Amazon Appstore Developer Summit
Topics covered at #AmazonAppSummitThe Amazon Appstore Developer Summit is designed to provide you with unique insights into the Appstore eco-system, emerging user interfaces that are driving new user behaviours, and disruptive new business models that are opening up opportunities for customers and the developer community.
Join to see talks and workshops by developer guest speakers, from disruptive start-ups to established consumer brands, who are at the forefront of innovation in their market segments.
At the event, Amazon's technical representatives will also be on hand to provide support, answer your questions, and help you troubleshoot any issues. We’ll have extra devices on-hand for you to experience or for testing including the Amazon Echo.
Join us for the Amazon AppStore Developer Summit!
The Amazon Appstore Summit will provide you with a great opportunity to network with other leading brands, app developers and the wider Amazon Appstore team. The event aims to be fun, interactive and insightful with lots of great take-aways!
Here are some of the key items on the agenda:
- Get an overview of the Amazon Appstore eco-system, new device portfolio, and developer services
- Hear insights from top developers and innovative consumer brands
- Learn best practices for bringing your apps and games to the Living Room
- Get an introduction to using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences
- Learn about Amazon Underground: Where Apps Are Free and Developers Are Paid per Minute
- Understand Your Power-Users (and Foster More)
Registration
Register here
About the Amazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore allows developers to distribute and sell their Android and HTML5 web apps to millions of customers in 236 countries and territories. It is available on a multitude of devices, and is pre-loaded on Android phones on select carriers in the US and Europe. And now the Amazon Appstore has over 400,000 apps globally.
Amazon has tools and services that help you monetise your apps and keep users engaged. It’s easy to get started. You can test your app in under a minute and we’ve seen that most Android apps just work on Amazon devices, with no additional development required. Developers can get started in minutes from our developer portal.
Excited? Share it!
Thanks to our sponsors
Day 1: Amazon Appstore Developer Summit
Day 1
| Track | Monetization and Engagement (Alt/Tab) | Gaming (Cmd) | ||||||
| 09:00 |
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| 10:00 |
We will start the day off with an overview of Amazon's current developer ecosystem. Learn how you can take advantage of Amazon’s Mobile App SDK, Amazon's Appstore and the new line of consumer Fire devices like Alexa, Echo, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick and Fire tablets, as well as monetization services such as in-app purchasing. Room: CTRL
monetization
amazon-echo
alexa
amazon-fire
About the speaker...
Iain GavinAs Director for Amazon appstore in the UK, Iain Gavin helps developers to distribute and sell their Android apps to millions of customers in nearly 200 countries around the world. Amazon appstore is available on Android Tablets/Phones (e.g. Samsung, HTC, LG), Blackberry 10, Amazon Kindle Fire, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Phone and Amazon Echo https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/ Iain has been a member of the management team since he joined Amazon in 2009. He setup and ran Amazon Web Services UK Ltd as Managing director for 6 years. He joined Amazon appstore as Director/GM in January 2015. Iain earned his honor’s degree in Computer Science. He lives in Hampshire and enjoys spending his free time with his wife and two children. He is an Advanced Motorcycle Emergency Rider Volunteer for SERV Wessex, who run out of hours inter-hospital transport service for blood, platelets, and other blood products for use in transfusions. He also enjoys music, film and following London Irish rugby club. |
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| 10:40 |
In this session, we cover what's needed to bring your Android app or game to Fire TV. We walk you through controller support for a game scenario (buttons and analog sticks), controller support for UI (selection, moving between menu items, invoking the keyboard), and how to account for the form factor (overscan, landscape, device and controller detection). By the end of this session, you’ll be able to understand what you need to do if you want to build or modify your own app to work on a TV. Room: CTRL
game-design
amazon-fire
About the speaker...
Jesse FreemanJesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts. |
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| 11:10 |
How can a cinema chain deliver a big screen experience in a tiny London flat? Curzon, an 80-year old British independent cinema chain and content distribution group with its roots in London, will share their approach. Looking to engage customers outside its theatre locations, they launched Curzon Home Cinema, a virtual venue that offers quality independent cinema in the comfort of the home - all brought to customers where possible simultaneously as their cinema release. Hear from Curzon and the app’s developer, Easel TV, how they built a high quality video experience for customers on Fire TV, the steps to build the app, and the device features they leveraged to create a memorable cinema experience in the lounge. Easel TV will share tips for building your first TV experience, and Curzon will shed light on the marketing strategies they found useful to promote their new experience to customers. Room: CTRL
amazon-fire
About the speakers...
Bill ScottBill Scott is one of the founders of Easel TV – the multi-screen video software company – with a vision to enable broadcasters, content owners and brands to build high quality televisual experiences using low-cost web components, fast; helping to shape the future of television. Easel TV’s clients include Virgin Media, All3Media, Channel 4, Curzon Cinemas and TiVo. Prior to starting Easel TV, Bill created and led the IBM Digital Media Consulting & Systems Integration practice, which delivered a variety of interactive TV, IPTV and Digital Media projects over 9 years. Bill has 25 years’ experience of managing IT projects to deliver business value, working at end-user organisations delivering internal applications, for software houses delivering commercial products and for professional services firms delivering client projects. 
