SoDunked! is 1 year old! -- Should we do more development?

As we get ready to ring in the new year, here is another in our series of entries reflecting on the one-year anniversary of SoDunked! appearing in the app store.

So far, in these blog entries, we have talked about success and failure and whether we should keep going with this venture. We dwelled briefly on the past and now we want to look ahead. That seems appropriate given the New Year.

You might ask then, "will you make other apps or make updates to this one?" Well, we would like to do both. We have lots of ideas. But, before we develop a new app or spend any money (er, find money to spend?), we have added new tasks to our due diligence list and new questions to ask about each potential app.

For due diligence, we would evaluate developer costs and research the appropriate cost for professional marketing. As a result, we might skip developing an app that would drain money for development and leave nothing for promotion. We would also choose an app that solves a pressing problem, thus meeting an existing demand.

We would love to enhance this app, but until we meet our thresholds for additional development expenditures, we will hold steady. That's what's best for us. Everyone has to make that decision based on their own situation.

Note: we did just release "SoDunked! Free" for those who don't need the social networking part, specifically, kids 4-9 years old! We will keep you posted on that.


Help us ring in the new year by dunking someone or something with SoDunked! tonight. Maybe that pesky party house next door that had a pre-New Year's eve party until 4am this morning....

We wish everyone a very happy new year and send you all thanks for supporting SoDunked!. We couldn't do this without you.

SoDunked! is 1 year old! -- Is it still worth doing this?

Here is another in our series of entries reflecting on the one-year anniversary of SoDunked! appearing in the app store.

So, you probably want to ask--at least I know I ask myself and Lyle often, "is it still worth doing this and at what point do we give up?" We ask each other especially at the time when our big annual fees come due or when it's time to pay taxes. (It's amazing how much those things add up--overhead, state registration, developer's license, and so forth.)

Everyone should have a different answer to this question. Some people set themselves a date by which they have to reach a set of goals. Some people say they'll stop when they run out of money. And others will say "when I stop enjoying this." It is a combination of these three for us plus "when I run out of ideas for that 'one last thing to try' that's really going to make the difference."

For some reading on real exit strategies for business owners (every entrepreneur should have an exit strategy, preferably one that involves profit, but at least one that protects you and gives you a step-by-step plan to "escape" when it's time), read this Entrepreneur magazine article by Stever Robbins.

In the meantime, as we plod along with our work here, be sure to use SoDunked! to dunk a slow cashier (instead of yelling at them) or skip the last-minute shopping altogether and gift our app instead! (What a great idea--no lines, no fuss, no post office visits!)

What are you annoyed today? Dunk it with SoDunked!

Portion of pby Osvaldo Gago

Today, I can't decide whether I am more annoyed at traffic or lines at the checkout. Who or what should I dunk with Sodunked! so that I can vent and be in a better mood during this festive time of year.

Portion of photo by Marlith

I just wanted to run to the store this evening and pick up overnight diapers, but after 30 minutes of sitting in traffic to get somewhere that is 5 minutes away by car and then waiting in a long checkout line behind people with carts full of stuff they wish they'd had more time to think through (the lady in front of me is taking things out and hanging them off of the candy display as she narrates her decisions for all of us behind her), I am at least mildly miffed. I am mouthing the words "Just open another line, people!" but not saying them aloud. I know I ought to find somewhere I can walk to instead or, better yet, figure out an alternative to overnight diapers; but, barring those options, I am stuck with traffic and lines for a few more days.

Maybe SoDunked! can help keep me from taking out my annoyance on Lyle when I get home (poor guy doesn't want to hear as I am sure he has had the same things on his errand nights this week).

What are you annoyed about? Take a picture and dunk it today with SoDunked!

SoDunked! is 1 year old! -- Success and failure

Our first app, SoDunked!, appeared in the app store exactly one year ago today. It seems like a good time to reflect on the year past as well as look forward to the year ahead. Lyle and I put our heads together and wrote quite a bit on this, so we will publish our reflections in installments over the next few weeks.

Since last December, we have attracted over 3,600 Facebook fans--from 19 countries and all continents except Antarctica, nearly 13,000 Twitter followers, over 4,000 "Journey to an App" pageviews from 10 countries, and, well, less sales than we thought we would have by now. By different measures we are both a success and a failure. We have had success at selling to people in dozens of countries, at using social media, at building a following, at getting the message out to a lot of people. We have failed to get it out to enough people and at getting enough of those people to buy. I also think we have failed to use our circle of experts to help us with decision-making and strategy as much as we could have this year.

