This document provides an overview of key considerations for marketing Windows Phone applications. It discusses using Zune software for deployment and debugging, submitting apps to the Marketplace, developing for a real phone, monetizing apps through paid versions, ads, and the revenue share model. It also covers localizing apps, managing app packages and manifests, testing beta versions, and privately distributing apps. The presentation aims to help developers successfully market their Windows Phone applications.

1. Marketing Your Windows Phone Applications Jason Lee Ethos Technologies

3. You as a Developer

4. Silverlight on Windows Phone 7

5. Development Tools

6. XAML

7. Play Time

8. DataBinding

9. MVVM

11. Zune is a tool to synch media content of your PC and your phone

12. + Visual Studio

14. The Marketplace is the ONLY way for a user to get applications onto a Windows Phone

15. Applications can be downloaded directly from the phone

16. Users can also purchase applications from Zune, and deploy them on to the phone later

17. For developers

19. A real device is not mandatory for Windows Phone development

20. However, it is highly recommended to test your app on a real phone before submitting it

21. Unlock

22. In order to deploy your app to a phone, it needs to be unlocked

23. Registered developers can unlock devices( 3 devices for now), and deploy/test their own applications

24. Hook your unlocked phone to your PC, deploy using Visual Studio or Application Deployment tool provided by SDK

26. “Try Before Buy”

27. For those paid applications, in order to attract as many users (which leading to as many buyers), it’s a good practice to provide trial phase (also known as the “try before buy” approach) in them.

28. The Windows Phone Framework provides you API to do it

29. Price it appropriately

30. So far, prices among 0.99$ ~ 1.99$ are best accepted.

31. Advertisement is another good plus

32. Even if your app is free, you still can make money by embedding AD in your application

34. The Marketplace supports distribution of beta version.

35. Beta version will expire after a short time (90 days for now)

36. No need to unlock phones to test while enabling developers to build higher quality apps

37. Beta version can NOT be updated

38. Steps

39. Developer selects a list of testers (up to 100 for now)

40. Developer sends an email with a private DeepLink to the testers

42. A way to distribute certified apps privately to a targeted set of users

43. Can be updated

44. No limit on the number of participants and duration

45. Steps

46. Developer need to get the app certified before distribution (app is not discoverable on Marketplace Search)

47. Developer sends an email with a private DeepLink to users

49. Money is transferred directly to your bank account, deducting taxes (tax rate may differ among different locations)

50. Payments are made monthly

51. 99$ per Year From You

53. Contains all elements of an applications

54. Applications are deployed in the form of *.xap onto your phone

55. It’s is actually a zip file

56. Size

57. A XAP file should not be larger than 20M

58. Limit for all files is 400M

59. Still many more on App Hub

61. The Marketplace is accessible from many countries

62. It’s a good idea to support multiple languages in your app

63. Localization Considerations

64. It’s a common practice to manage your localization resources in dedicated DLLs.

65. Leave enough area for display elements in case translations in some languages are longer.

66. You can use localization features provided by .NET Framework

67. Do NOT depend on any machine translations or online translators, have your app fully tested by experienced target language users.

69. Defines assembly parts that included in your app

70. Do NOT change it manually

71. WMAppManifest.xml

72. Defines phone services used in your app

73. Marketplace will use this information to notify end users of what this app is going to do (i.e. Location Services, Camera, Contacts, Push Notifications)