Philip MordecaiPhilip Mordecai is Director of CURZON HOME CINEMA, the preeminent independently owned on demand platform pioneering day and date film releasing. He has been the principal driving force behind the service's exceptional growth across UK and Ireland. Since joining CURZON in 2013 Mordecai has steered the business to its industry leading position to which it’s proud to hold. Mordecai brings more than 15 years of content experience to the CURZON team and prior to joining the group, worked at several leading global organisations such as Sky, MGM and SES. |
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| 11:40 |
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| 12:00 |
Come learn firsthand how to build for Amazon Echo and Amazon Voice Service enabled devices using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services. This session will walk through using Amazon Echo and how to build your first Alexa Skill using both AWS Lamda and AWS Beanstalk. We'll also take a look at how to monitor your new Alexa Skill using AWS CloudWatch and how to submit it for certification so it's available to customers later this year.
amazon-echo
aws
amazon-web-services
alexa
About the speaker...
Paul CutsingerPaul Cutsinger is focused on mobile app developers and, with Amazon, is an advocate for people that turn ideas into great businesses. Previously, he ran engineering for Disney's Club Penguin. At Microsoft, he shipped HTML5 canvas in IE9 and the Windows user experience back when there was still a start menu. He can be found on twitter @PaulCutsinger or at www.PaulCutsinger.com |
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| 12:40 |
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to… Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site offering a comprehensive and free flight search service as well as online comparisons for hotels and car hire. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Skyscanner has been in the travel business for over 10 years and has over 40 million unique visitors per month. Skyscanner is debuting their first voice experience, built for Amazon Echo, at the developer summit. Be the first to see a demo of Skyscanner’s voice activated travel experience and hear first-hand what it took to build it Room: CTRL
skyscanner
amazon-echo
alexa
About the speaker...
David LowDavid Low created and now leads the Developer Advocacy program at Skyscanner, the world’s travel search engine. In his role, David looks after external developer relations, working to grow the evangelist developer community around Skyscanner and the Skyscanner API. David began with Skyscanner nearly three years ago managing the company’s mobile products, including implementing a Best Practice standard. Prior to his Skyscanner life, David managed digital production at RBS and led product development at STV. David has worked on high-scale web sites and mobile apps for more than 15 years and has a particular passion for making digital products work 'anywhere’. |
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| 13:10 |
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| 14:00 |
The average developer only monetizes 2-3% of their customers. What if you could monetize 100% of them? In this session you’ll learn about: 1) Amazon Underground where customers get premium apps and in-app items for free and developers get paid for all of the minutes used, and 2) Merch by Amazon a self-service on-demand T-Shirt printing service that costs you nothing out of pocket. Room: CMD
merch
amazon-underground
monetization
About the speaker...
Paul CutsingerPaul Cutsinger is focused on mobile app developers and, with Amazon, is an advocate for people that turn ideas into great businesses. Previously, he ran engineering for Disney's Club Penguin. At Microsoft, he shipped HTML5 canvas in IE9 and the Windows user experience back when there was still a start menu. He can be found on twitter @PaulCutsinger or at www.PaulCutsinger.com |
Gone are the days where you can make a game and publish it to a single platform expecting a sure fire success. The best way to solve this problem is something I call “responsive game design” based on the same principles that work so well in responsive design for web apps. This framework includes the following key principles: Game graphics and UI support multiple resolutions Game mechanics work across multiple types of input Publish to multiple platforms with the same codebase Saved data is synced across all platforms During this talk we’ll cover how to apply this strategy to your own games enabling them to scale across desktop, mobile, tablet and even TV. Room: ALT/TAB
responsive-design
game-design
About the speaker...
Jesse FreemanJesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts. |
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| 14:40 |
A relatively small group—tiny, really—of dedicated customers often generates an unexpectedly large percentage of total revenue for a mobile app or game. Who are the members of this group, and how can you better engage them? More importantly, how do you encourage others to join the ranks of these "power-users”? As an app publisher, Amazon has a unique perspective on power-users in aggregate. Here we offer tips and best practices for cultivating new and existing power-users, keeping them engaged, and maximizing their revenue potential. Room: CMD
monetization
About the speaker...
Peter HeinrichPeter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon, specializing in mobile game development and web services. A frequent contributor to Amazon's developer blog, he also speaks regularly at technical conferences about best practices for creating games on mobile platforms. Peter addresses all aspects of game production, from design, architecture, and coding to marketing, analytics, and monetization. Before Amazon, Peter was a full-time game developer for fifteen years, working on desktop and console titles before moving to online and mobile games. He co-founded indie game studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game makers. |
Game developers have lots of options when it comes to picking platforms and frameworks to build their games with. If you are looking to build true cross platform games there are two great options, HTML5 and Unity, but choosing which one to start with can be difficult. In this talk we will discuss the pros and cons of each platform by looking at the same game built in Phaser (http://phaser.io) and Unity. We'll also discuss publishing options for both platforms and how to create truly cross platform games from a single codebase. Room: ALT/TAB
html5
unity
About the speaker...
Jesse FreemanJesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts. |
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| 15:15 |
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| 15:30 |
Amazon is famously metrics-driven and obsessed with customer satisfaction. In its role as a mobile app publisher, it is perfectly positioned to analyze and interpret millions of mobile downloads and in-app purchases, leading to some surprising and intriguing insights into mobile app engagement and monetization. Here Amazon presents the results of a cohort analysis designed to identify best practices common among the top 50 revenue-generating apps and games in its Amazon Appstore for Android. Room: CMD
amazon-appstore
About the speaker...