According to scholars of entrepreneurship, failure is important--critical in fact--so I am thinking that failing at some of our goals is one of our successes. Okay, bear with me here. If we had sold as many apps as we had hoped by now, we might have relaxed a bit too soon, burned out quickly, or learned only that we were lucky. (Okay, we'd have earned more money at this, but I digress.) By not reaching those sales goals, we have to pay attention, experiment, try new things, find workarounds, and continue to brainstorm instead of saying "well, we got it right, no changes needed." We know what we would do differently next time and we apply what we have learned as we try the next approach to our current (SoDunked!) venture.

For an interesting article about entrepreneurial  failure (and success), read this article by Michael Hennigan at FinFacts in Ireland. Or, read this blog post from Brad Feld at Feldthoughts.

We hope all of your app developers find success at this. And, please, please, please, send SoDunked! as a gift to some 4-9 year old kids' parents today!

Guess what? -- We made a free version! (SoDunked! Free)

Well, the news is out. And, so is SoDunked! Free.

We have been toying with this idea for a while. It's a big step toward our goal to focus more on that 4-9 year old demographic and their parents. Kids don't need to (and parents don't want them to be able to) use Facebook and Twitter or their parents' email to notify people that they have been dunked.

Thus, SoDunked! Free was born. Now, anyone can download the app in order to dunk her big sister or an annoying yappy doggy toy--over and over--and no aunts or bosses will get random emails to say so (at least not via the app!).

Go forth and dunk, my young friends. Go get SoDunked! Free and tell us who you're dunking.



We'll write more on our decision to "free" soon. First, over the next few weeks, we want to celebrate and reflect on the release of the original app almost a year ago. Thanks for your support.

Quiz -- Who spends the most time using free game apps?

I am catching up on some reading and found an interesting article. Who spends the most time using free game apps?

1. Teenagers  
2. Adults, male and female, ages 45-54 
3. Male adults, ages 25-34
4. Female adults, ages 25-34

To find the answer, read this article by Dan Rowinski on ReadWriteWeb.

What does this mean for app developers?
It's a quick piece, but my take away from it is that app developers need to know who's spending money on what and try to aim for that demographic when you come up with your next big idea. For those of us that have apps already and need to market them, we need to use the data to help us focus better and target the right audience. Whether you are a techno-focused developer or a mom and pop entrepreneur, know your market.

So, if you are a child or parent of a child, age 4-9, reading this blog post, tell your friends about SoDunked! If you are not, please tell a child or parent of a child, age 4-9, about SoDunked!

Friday tips for iPhone users -- Angry Birds and Bookworm, the last installment for now

It appears I have answered all of the questions people have asked me over the last few months, so here are a very last few tips I can offer until more questions are asked of me.

Even the most constant players of SoDunked! need to use other entertainment apps now and then. These are two I enjoy and so do thousands of others. If you don't believe me, try them yourself. (Oh, and if you are a gamer or under age 25, you probably don't need to read on, just go dunk me and your grandma with Sodunked!)

Angry Birds (yes, Lyle, someone asked me about this)

I can't write a primer on it, but I can tell you three good tips.

1.       The birds can do different things. Yellow birds are "saw" birds and if you touch them after launch at just the right moment, they will speed up and hit the target with more force to "saw" through it. Black birds are explosive and you can touch them to control when they explode if you choose. White birds lay explosive eggs, but you have to touch the bird in flight over the desired target. I don't have that down, alas. The blue birds multiply when you touch them after launch, so if you get the timing right, those teeny birds are actually very useful. The red birds...I don't remember what they do. Really, I should have my kids write this as they taught me everything I know. (I'll find out and update this soon). 

2.       Now that you know what each bird can do, be more strategic about which bird you use first or last and where to aim given the bird options you are given with each turn. 

3.       Set your timer for the amount of time you think you need to play Angry Birds and choose a really jarring alarm sound so that it stuns you out of the addicted stupor you will find yourself in (no matter what you tell yourself about self-control and being an adult). Now, go dunk one of the birds (or a pig) with SoDunked!

