when we updated our Mac software with the necessary iPhone export features. And for each of the apps, those first peaks more than covered the development costs. Which was a nice surprise of course.

But what I am even happier with, is the fact that sales are still strong. After the launch peaks, sales have dropped to a nice steady level. The iPhone apps are now generating a considerable amount of extra monthly profits. Enough in fact to make it worthwhile to invest more development time.

It’s hard to tell whether the availability of iPhone companion apps is actually convincing more new visitors into choosing our software over that of our competitors (hi Max!). Partly because of the inability to track iPhone sales. More about that in the next paragraph.
But my idea is that it gives our website an more “up to date” feel. Even if you don’t own an iPhone, you may be impressed by the fact that our company can do this kind of stuff

Tracking

As you know, I love tracking everything. And in this regard, selling iPhone apps is a nightmare.
Apple gives me nothing to work with, I don’t even get instant sales notifications. I have to login to the horrible iTunes Connect system to download my sales stats manually. Initially I did this every day, downloading the CSV reports, importing them in Google Docs, summing the counts to get a nice graph per app. But this was so much hassle that I am now doing that per week only.

But what’s even worse: Apple doesn’t give me any customer information. Just overall sales numbers per day/week/month and per region. So I have no idea who purchased my apps. And I have no way to link iPhone sales to existing customer data.

This means I can’t follow up by email with tips or news about updates. And it makes it impossible to send targeted, segmented email campaigns. E.g. for a new campaign to sell the Clz Movies app, I am forced to just email all Movie Collector users again. I have no way to exclude the ones that already purchased my iPhone app. That just sucks.

Marketing

Two of my favorite ways to sell stuff are Google Adwords, Discount Coupons and Upselling during checkout. But for selling iPhone apps, I’m out of luck on all three.

Adwords lets me bid on terms containing the word “iphone”, like “iphone dvd organizer”, but I cannot use the word iPhone in my ad because of trademark violations. This makes it hard to write high CTR ad copy.
(I read somewhere that if you contact Apple they may give you permission to use their trademarked words. I haven’t looked into this yet.)

Apple’s App Store does not have a discount coupon system. Which is a shame, cause I would love to do temporary promotions for my iPhone apps to specific segments of my customer base. Of course I can temporarily lower the price of my apps, but then everybody gets the lower price. Could be a fun experiment too, but I’d prefer to use coupons. Just gives me more control.

iPhone apps can only be purchased through the App Store on the iPhone or iPod touch itself or through iTunes. It is not possible to sell them yourself, in your own online shop. IMO this is one of the reasons of the success of iPhone apps: having a simple one-stop-shop for all iPhone software, just enter your iTunes password to buy stuff.

However, it also means that I cannot bundle the iPhone apps with my regular software. I mean, how cool would it be to if I could just offer a “Movie Collector plus Clz Movies” bundle offer in my own shop? Or what about having the Clz Movies app as an upsell on my Upsell page. A $10 iPhone companion app would be the perfect upsell…
I am doing the best I can to make all my customers and new visitors aware of the mobile apps, but if they want them, they need to make a separate purchase in the App Store.
Why not allow me to sell some kind of vouchers that my customers can then use to download the iPhone apps? How hard can it be?

Customer Feedback

In general, our users love the iPhone apps. We already have many favorable reviews in the App Store. And we received some great suggestions and feature requests. We are implementing most of those in the upcoming 1.1 updates.
Not all though… some users would like to see the iPhone apps grow into full iPhone editions of our Windows/Mac software, including editing features. But that’s not where I want to take these apps, at least not at the moment. They have been designed as mobile viewer apps, as companion apps for the Windows editions. Adding editing capabilities would complicate everything (both code and UI) and I don’t expect any extra sales from it.