Mike HinesMike Hines is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. Mike comes to Amazon after four startups in Financial Services and Software (two of which are still operating) and 13 years at Microsoft. At Amazon, Mike helped launch the Kindle eInk app development project, has written mobile app test criteria, judged at hackathons, and is a blogger for Amazon Appstore. Mike has spoken at dozens of national and international conferences, including AnDevCon, SXSW, CES and GDC. Moving forward, Mike wants to bring developer feedback back to Amazon and is on a continuing mission to find out what is and isn’t currently working in mobile app monetization. |
In this talk we'll cover the five main tips you'll want to know when porting a Unity game over to Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Fire phone. Through code examples we'll demo how to support multiple resolutions for pixel perfect Orthographic and Perspective Cameras, abstracting player input to support keyboard, controller and touch, as well as optimization tips for C# to get the best performance possible. We'll also show off how to deploy to our devices and incorporate Amazon's own services into your Unity game to help integrate with Fire OS. To help you get started we'll also be sharing all the code examples from the talk. You'll walk away ready to publishing your Unity game to the Amazon Appstore and expand your game's potential user base. Room: ALT/TAB
unity-games
amazon-fire
unity
About the speaker...
Jesse FreemanJesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts. |
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| 16:15 |
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| 16:25 |
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups” - a lean marketing methodology for disruptive digital start-ups. Ed will run through his framework for building a successful product development & marketing driven approach using real-world examples and lessons from Laundrapp.
lean
leanmarketing
laundrapp
About the speaker...
Edward RelfEdward Relf is an award winning entrepreneur who is rapidly evolving to become one of the UKs leading digital leaders and growth marketers. Ed is passionate about forging disruptive digital start-ups that have the power to change the world as well as the UK’s growing prominence as one of the worlds leading entrepreneurship hubs. Having won numerous professional awards being recognised for his outstanding achievements across the digital landscape, Ed was previously CCO / CMO at Mind Candy, the company behind the colossal children’s brand Moshi Monsters and now co-founder & CEO at Laundrapp, the start-up turning the entire laundry & dry-cleaning industry on it’s head! |
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| 16:55 |
How far would you go to make your app successful? Everyone has a strategy, and as an app publisher, Amazon has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hear the tactics that will get you banned or blacklisted, along with best practices for actually achieving the results you want: more downloads, good reviews, and high monetization. Room: CTRL
monetization
amazon-appstore
About the speaker...
Peter HeinrichPeter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon, specializing in mobile game development and web services. A frequent contributor to Amazon's developer blog, he also speaks regularly at technical conferences about best practices for creating games on mobile platforms. Peter addresses all aspects of game production, from design, architecture, and coding to marketing, analytics, and monetization. Before Amazon, Peter was a full-time game developer for fifteen years, working on desktop and console titles before moving to online and mobile games. He co-founded indie game studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game makers. |
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| 17:40 |
Iain and Mike - closing remarks
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| 17:45 |
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CodeNode
In August 2015, Skills Matter opened the doors to CodeNode, our new 23,000 sqft Tech Events and Community venue. CodeNode provides fantastic meetup, conference, training and collaboration spaces with unrivalled technology capabilities for our tech, digital and developer communities - a long held dream coming true !
With fantastic transport links and located in the heart of London's Tech City, we could not think of a better location for our 60,000 strong engineering community!
With seven event rooms, including a 300 seater lecture room, thousands more community members will be able to visit CodeNode to learn and share skills, code and collaborate on projects.
CodeNode features a 5,000 sqft break-out space, complete with fully-licensed bar, plenty of power sockets, meeting and collaboration spaces and entertainment areas.
CodeNode will also see the opening of a permanent Hack Space, stacked with microprocessors and the latest tools and devices to play with. A community film studio will be opening too, which you can use to record any tutorials or demo's you may want to share with our community.
If you're interested in hiring CodeNode for your upcoming event, check out more details here.
CodeNode
Skills Matter | CodeNode, 10 South Place, London, EC2M 7EB, GB
View details, travel and nearby hotels
To discuss sponsorship opportunities please contact the team:
- Phone: +44 (0) 207 183 9040
- Email: sponsors@skillsmatter.com
Thanks to our sponsors
-
An Overview of the Amazon Devices and Services for Mobile Developers
Featuring Iain Gavin
We will start the day off with an overview of Amazon's current developer ecosystem. Learn how you can take advantage of Amazon’s Mobile App SDK, Amazon's Appstore and the new line of consumer Fire devices like Alexa, Echo, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick and Fire tablets, as well as...
monetization amazon-echo alexa amazon-fire -
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to…
Featuring David Low
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to… Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site offering a comprehensive and free flight search service as well as online comparisons for hotels and car hire. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Skyscanner has been in the travel business for over 10...
skyscanner amazon-echo alexa -
2
Building Curzon Home Cinema for Fire TV
Featuring Bill Scott and Philip Mordecai
How can a cinema chain deliver a big screen experience in a tiny London flat? Curzon, an 80-year old British independent cinema chain and content distribution group with its roots in London, will share their approach. Looking to engage customers outside its theatre locations, they launched Curzon...