Bookworm - not about books or worms at all

This too can be addictive. If you do not know this game, it is sort of a cross between Tetrus and Scrabble. It can be addictive for the wordies among us, so heed the third tip from the Angry Birds bit above and use your timer if you don't want to be playing for hours instead of sleeping. I have four tips for this game.

1.       Get rid of the flaming tiles asap even if it means not making that amazing word that isn't using the flaming tiles. It'll pay off in the end. 

2.       Make words with the J, Z, and Q when you have the chance or they'll trap you at the end when they turn to flame and are surrounded by only consonants. 

3.       Keep an eye out for that bonus word (care of my mom-in-law and cousin)

4.       Make it more challenging by restricting yourself to minimum 4- or 5-letter words only. It can get boring after a while if you don't do that although it remains addictive. 

If you are a competitive wordie, you may need Words with Friends or Scrabble. For those, I cannot help. Competitive Scrabble allows words that you cannot play at home on a real board so I just don't like it. Also, Lyle is so good at it that I can't compete. I think I'll dunk him.

And, don't forget to dunk someone today and spread the word about Sodunked!

Reading list for aspiring app makers

Courtesy of LifeHacker
and the Pulse app

In addition to sharing our experience through our blog entries, here are some sites and articles that Lyle and I have found informative over the last couple of years. It is not an exhaustive list, but these are places to which we turn for information. We hope you find these helpful.

Mobile App News, Analysis and Reviews

Read-Write-Web Mobile

Gizmodo.com/iphone-apps (http://lifehacker.com/ also theirs, for tips & tricks)

VisionMobile Blog

AdMob Mobile Metrics (now out of date, but it was so great...)

Keep Up on Gadget Technology, Social Networking, Apple

http://arstechnica.com/apple

http://www.wired.com/

http://techcrunch.com/

http://gigaom.com/

      http://mashable.com/

http://9to5mac.com/

http://www.cultofmac.com/

For Developers and Designers (including aspiring ones)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

http://developer.apple.com/ (in case you haven’t looked there yet)

http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/

Stack Overflow

http://forum.148apps.com/ (148apps.com is useful for facts and stats, too)

DIY App Development

Inc. article “Can You Make Your Own App?” by John Brandon, July/August 2011

Popular Science article “How to Make an iPhone App” by Dave Prochnow, February 26, 2009

A Couple of Random Interesting Items:

A visualization of the “journey from development to monetization” from VisionMobile that was posted on an entry in readwriteweb in 2010: http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2010/11/the-mobile-developer-journey-from-app-design-to-monetization-infographic.php

Measuring app success from readwriteweb again in 2011: http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/01/2011-mobile-trends.php#more 

  
TIP: While I just browse these resources sporadically these days, Lyle uses a news aggregator app to keep up to date on topics and resources of interest to us. An aggregator can show you dozens of front pages from various web sites and group them by topic. See this Lifehacker.com article by Alan Henry for some popular aggregators: http://lifehacker.com/5845798/five-best-news-aggregators 

If you have any good resources to share, please mention them in the comments or send us an email at sodunked@sodunked.com. And, don’t forget to tell someone about SoDunked! and please go dunk someone today! Thanks.

Friday tips for iPhone users -- Organizing your apps and photos

Well, here's another topic about which Lyle said "please, please don't write about this. Everyone knows this already," but I argue that some of us didn't just figure it out and could use a little tip about it. In fact, someone asked me about organizing apps just last week (so, there). If this is old hat, please send me your tips for new iPhone users and go dunk me with SoDunked! If this could help you, read on.

Organizing the apps on your iPhone (I call it "jiggle" mode)

This one is pretty simple, but it took my kids to show me before I would have happened upon it. Put two fingers on the iPhone or iPod Touch screen at the same time for a moment or two--your icons will start to jiggle and a teeny "x" will appear on each icon. While the app icons are in "jiggle" mode, you can use your finger to drag one toward another and a folder will be created for you. You can label the folder "favorites" or "kid games" or whatever you want and drag in all the apps that are related so you can find them together and take up less screen space. To take something out of the folder, you drag the desired file out of the folder. You can also move the icons around the screen without putting them into folders. If you accidentally delete one, you can get it back when you reconnect to your iTunes account. To stop "jiggle" mode, just press the button (you know--the round button in the bottom front and center of your device).

