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January 2, 2013

Serving developers of all types, all languages and all platforms

Top Story

Old favorites, new titles dominated mobile apps in 2012
The most-downloaded applications for mobile devices during 2012 included the Angry Birds games, Facebook and Instagram, while also making room for new apps such as Draw Something, Paper and Songza, this article notes. The analytics firm Flurry estimated that consumers averaged two hours each day using mobile apps in 2012, a 35% increase from 2011. Reuters (12/31)

Developer Economics

Will 2013 be the year of the second-screen transaction?
Getting consumers to use mobile devices as a second screen while watching television has been a lot easier than marrying mobile activity to actual shopping transactions, writes Lauren Johnson. GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold says that scale remains a problem for three mobile-shopping models, where mobile is used for buying what's advertised on TV, where consumers buy products featured in shows, and where they buy products related to show content. "It takes a compelling value proposition to shift TV viewers from passive TV watching into taking action -- overcoming the inertia of leaning back and doing nothing," says David Jones, Shazam's executive vice president of marketing. MobileCommerceDaily.com (12/31)

Toolbox

Third-party development tools help Windows Phone gain ground
Windows Phone store developer revenue has increased 40% in the past 30 days due largely to the release of Windows Phone 8, Microsoft reports. But there's a long journey ahead, industry analysts say, with hardware sales and the availability of developer tools being critical to long-term success. "Windows Phone is currently a distant third, but Microsoft appears to be taking all the right steps at attracting a healthy third-party developer community to support its platform," Flurry Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago says. Mobile Marketer (12/31)

Study cites shortfall of agile software developers
Agile software developers are in demand, according to a study based on CareerBuilder data that indicates there is one qualified candidate for every 4.6 jobs. eWeek (12/30), VentureBeat (12/31)

Regulation & Policy

Internet piracy, user privacy will remain hot topics this year
Internet piracy and user privacy are expected to be hot topics again this year, including when it comes to tracking user behavior and updating Web security rules and regulations. "Now that the election is over, Silicon Valley companies each are thinking through their strategy for the second Obama administration," says Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (1/1)

Industry Spotlight

Storm8 celebrates 2 million downloads on Christmas
Application developers such as Storm8 unwrapped big numbers on Christmas, Kim-Mai Cutler writes. The casual gaming company saw 2 million downloads on Christmas, along with 2.5 million hours of gameplay and more than quadruple the normal average revenue per daily active user. Top in-app items include a virtual holiday tree, gingerbread purse and snow globe, according to this infographic. TechCrunch (12/31)

App Developers Alliance News

2013 AT&T Developer Summit at CES: Get a free pass from the Alliance
Coming to CES? The Alliance is providing free passes to the 2013 AT&T Developer Summit that will be held on Jan. 6 and 7. If you're interested, email our Marketing Manager Mike Schwartz at mike@appalliance.org. Hope to see you there!

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Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them."

--Rose Kennedy,
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