amazon-fire -
Bringing Apps and Games to the Living Room
Featuring Jesse Freeman
In this session, we cover what's needed to bring your Android app or game to Fire TV. We walk you through controller support for a game scenario (buttons and analog sticks), controller support for UI (selection, moving between menu items, invoking the keyboard), and how to account for the...
game-design amazon-fire -
An introduction to using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services to Build Voice Driven Experiences
Featuring Paul Cutsinger
Come learn firsthand how to build for Amazon Echo and Amazon Voice Service enabled devices using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services. This session will walk through using Amazon Echo and how to build your first Alexa Skill using both AWS Lamda and AWS Beanstalk. We'll also take a...
amazon-echo aws amazon-web-services alexa -
Two New Ways to Monetize – Underground and Merch
Featuring Paul Cutsinger
The average developer only monetizes 2-3% of their customers. What if you could monetize 100% of them? In this session you’ll learn about: 1) Amazon Underground where customers get premium apps and in-app items for free and developers get paid for all of the minutes used, and 2) Merch by Amazon a...
merch amazon-underground monetization -
Responsive Game Design
Featuring Jesse Freeman
Gone are the days where you can make a game and publish it to a single platform expecting a sure fire success. The best way to solve this problem is something I call “responsive game design” based on the same principles that work so well in responsive design for web apps. This framework includes...
responsive-design game-design -
Understanding Your Power-Users (and Fostering More)
Featuring Peter Heinrich
A relatively small group—tiny, really—of dedicated customers often generates an unexpectedly large percentage of total revenue for a mobile app or game. Who are the members of this group, and how can you better engage them? More importantly, how do you encourage others to join the ranks of these...
monetization -
Picking the Right Tool for the Job: HTML5 vs Unity
Featuring Jesse Freeman
Game developers have lots of options when it comes to picking platforms and frameworks to build their games with. If you are looking to build true cross platform games there are two great options, HTML5 and Unity, but choosing which one to start with can be difficult. In this talk we will discuss...
html5 unity -
Top 5 Tips for Porting Unity Games to Fire Devices
Featuring Jesse Freeman
In this talk we'll cover the five main tips you'll want to know when porting a Unity game over to Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Fire phone. Through code examples we'll demo how to support multiple resolutions for pixel perfect Orthographic and Perspective Cameras, abstracting player input...
unity-games amazon-fire unity -
5 Best Practices of Top-Earning Mobile Apps
Featuring Mike Hines
Amazon is famously metrics-driven and obsessed with customer satisfaction. In its role as a mobile app publisher, it is perfectly positioned to analyze and interpret millions of mobile downloads and in-app purchases, leading to some surprising and intriguing insights into mobile app engagement...
amazon-appstore -
Improving Appstore Rank: Best Practices (& Tactics to Avoid)
Featuring Peter Heinrich
How far would you go to make your app successful? Everyone has a strategy, and as an app publisher, Amazon has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hear the tactics that will get you banned or blacklisted, along with best practices for actually achieving the results you want: more downloads,...
monetization amazon-appstore -
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups
Featuring Edward Relf
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups” - a lean marketing methodology for disruptive digital start-ups. Ed will run through his framework for building a successful product development & marketing driven approach using real-world examples and lessons from Laundrapp.
lean leanmarketing laundrapp
-
Amazon Appstore Developer Summit 2016
One day in London
This Summit has been designed to provide you, the developer, with lesson learned, unique insights and tools plus, to showcase new opportunities and future methodologies into how you can best connect with customers. The programme’s based on hard facts and experience gained, not only by Amazon...
mobile-apps android game-development unity sdk html5 api aws mobile IoT amazon amazon-appstore
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Overview
The Amazon Appstore Developer Summit is designed to provide you with unique insights into the Appstore eco-system, emerging user interfaces that are driving new user behaviours, and disruptive new business models that are opening up opportunities for customers and the developer community.
Join to see talks and workshops by developer guest speakers, from disruptive start-ups to established consumer brands, who are at the forefront of innovation in their market segments.
At the event, Amazon's technical representatives will also be on hand to provide support, answer your questions, and help you troubleshoot any issues. We’ll have extra devices on-hand for you to experience or for testing including the Amazon Echo.
Join us for the Amazon AppStore Developer Summit!
The Amazon Appstore Summit will provide you with a great opportunity to network with other leading brands, app developers and the wider Amazon Appstore team. The event aims to be fun, interactive and insightful with lots of great take-aways!
Here are some of the key items on the agenda:
- Get an overview of the Amazon Appstore eco-system, new device portfolio, and developer services
- Hear insights from top developers and innovative consumer brands
- Learn best practices for bringing your apps and games to the Living Room
- Get an introduction to using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Alexa Skills Kit to Build Voice Driven Experiences
- Learn about Amazon Underground: Where Apps Are Free and Developers Are Paid per Minute
- Understand Your Power-Users (and Foster More)
Registration
Register here
About the Amazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore allows developers to distribute and sell their Android and HTML5 web apps to millions of customers in 236 countries and territories. It is available on a multitude of devices, and is pre-loaded on Android phones on select carriers in the US and Europe. And now the Amazon Appstore has over 400,000 apps globally.