We did get some complaints about the $9.99 price tag. A lot of iPhone apps are cheap, ranging from $4.99 for popular games like Peggle, to $0.99 for small gadgets, to free gimmicky apps.
However, judging from the sales, $9.99 seems to be a good price. Maybe we would sell a couple more if the price was, say, $4.99. But I am sure that we would be making a lot less money

Finally, an interesting effect I am seeing is that users of other mobile devices (Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android, etc…) are quite upset with us doing iPhone apps only. Some of them really feel discriminated and accuse of of being Apple zealots. We have seen weird discussions on our forum, with Blackberry users bashing the iPhone’s features, bringing up sales numbers of mobile devices, ultimately demanding that we create Blackberry apps too, because there’s more Blackberry devices around than iPhones…
I tried explaining that the App Store has sold more software than all other mobile devices together and therefore it makes more sense to create iPhone apps. But of course, that didn’t help much

What’s next?

So will we ever create similar apps for Blackberry or Android? Windows Mobile maybe? Mmm, don’t think so. I don’t think the extra development costs will ever be earned back. And what’s more important, we do already offer an alternative solution for other mobile device with our Movie Collector Connect web application. Connect editions for books, music, games and comics are in the works.

I’d rather invest more time in improving the iPhone apps, try to sell some more of those. Which is what we are doing now. We are working on 1.1 updates for all five apps, improving the user interface and performance, adding some more fields and a couple of missing features.

It’s a companion app for our Movie Collector software, not a stand-alone product. Users can catalog their DVD collection using Movie Collector, then export their collection to the iPhone viewer app, so they can always have their collection with them (e.g. at the DVD store, at friends, etc..).

Why iPhone apps?

You may be wondering why Collectorz.com is moving into this market. Do I really expect to generate serious profits by selling iPhone apps?

No, I don’t. I think it is quite hard to make money selling iPhone apps.

Of course we all know the success stories of developers making millions with a small app selling for $0.99. But in my opinion the growing number of apps in the AppStore makes it harder and harder to reach serious sales volumes. Your chances of getting any visibility in the AppStore are just too low, even for a brilliant mass-market application. And for niche apps like ours it’s next to impossible.

And the trend for iPhone apps to be priced between $0.99 and $4.99 doesn’t exactly make it easier to make some profits. And of course Apple wants 30% too.

So why are we developing iPhone apps anyway?

• iPhone apps are a perfect fit for our cataloging software. One of the reasons people catalog their collections is to prevent duplicate purchases. Users print lists to take with them to the store, or export their list to CSV files on their phones or PDAs. A collection viewer app on the iPhone makes this easier (and cooler looking).
• Our iPhone apps are add-ons for our existing Windows and Mac apps, so we can sell them to existing customers and promote them to new customers on our website. No exposure in the AppStore needed.
• Because it’s a niche application, we can go for a price that is a little higher than that of the average iPhone app. We have set the price at $9.99.
• We will be creating five Collectorz.com iPhone apps, for which we can share most of the code. This helps to keep development costs relatively low.
• Offering iPhone apps will be good USP for the Collectorz.com software, something our competitors do not have. In other words, they may help sell more of our of Windows and Mac software.

Clz Movies blurb and screenshots

Did you ever come home with a new DVD, only to find out that you already owned it? Annoying isn’t it? And costly too.

And did a friend ever ask if you have this or that movie…
… and you couldn’t remember?

Movie Collector and this companion iPhone app Clz Movies can help you avoid embarrassing situations like this, in 3 easy steps:

1. First catalog your DVD collection with the Movie Collector software (available for Windows and Mac OS X).

2. Then export your collection list to the Clz Movies software on your iPhone or iPod Touch, including movie information, edition details and the DVD cover images.

3. Now just always take your iPhone or iPod Touch with you to the store, so that you can check which DVDs you already own and which ones are on your wishlist.

- Avoid Duplicate DVD Purchases
- Manage your DVD Wish List
- Show off your DVD collection
- Have cool movie facts at your fingertips

Let’s hope Apple approves it soon. I can’t wait to see what happens when it’s finally available in the AppStore.