App Developer Conversations: Predictions for 2013

In this week’s App Developer Conversations we shared our predictions about 2013, specifically as they apply to app developers. We had several, so this episode is a bit longer than most, but we think it’s worth it. We’d love to hear your predictions in the comments!

We had a few key predictions:

• On Discovery: 2013 will be the year that search in the app stores becomes more sophisticated, Apple uses Chomp, Google plays to their strengths etc. This means that app publishers will be waking up to the fact that organic really matters.
• On Monetization: In 2013, publishers will be more sophisticated about monetization choices (in-app purchase vs ads etc) on a per user basis, based upon predictive analytics etc
• On Customer Communication: 2013 will be the year of retention – what can I do to improve retention by 5% etc?

In addition, we discussed predictions around the impact of tablets and a few “wild ass” predictions, like:

• Hoping to see more integration in the living room, with tablets and tvs combining and perhaps Apple’s TV initiative coming out in late winter / early spring
• A consolidation in the hardware space by tablet vendors
• Tablets getting into the enterprise more deeply
• Consumers just buying tablets as their home computer
• Do we need a cell phone anymore?
• One big game studio is going to go out of business
• The next generation hardware consoles (from Microsoft and Sony) will come out and be underwhelming

Also, be sure to see the other two segments from this week:

• PlacePlay talked in detail about if Fiksu’s found a new path to incentivized install success
• MobileDevHQ talked about how Microsoft Windows RT is impacting app developers and the discovery problem in the Windows App Store