Amazon has tools and services that help you monetise your apps and keep users engaged. It’s easy to get started. You can test your app in under a minute and we’ve seen that most Android apps just work on Amazon devices, with no additional development required. Developers can get started in minutes from our developer portal.
Excited? Share it!
Thanks to our sponsors
-
Programme
Day 1: Amazon Appstore Developer Summit
Day 1
Track Monetization and Engagement (Alt/Tab) Gaming (Cmd) 09:00 Check-in, breakfast and networking
10:00
An Overview of the Amazon Devices and Services for Mobile Developers
Iain Gavin
monetization amazon-echo alexa amazon-fireWe will start the day off with an overview of Amazon's current developer ecosystem. Learn how you can take advantage of Amazon’s Mobile App SDK, Amazon's Appstore and the new line of consumer Fire devices like Alexa, Echo, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick and Fire tablets, as well as monetization services such as in-app purchasing.
Room: CTRL
×monetization amazon-echo alexa amazon-fire
About the speaker...
Iain Gavin
As Director for Amazon appstore in the UK, Iain Gavin helps developers to distribute and sell their Android apps to millions of customers in nearly 200 countries around the world. Amazon appstore is available on Android Tablets/Phones (e.g. Samsung, HTC, LG), Blackberry 10, Amazon Kindle Fire, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Phone and Amazon Echo https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/
Iain has been a member of the management team since he joined Amazon in 2009. He setup and ran Amazon Web Services UK Ltd as Managing director for 6 years. He joined Amazon appstore as Director/GM in January 2015.
Iain earned his honor’s degree in Computer Science. He lives in Hampshire and enjoys spending his free time with his wife and two children. He is an Advanced Motorcycle Emergency Rider Volunteer for SERV Wessex, who run out of hours inter-hospital transport service for blood, platelets, and other blood products for use in transfusions. He also enjoys music, film and following London Irish rugby club.
10:40
Bringing Apps and Games to the Living Room
Jesse Freeman
game-design amazon-fireIn this session, we cover what's needed to bring your Android app or game to Fire TV. We walk you through controller support for a game scenario (buttons and analog sticks), controller support for UI (selection, moving between menu items, invoking the keyboard), and how to account for the form factor (overscan, landscape, device and controller detection). By the end of this session, you’ll be able to understand what you need to do if you want to build or modify your own app to work on a TV.
Room: CTRL
×game-design amazon-fire
About the speaker...
Jesse Freeman
Jesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts.
11:10 2
Building Curzon Home Cinema for Fire TV
Bill Scott and Philip Mordecai
amazon-fireHow can a cinema chain deliver a big screen experience in a tiny London flat? Curzon, an 80-year old British independent cinema chain and content distribution group with its roots in London, will share their approach. Looking to engage customers outside its theatre locations, they launched Curzon Home Cinema, a virtual venue that offers quality independent cinema in the comfort of the home - all brought to customers where possible simultaneously as their cinema release. Hear from Curzon and the app’s developer, Easel TV, how they built a high quality video experience for customers on Fire TV, the steps to build the app, and the device features they leveraged to create a memorable cinema experience in the lounge. Easel TV will share tips for building your first TV experience, and Curzon will shed light on the marketing strategies they found useful to promote their new experience to customers.
Room: CTRL
×amazon-fire
About the speakers...
Bill Scott
Bill Scott is one of the founders of Easel TV – the multi-screen video software company – with a vision to enable broadcasters, content owners and brands to build high quality televisual experiences using low-cost web components, fast; helping to shape the future of television. Easel TV’s clients include Virgin Media, All3Media, Channel 4, Curzon Cinemas and TiVo. Prior to starting Easel TV, Bill created and led the IBM Digital Media Consulting & Systems Integration practice, which delivered a variety of interactive TV, IPTV and Digital Media projects over 9 years. Bill has 25 years’ experience of managing IT projects to deliver business value, working at end-user organisations delivering internal applications, for software houses delivering commercial products and for professional services firms delivering client projects.
Philip Mordecai
Philip Mordecai is Director of CURZON HOME CINEMA, the preeminent independently owned on demand platform pioneering day and date film releasing. He has been the principal driving force behind the service's exceptional growth across UK and Ireland. Since joining CURZON in 2013 Mordecai has steered the business to its industry leading position to which it’s proud to hold. Mordecai brings more than 15 years of content experience to the CURZON team and prior to joining the group, worked at several leading global organisations such as Sky, MGM and SES.
11:40 Morning break
12:00
An introduction to using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services to Build Voice Driven Experiences
Paul Cutsinger
amazon-echo aws amazon-web-services alexaCome learn firsthand how to build for Amazon Echo and Amazon Voice Service enabled devices using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services. This session will walk through using Amazon Echo and how to build your first Alexa Skill using both AWS Lamda and AWS Beanstalk. We'll also take a look at how to monitor your new Alexa Skill using AWS CloudWatch and how to submit it for certification so it's available to customers later this year.
×amazon-echo aws amazon-web-services alexa
About the speaker...
Paul Cutsinger
Paul Cutsinger is focused on mobile app developers and, with Amazon, is an advocate for people that turn ideas into great businesses.