Keeping your photos in separate albums

For this, I upload to my computer whatever photos and video are on my phone (using any software) since the last time I synched my iPhone with iTunes. I opt to "delete photos from device after uploading to computer" so that my phone doesn't fill up too much (I run out of space from keeping too many videos of silly kid or friend antics). Then, in a folder on my computer wherever the photos are stored, I create a folder called "favorites" or "keepers" (or both) and put a copy of each of my favorite 50 or 60 or 300 photos in that folder. I update that folder every time I take photos off of my phone or off of my standalone camera and onto my computer. Now, when you plug into your computer to synch itunes with your iPhone or iPod, choose to synch photos and browse to select the desired folder from your photos on the computer. It will create an "album" on your phone with the same name as the folder on your computer. It takes some time up front to review the pictures whenever I upload and then copy them to the "favorites" folder, but it is better than me not ever deleting any (of 4000) photos in order to save a few that I love and, as a result, filling up my device so that I can't add anything new. If this baffles you, go ask a teenager or visit a Genius at the Apple store. They can help you do it.

Don't forget to make a folder of favorite people to dunk and keep it updated, too (you could called it "my dunkees") and then dunk someone with SoDunked! today.

Friday tips for iPhone users -- GPS is for kids (and other passengers)

I am still a fan of paper maps for navigating in the car (are you, too?). I have used our standalone GPS device, but the GPS lady is always recalculating and I never can get a good mental map of where we are. So, when I discovered the standard GPS app on my iPhone, I wasn’t so sure I would use it. Then, our five-year-old figured out that if you push the little arrow in the bottom left corner, the GPS app locates you as a blue dot on the map, and you can watch your dot move along the streets as you move, even if you are just walking. Along with the compass, this has become a great entertainer for the kids…and me.

OK, maybe it's helpful

It turns out that I like the iPhone GPS app for a few other reasons as well. You can quickly zoom in and out to get a better picture of where you are going, you can search for a gas station or restaurant (we haven’t bought the updates for our standalone GPS so having this ability on our iPhones is quite handy), and—this is the best part—the iPhone GPS app can show you real-time traffic data. We have used this on long drives and found it to be quite accurate. 

Things I don't like about the iPhone GPS app

The things I don’t like about the iPhone GPS app are 1) If you want to change route or see how far you have gone, you need to re-start your route (choose to edit directions and click “route” anew), 2) Unlike a standalone GPS, you need to keep touching the screen to see it unless you change your default auto-lock settings (and, if you use a password and your phone has auto-locked already, you will need to enter a password just to glance at your map) so it is dangerous for the driver to use unless the car is stopped--but maybe Siri will change that in the new 4S phone, and 3) it drains my battery like no other app on my device (I always make double-sure to bring a car charger if I plan to use the iPhone GPS app). 

After your passenger checks the traffic on your iPhone GPS app, you may want to glance over (safely) to see who they might be dunking. It could be you! At the next rest stop, be sure to use SoDunked! to dunk them back.

Friday Tips for iPhone Users – Wi-Fi and YouTube

Do you keep receiving emails from friends and family that take you to YouTube and Vimeo videos of babies trying to use a magazine as an iPad or of cats making scrambled eggs? They may make you giggle, but little do your friends and family know that they may be asking you to spend big chunks of your data plan. Here are a few tips to decrease your cost without decreasing your giggles.

Use Wi-Fi at home and wherever you can

Avoid using your data plan for web-surfing and video-streaming if you have Wi-Fi available at home or work or at a café or hotel or someone else’s house. It’s a no-brainer. You can adjust your settings to look for Wi-Fi first before using your service plan. If you don’t know how to adjust your settings to use Wi-Fi instead of your data plan, you can read this from eHow or view this video from HelpNuggets. For secured Wi-Fi networks, be sure to get the password (at your home it is the same password you use for your computer to use Wi-Fi; at work you can get it from your network administrator; at a café or hotel, ask the staff). If those don't help you, find a teenager to help or visit the Genius Bar at an Apple store.