Previously, he ran engineering for Disney's Club Penguin. At Microsoft, he shipped HTML5 canvas in IE9 and the Windows user experience back when there was still a start menu. He can be found on twitter @PaulCutsinger or at www.PaulCutsinger.com
12:40
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to…
David Low
skyscanner amazon-echo alexaAlexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to… Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site offering a comprehensive and free flight search service as well as online comparisons for hotels and car hire. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Skyscanner has been in the travel business for over 10 years and has over 40 million unique visitors per month. Skyscanner is debuting their first voice experience, built for Amazon Echo, at the developer summit. Be the first to see a demo of Skyscanner’s voice activated travel experience and hear first-hand what it took to build it
Room: CTRL
×skyscanner amazon-echo alexa
About the speaker...
David Low
David Low created and now leads the Developer Advocacy program at Skyscanner, the world’s travel search engine.
In his role, David looks after external developer relations, working to grow the evangelist developer community around Skyscanner and the Skyscanner API. David began with Skyscanner nearly three years ago managing the company’s mobile products, including implementing a Best Practice standard. Prior to his Skyscanner life, David managed digital production at RBS and led product development at STV.
David has worked on high-scale web sites and mobile apps for more than 15 years and has a particular passion for making digital products work 'anywhere’.
13:10 Lunch
14:00
Two New Ways to Monetize – Underground and Merch
Paul Cutsinger
merch amazon-underground monetizationThe average developer only monetizes 2-3% of their customers. What if you could monetize 100% of them? In this session you’ll learn about: 1) Amazon Underground where customers get premium apps and in-app items for free and developers get paid for all of the minutes used, and 2) Merch by Amazon a self-service on-demand T-Shirt printing service that costs you nothing out of pocket.
Room: CMD
×merch amazon-underground monetization
About the speaker...
Paul Cutsinger
Paul Cutsinger is focused on mobile app developers and, with Amazon, is an advocate for people that turn ideas into great businesses.
Previously, he ran engineering for Disney's Club Penguin. At Microsoft, he shipped HTML5 canvas in IE9 and the Windows user experience back when there was still a start menu. He can be found on twitter @PaulCutsinger or at www.PaulCutsinger.com
Responsive Game Design
Jesse Freeman
responsive-design game-designGone are the days where you can make a game and publish it to a single platform expecting a sure fire success. The best way to solve this problem is something I call “responsive game design” based on the same principles that work so well in responsive design for web apps. This framework includes the following key principles: Game graphics and UI support multiple resolutions Game mechanics work across multiple types of input Publish to multiple platforms with the same codebase Saved data is synced across all platforms During this talk we’ll cover how to apply this strategy to your own games enabling them to scale across desktop, mobile, tablet and even TV.
Room: ALT/TAB
×responsive-design game-design
About the speaker...
Jesse Freeman
Jesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts.
14:40
Understanding Your Power-Users (and Fostering More)
Peter Heinrich
monetizationA relatively small group—tiny, really—of dedicated customers often generates an unexpectedly large percentage of total revenue for a mobile app or game. Who are the members of this group, and how can you better engage them? More importantly, how do you encourage others to join the ranks of these "power-users”? As an app publisher, Amazon has a unique perspective on power-users in aggregate. Here we offer tips and best practices for cultivating new and existing power-users, keeping them engaged, and maximizing their revenue potential.
Room: CMD
×monetization
About the speaker...
Peter Heinrich
Peter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon, specializing in mobile game development and web services. A frequent contributor to Amazon's developer blog, he also speaks regularly at technical conferences about best practices for creating games on mobile platforms. Peter addresses all aspects of game production, from design, architecture, and coding to marketing, analytics, and monetization.
Before Amazon, Peter was a full-time game developer for fifteen years, working on desktop and console titles before moving to online and mobile games. He co-founded indie game studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game makers.
Picking the Right Tool for the Job: HTML5 vs Unity
Jesse Freeman
html5 unityGame developers have lots of options when it comes to picking platforms and frameworks to build their games with. If you are looking to build true cross platform games there are two great options, HTML5 and Unity, but choosing which one to start with can be difficult. In this talk we will discuss the pros and cons of each platform by looking at the same game built in Phaser (http://phaser.io) and Unity. We'll also discuss publishing options for both platforms and how to create truly cross platform games from a single codebase.
Room: ALT/TAB
×html5 unity
About the speaker...
Jesse Freeman
Jesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts.
15:15 Break
15:30
5 Best Practices of Top-Earning Mobile Apps
Mike Hines
amazon-appstoreAmazon is famously metrics-driven and obsessed with customer satisfaction. In its role as a mobile app publisher, it is perfectly positioned to analyze and interpret millions of mobile downloads and in-app purchases, leading to some surprising and intriguing insights into mobile app engagement and monetization. Here Amazon presents the results of a cohort analysis designed to identify best practices common among the top 50 revenue-generating apps and games in its Amazon Appstore for Android.
Room: CMD
×amazon-appstore
About the speaker...
Mike Hines
Mike Hines is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. Mike comes to Amazon after four startups in Financial Services and Software (two of which are still operating) and 13 years at Microsoft. At Amazon, Mike helped launch the Kindle eInk app development project, has written mobile app test criteria, judged at hackathons, and is a blogger for Amazon Appstore. Mike has spoken at dozens of national and international conferences, including AnDevCon, SXSW, CES and GDC. Moving forward, Mike wants to bring developer feedback back to Amazon and is on a continuing mission to find out what is and isn’t currently working in mobile app monetization.