YouTube eats data plan and battery charge

Dataplan: If you are being charged for going over your data plan limits, video-streaming could be the culprit. Try to restrict your YouTube or other live video-stream viewing to times when you have Wi-Fi access (see Wi-Fi entry above).  If Wi-Fi isn’t always available, find out whether you can download the desired video to iTunes and watch it from your device instead of video-streaming it live. That’ll save you money in the long run.

Battery: Since video-streaming via YouTube or other services drains your battery faster than internet surfing or phone and text chatting, it’s great to have one of those ‘fast-charger’ devices around. But, if you don’t have one, a regular old charger will do. And, don't forget to keep an eye on the little battery icon that shows what's left of your battery life so it doesn’t run down before you get to the end of your favorite Gilligan’s Island episode. (Read about some chargers here or here or here.)

After you view this silly kid video or this silly kid video or this silly cat video over and over and over, you can take a screenshot of the quickly draining battery icon and then dunk it using SoDunked! because you'll always have enough battery left for SoDunked!

Sometimes, you want to dunk Mother Nature

I know it is all part of the cycle of the seasons, the periodic movement of the earth, and the pull and push between the human and natural worlds, but sometimes, I just want to ask why. Why do tectonic plates shift under us and building and people fall down? Why do the rains have to be timed to race across the land at the same time as high tide--a much higher tide than usual? Today, I am thinking of Thailand and Southeast Asia, but there have been so many stories in the last few months (and forever), I could find a long list of reasons to dunk someone. Since I cannot do a thing to stop all of this and I can't really blame any one government official, engineer, or weather expert, maybe I can dunk Mother Nature.

If you want to dunk Mother Nature or anyone else, get SoDunked! and dunk someone today. It's good, clean fun.

Friday tips for iPhone users – Don’t be afraid of contact lists

If you don’t feel comfortable having your entire list of friends and family in a database that can be shared via email, calendars, Facebook, etc., I can relate. (I have been known to avoid online banking.) If you just got an iPhone, but still keep a written list of phone numbers and have to hand-type them to make a call or if you do the same with email (hand-typing them all in each time), then this is aimed at you. Picture your happy place, relax, and read on.

Contact lists are sacred and, yes, you should be cautious. Read up on best practices and security tips. But, when you feel ready, it really will be okay to take the leap. And, leap big—add the email and phone number and street addresses.

Here are the benefits:

• Saves time—when you want to tell 30 people that you just passed the big exam, you can just select their names and the email addresses will come up.

• Saves returned mail—how many times have you hand-keyed an address and gotten a letter wrong?

• Helps with memory-loss—how many times have you gone to dial a number you think you know by heart and you go blank? In fact, how many phone numbers do you know by heart anymore? My parents’ and siblings’ numbers have changed so often in the last 10 years that I don’t know most of them by heart (sad but true).

• If you fill it in one time, you never have to fill it in again. You can back it up so that if your phone falls into the Severn River, you still have your phone numbers.

• When you want to send a package and you are at the post office at 10 minutes to closing but forgot the address, you have it right there. You know you forget to bring the little black address book, but you probably won’t forget your phone, right? (well, I am hoping….)

• Lyle won’t think you are crazy (me: Hon, what are your top 3 reasons to use a contact list? Lyle: Huh? Why wouldn’t you use one? Are you serious? Don’t blog about this, please.)

If you need help figuring out how to use the contact list, there are plenty of "how-to" links, such as this one at eHow: http://www.ehow.com/how_2075772_add-contacts-iphone.html

There are still a few questions yet to be answered over the next few weeks. Stay tuned to read about GPS, YouTube, and WiFi, coming soon.

And, don’t forget to get SoDunked! and tell two friends. Thanks!

Don’t drive while playing SoDunked!

Is it just me or are more people walking around looking at their smartphones than ever? I see them driving around looking at their phones, too. (Isn’t that illegal in most places? Maybe someone ought to send them a text to let them know.)

This morning, I was on my way to work and some guy practically ran my car down (repeatedly) as he made his way down the road with an iPhone in one hand. He stopped at each light and looked down for a while and then glanced up to realize everyone had pulled many car lengths ahead of him. Then his car would sprint forward while he was still half looking at his phone. He even changed lanes that way! In between long stretches of him looking down, he would hold his iPhone up to the window for a minute as if to take a picture.

My conclusion is that he was playing SoDunked! Wouldn’t you conclude the same? Well, or maybe he was using Shazam or reading a QR code I couldn’t see. I think SoDunked! is more likely, but please, I implore even our most devoted fans, don't use SoDunked! while driving. You should even be a little careful when walking and looking at your phone.

When you get to work or while you’re safe at home and far from your stovetop, play SoDunked! and dunk someone safely. And then, tell a friend to dunk someone (safely), too. Thanks.

Friday tips for new iPhone users - Camera and video

Circled at bottom left is icon
to email your photo or video
or do other things as well.

For this week’s Friday Tips, I will share my experience with the camera and video recorder. These features generated a surprising number of conversations at parks and birthday parties over the last few months. This is just the basics, especially aimed at the overwhelmed and formerly technology-timid.

Yes, It Is a Camera, Too.

Whether you have a hand-me-down first generation iPhone or an iPhone 4, there is a camera. I use mine for what I think it's best for—to keep in touch with family and friends that I can’t see often. I can snap a photo of an amazing snowscape or my son making a goal at soccer and—from within the photo app—I can email it to my sister, mother-in-law, or friend. When Lyle is traveling for business, he can send me a picture of some sight where he’s staying and I can send him visual updates of the kids’ day or a type of ice cream I think he might like at the grocery store. 

To take a photo using the iPhone 4: 
Touch the "camera" icon, aim and touch the "button" that has the little camera silhouette on it. Now you have a picture!

To email a photo immediately using an iPhone 4:
Touch the little square at the bottom left that shows the last photo you took, touch the symbol at the lower left (touch your screen once if you don't see that icon and it will appear), choose “email photo”, start writing, press send as you would any email, and select the size of your photo--Lyle likes me to send the "large" but my cousin needs the small or it will not load onto her flip phone. Now, the photo is on its way. If you want to do your emailing later, you can get back to your photo by finding the "camera" icon and looking for "camera roll" or the "photos" icon on your 'desktop' and following the same steps as before. 

To send more than one photo at a time using an iPhone 4:
View your camera roll via the "camera" icon (or touch the "photos" icon) and touch the--let's call it the "I-want-to-do-something-with-my-photo icon--now in the top right corner, select up to 5 photos for emailing, touch “share”, and then choose "email" to send them.

Each generation of phone has a better camera with more features than the last. The iPhone 4 allows you to take a picture from either side of the phone, has a flash, and even has a zoom. However, I still think the best pictures from my 4 are taken in bright light when my hand is steady. From what I have read, the iPhone 4S camera promises to be great—it was created by Sony (which makes our most used non-phone digital camera), will have better resolution (can make a true 8x10 print from an iPhone photo), and will take less blurry pictures even in lower light or with not-perfectly-steady hands.

What about Videos?

The later iPhone models have a great video camera (I think the 3g was the first one to have it). The iPhone video camera may not yet compare to an actual stand-alone (and comparatively clunky) video camera, but it is much quicker to grab and use. 

To take a video using an iPhone 4:
When you are inside your photo app and aiming at something to take a photo, look at the lower right and see the option to slide the button to the right toward the little “video” icon. Do that and you’ll be in video mode. 

Keep track of storage space and battery usage:
If you are near a place to recharge and you have plenty of room left for file storage, you can go crazy and video record anything for as long as you want. You can tell how much space you have for video when your iPhone is plugged into iTunes (look at the colorful "capacity" bar at the bottom of the screen when you view your device). You can record a good amount of video without needing to recharge, but if you are going to need the phone or email before you get home, I would try not to let it go below one half of the battery charge. 

To email a video using an iPhone 4:
You can even email your videos just like the photos if they aren’t too big—when you try to email one, the phone will tell you if it is too big and offer the option to edit it down (roughly lop off a section). Just follow the same instructions as above. Everything is about the same as for a photo, except the phone won't allow you to email more than one video at a time.

Are There Other Photo and Video Apps?

There are several thousand photo and video apps available for iPhone and for the later iPod Touch with camera. These apps can do everything from adding sepia tone or a lacy border to your picture to stitching together photos into a panorama or a triptych to improving the quality of your image. There are also quite a few games and entertainment apps that use the camera to do fun things like distort faces or put a face on a generic body and try to hit a target to get them into the dunking tank! 