Top 5 Tips for Porting Unity Games to Fire Devices
Jesse Freeman
unity-games amazon-fire unityIn this talk we'll cover the five main tips you'll want to know when porting a Unity game over to Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Fire phone. Through code examples we'll demo how to support multiple resolutions for pixel perfect Orthographic and Perspective Cameras, abstracting player input to support keyboard, controller and touch, as well as optimization tips for C# to get the best performance possible. We'll also show off how to deploy to our devices and incorporate Amazon's own services into your Unity game to help integrate with Fire OS. To help you get started we'll also be sharing all the code examples from the talk. You'll walk away ready to publishing your Unity game to the Amazon Appstore and expand your game's potential user base.
Room: ALT/TAB
×unity-games amazon-fire unity
About the speaker...
Jesse Freeman
Jesse Freeman is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon focusing on HTML5 and gaming. Jesse has been on the cutting edge of interactive development with a focus on the Web and Mobile platforms. As an expert in his field, Jesse has worked for Microsoft, MLB, HBO, the New York Jets, VW, Tommy Hilfiger, Heavy and many more. In addition to development, Jesse has a background in art with a masters in interactive computer art from the School of Visual Arts.
16:15 Break
16:25
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups
Edward Relf
lean leanmarketing laundrappNo Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups” - a lean marketing methodology for disruptive digital start-ups. Ed will run through his framework for building a successful product development & marketing driven approach using real-world examples and lessons from Laundrapp.
×lean leanmarketing laundrapp
About the speaker...
Edward Relf
Edward Relf is an award winning entrepreneur who is rapidly evolving to become one of the UKs leading digital leaders and growth marketers. Ed is passionate about forging disruptive digital start-ups that have the power to change the world as well as the UK’s growing prominence as one of the worlds leading entrepreneurship hubs. Having won numerous professional awards being recognised for his outstanding achievements across the digital landscape, Ed was previously CCO / CMO at Mind Candy, the company behind the colossal children’s brand Moshi Monsters and now co-founder & CEO at Laundrapp, the start-up turning the entire laundry & dry-cleaning industry on it’s head!
16:55
Improving Appstore Rank: Best Practices (& Tactics to Avoid)
Peter Heinrich
monetization amazon-appstoreHow far would you go to make your app successful? Everyone has a strategy, and as an app publisher, Amazon has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hear the tactics that will get you banned or blacklisted, along with best practices for actually achieving the results you want: more downloads, good reviews, and high monetization.
Room: CTRL
×monetization amazon-appstore
About the speaker...
Peter Heinrich
Peter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon, specializing in mobile game development and web services. A frequent contributor to Amazon's developer blog, he also speaks regularly at technical conferences about best practices for creating games on mobile platforms. Peter addresses all aspects of game production, from design, architecture, and coding to marketing, analytics, and monetization.
Before Amazon, Peter was a full-time game developer for fifteen years, working on desktop and console titles before moving to online and mobile games. He co-founded indie game studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game makers.
17:40 2
Iain and Mike - closing remarks
Iain Gavin and Mike Hines
Iain and Mike - closing remarks
Iain Gavin and Mike Hines×
About the speakers...
Iain Gavin
As Director for Amazon appstore in the UK, Iain Gavin helps developers to distribute and sell their Android apps to millions of customers in nearly 200 countries around the world. Amazon appstore is available on Android Tablets/Phones (e.g. Samsung, HTC, LG), Blackberry 10, Amazon Kindle Fire, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Phone and Amazon Echo https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/
Iain has been a member of the management team since he joined Amazon in 2009. He setup and ran Amazon Web Services UK Ltd as Managing director for 6 years. He joined Amazon appstore as Director/GM in January 2015.
Iain earned his honor’s degree in Computer Science. He lives in Hampshire and enjoys spending his free time with his wife and two children. He is an Advanced Motorcycle Emergency Rider Volunteer for SERV Wessex, who run out of hours inter-hospital transport service for blood, platelets, and other blood products for use in transfusions. He also enjoys music, film and following London Irish rugby club.
Mike Hines
Mike Hines is a Developer Evangelist at Amazon in Seattle, Washington. Mike comes to Amazon after four startups in Financial Services and Software (two of which are still operating) and 13 years at Microsoft. At Amazon, Mike helped launch the Kindle eInk app development project, has written mobile app test criteria, judged at hackathons, and is a blogger for Amazon Appstore. Mike has spoken at dozens of national and international conferences, including AnDevCon, SXSW, CES and GDC. Moving forward, Mike wants to bring developer feedback back to Amazon and is on a continuing mission to find out what is and isn’t currently working in mobile app monetization.
17:45 Happy Hour
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Venue
CodeNode
In August 2015, Skills Matter opened the doors to CodeNode, our new 23,000 sqft Tech Events and Community venue. CodeNode provides fantastic meetup, conference, training and collaboration spaces with unrivalled technology capabilities for our tech, digital and developer communities - a long held dream coming true !
With fantastic transport links and located in the heart of London's Tech City, we could not think of a better location for our 60,000 strong engineering community!