If you have a favorite photo or video app, please share. There are so many that I fear we will miss a few great ones, but we often use Pro HDR, Diptic, Panoramic 360, and iMovie. 

And be sure to check out our app, SoDunked! at iTunes while you’re there!

ifixit's 4S "Teardown" - This is just cool

On ifixit, you can see what's different between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s--on the inside. It's just cool:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4S-Teardown/6610/1

(ifixit suggests that viewers keep going back to the link in case they add more information.) 

I wanted to post this little bit on our blog today. I hope you enjoy.

And, stay tuned for more Friday Tips tomorrow.

Thanks for playing SoDunked! and, please, tell a friend!

Friday tips for new iPhone users - Ear dialing, auto-correct, and more

There have been so many new iPhones purchased by friends and colleagues recently that people are asking even me how things work (don't laugh, Lyle). And, of course, thousands of people are soon to be proud new owners of the iPhone 4 ½ …I mean 4S. This all got me thinking that I ought to write down a few beginner tips and tricks for new iPhone/iPod Touch users, especially those who have never owned a smartphone before. I am not denying the self-interest (we are selling an an app for goodness sake), but I feel a special connection to all of the "I still had my 2004 flip phone until I picked up this iPhone this morning" people. That was me not so long ago.

I will write a little bit each week for the next few weeks, hopefully answering all of the questions people have asked.

So, here goes my first installment of Friday Tips for New iPhone Users:

Big fingers, little letters

Type patiently, you get used to it, train the spell check to know the names and vocabulary you use most frequently and it will help you with all of the little typos that big fingers make.

Auto-correction—own it or it’ll own you

When your fingers type “trysa” when you meant “trays” and you don’t notice that the phone changed it to “tryst,” that’s when the smartphone has outsmarted you. Keep an eye on the screen as you type and when the little “suggestion” word(s) appear with an “x” just press the x to NOT change what you typed. Often the suggestion will be the right word that you simply haven’t finished typing—that’s when it is actually a good thing. You just press the space key and the full word appears, saving you a few characters of typing. Over a year of use, my phone knows that I often hit the w key instead of the space key and it autocorrects that. It knows my children’s names and the acronyms I use most for work even though they look like nonsense words. I still get an embarrassing slipup now and then (not as bad as these), but it has improved over time. I do think you can turn it off under “settings” if you need to.

Ear Dialing

Beware of using your ear to hold the phone on your shoulder—it may press “hold” or hang up for you. It’s another reason to use a headset or earbug or Bluetooth.

A Word about iTunes

Almost everyone I know thinks that iTunes is frustratingly limiting and feels a little trapped by having to use it. That said, there are some things I like—you can play your music or videos right there wherever you are in addition to on your iPhone/iPod, you can group your music into playlists, and, if you select the settings initially, you can let iTunes figure out what podcasts and videos you have already heard and whether to keep them on your phone or not. Another perk for me is that I can use an older iPod with different settings than my iPhone, yet use the same library of content so that the iPod gets all the stuff the kids might want to use and the iPhone gets only my stuff—even if I downloaded games and videos for them while on my iPhone. The best thing to do if this is all alien to you is a) spend some time exploring and experimenting with it to get comfortable, b) find a teenager to show you what to do.

      The Genius Bar

The Genius Bar is your own, free, personal helpdesk at any Apple retail store. Use it. They are great. You have to go see them in person, but it can be well worth it. They have brought tears of joy to both my Dad and Lyle's eyes with their ability to resolve bad iPhone dilemmas (i.e., I dropped my phone into my wet kayak...).

Get SoDunked!

Use SoDunked! to dunk your boss or just your teenager who spilled hot chocolate on the front seat of your car. It's fun!

Tune in here next week for the next installment which will include “Yes, it is a camera, too.”

Thanks to all who tried the app this week (and all weeks). Please keep telling your friends about SoDunked!

What's happening

It has been a busy summer and early fall here in the SoDunked! household. During the summer there were two months of no school and we had lots of visitors. We continued to work hard at our day jobs and, as fall began, the kids finally started school and things are now settling down. In the midst of all that, I admit it was very hard for me to focus on the app and further the goals we have as far as marketing and advertising, evaluating next steps or enhancements, considering a free version, or anything else.