With seven event rooms, including a 300 seater lecture room, thousands more community members will be able to visit CodeNode to learn and share skills, code and collaborate on projects.
CodeNode features a 5,000 sqft break-out space, complete with fully-licensed bar, plenty of power sockets, meeting and collaboration spaces and entertainment areas.
CodeNode will also see the opening of a permanent Hack Space, stacked with microprocessors and the latest tools and devices to play with. A community film studio will be opening too, which you can use to record any tutorials or demo's you may want to share with our community.
If you're interested in hiring CodeNode for your upcoming event, check out more details here.
CodeNode
Skills Matter | CodeNode, 10 South Place, London, EC2M 7EB, GB
View details, travel and nearby hotels -
Sponsors
Thanks to our sponsors
To discuss sponsorship opportunities please contact the team:
- Phone: +44 (0) 207 183 9040
- Email: sponsors@skillsmatter.com
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Skillscasts
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An Overview of the Amazon Devices and Services for Mobile Developers
Featuring Iain Gavin
We will start the day off with an overview of Amazon's current developer ecosystem. Learn how you can take advantage of Amazon’s Mobile App SDK, Amazon's Appstore and the new line of consumer Fire devices like Alexa, Echo, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick and Fire tablets, as well as...
monetization amazon-echo alexa amazon-fire -
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to…
Featuring David Low
Alexa, Ask Skyscanner about Flights from London to… Skyscanner is a leading global travel search site offering a comprehensive and free flight search service as well as online comparisons for hotels and car hire. Headquartered in Edinburgh, Skyscanner has been in the travel business for over 10...
skyscanner amazon-echo alexa -
2
Building Curzon Home Cinema for Fire TV
Featuring Bill Scott and Philip Mordecai
How can a cinema chain deliver a big screen experience in a tiny London flat? Curzon, an 80-year old British independent cinema chain and content distribution group with its roots in London, will share their approach. Looking to engage customers outside its theatre locations, they launched Curzon...
amazon-fire -
Bringing Apps and Games to the Living Room
Featuring Jesse Freeman
In this session, we cover what's needed to bring your Android app or game to Fire TV. We walk you through controller support for a game scenario (buttons and analog sticks), controller support for UI (selection, moving between menu items, invoking the keyboard), and how to account for the...
game-design amazon-fire -
An introduction to using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services to Build Voice Driven Experiences
Featuring Paul Cutsinger
Come learn firsthand how to build for Amazon Echo and Amazon Voice Service enabled devices using the Alexa Skills Kit and Amazon Web Services. This session will walk through using Amazon Echo and how to build your first Alexa Skill using both AWS Lamda and AWS Beanstalk. We'll also take a...
amazon-echo aws amazon-web-services alexa -
Two New Ways to Monetize – Underground and Merch
Featuring Paul Cutsinger
The average developer only monetizes 2-3% of their customers. What if you could monetize 100% of them? In this session you’ll learn about: 1) Amazon Underground where customers get premium apps and in-app items for free and developers get paid for all of the minutes used, and 2) Merch by Amazon a...
merch amazon-underground monetization -
Responsive Game Design
Featuring Jesse Freeman
Gone are the days where you can make a game and publish it to a single platform expecting a sure fire success. The best way to solve this problem is something I call “responsive game design” based on the same principles that work so well in responsive design for web apps. This framework includes...
responsive-design game-design -
Understanding Your Power-Users (and Fostering More)
Featuring Peter Heinrich
A relatively small group—tiny, really—of dedicated customers often generates an unexpectedly large percentage of total revenue for a mobile app or game. Who are the members of this group, and how can you better engage them? More importantly, how do you encourage others to join the ranks of these...
monetization -
Picking the Right Tool for the Job: HTML5 vs Unity
Featuring Jesse Freeman
Game developers have lots of options when it comes to picking platforms and frameworks to build their games with. If you are looking to build true cross platform games there are two great options, HTML5 and Unity, but choosing which one to start with can be difficult. In this talk we will discuss...
html5 unity -
Top 5 Tips for Porting Unity Games to Fire Devices
Featuring Jesse Freeman
In this talk we'll cover the five main tips you'll want to know when porting a Unity game over to Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Fire phone. Through code examples we'll demo how to support multiple resolutions for pixel perfect Orthographic and Perspective Cameras, abstracting player input...
unity-games amazon-fire unity -
5 Best Practices of Top-Earning Mobile Apps
Featuring Mike Hines
Amazon is famously metrics-driven and obsessed with customer satisfaction. In its role as a mobile app publisher, it is perfectly positioned to analyze and interpret millions of mobile downloads and in-app purchases, leading to some surprising and intriguing insights into mobile app engagement...
amazon-appstore -
Improving Appstore Rank: Best Practices (& Tactics to Avoid)
Featuring Peter Heinrich
How far would you go to make your app successful? Everyone has a strategy, and as an app publisher, Amazon has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hear the tactics that will get you banned or blacklisted, along with best practices for actually achieving the results you want: more downloads,...
monetization amazon-appstore -
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups
Featuring Edward Relf
No Metrics, No Marketing for Digital Start-ups” - a lean marketing methodology for disruptive digital start-ups. Ed will run through his framework for building a successful product development & marketing driven approach using real-world examples and lessons from Laundrapp.
lean leanmarketing laundrapp
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