Lyle did manage to do a lot of tweeting and posting to Facebook all summer long. His efforts still yield the most sales on a regular basis. I wish we could say it was in the thousands per week, but at least we have sales.

I (Ione here) have been making flyers and business cards to spread around town, especially on college campuses and at pediatrician’s offices. I also have been “thinking” about making a big magnetic sign for our car door to advertise the app wherever we go. I’ll let you know if I manage to make that happen and whether it was worth it. The flyers and business cards may have produced some sales, but we didn’t see any noticeable uptick during the weeks when I distributed them. I think it takes a real persistence—posting at least weekly and knocking on doors at local businesses in multiple towns—to make this pay off. Next time I put in some substantial time on it, I will report in here about how it all goes.

We have been corresponding with our developer all summer about some things we need to do, but it seems that even a good and reliable developer gets too busy to service less active clients as promptly as when we were at the height of our development process. That’s the breaks of using freelancers. They have to make a living too and they, as well as we, are slave to the ebb and flow of their workloads.

We also have been doing the mundane tasks that all businesses have to do—renewing licenses and domains, paying annual fees, upgrading internet and email services, figuring out how to pay corporate  taxes, and many other details.

It doesn’t sound very sexy, but it’s the stuff businesses are made of—the mundane, the distractions, the brainstorming, and the hard work.

We also keep on dunking each other and anyone who deserves it. You should, too. Dunk a new friend with SoDunked! today!

Wouldn't You Like to Dunk Voldemort?

Some people will go about their business as usual today. For die-hard Harry Potter fans, today is the opening of the last "experience" of the series--the opening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2. I fall into the latter category--I actually bought a couch in summer of 2000 so I would have a comfortable place to read the fourth book when it came out. I suspect I was not alone in my devotion.

As the movie series began, many book fans looked forward to each film release with almost the same level of anticipation and new fans who hadn't read the books joined in. The movies kept us all going even after the last book was read and over. That is why this last movie feels like the last hurrah to me.


How are you all feeling? I for one am indulging my inner kid and getting ready to dunk Snape (well, Alan Rickman anyway). I might also want to dunk Bellatrix Lestrange, but I think she scares me more than any of the other bad guys. I'll let Molly Weasley handle her.

[spoiler alert- don't read this paragraph if you don't want to know what happens in the last 2 books] Do you think Snape really was loyal to Voldemort throughout the story? Did you cry when someone in the story died? My colleague at work says a woman behind her at the last film was sobbing when Dobby died. That could've been me, but it was Dumbledore that hit me the hardest. Arg, I'll definitely be dunking Snape.

If you too are sad to be at the end of the series, don't forget you can still read all the other amazing books out there OR you can use SoDunked! to get in on the action and exact your revenge on any character you choose. Why not? Maybe if we dunk Augustus Rookwood enough times, Fred Weasley will come back.

Who would you dunk? Well, dunk someone today and please spread the word.

Lyle on a Real Dunk Tank!

We heard that it is summer in some places around the U.S. Where we live, it has been hard to tell lately. We were considering who or what we could dunk to show our annoyance at the rain and cold pushing far into June when we heard there would be a dunk tank at a local event.What luck! Lyle and I said to each other "this might be just what we need." So, we went.

Two good things came from this event. 1) we met a lot of other local businesses in our area because this was an event sponsored by a "Local First" organization for the local businesses to network with each other and the community and 2) Lyle was a good sport and sat on the dunk tank!

Lyle on the dunk tank looking

casual, but gripping tightly

I asked him what the experience was like:
Me: "Lyle, how did it feel to be up there, perched over the water on a chilly June day?"
Lyle: "Cold! Ya know, it still feels like April."
Me: "Why was your foot over to the side edge of the tank?"
Lyle: "I was holding on for dear life wherever I could."

I was not brave enough to get up there, so I tried not to make fun of him too much. I also couldn't hit the target even once in 10 tries. Darn! (And, oh did he make fun of me!)

At least with SoDunked! your spouse can get dunked without getting wet and you can hit the target a little bit more easily (and you might hear a "Hallelujah" if you're lucky). Try it and spread the word.

Good Day Sunshine

SoDunked! sales were up about twenty percent above average this past week. Woohoo! We do not know whether this is a fluke or a trend. What could have caused it?

• Were people more annoyed during this period? (meaning they wanted to dunk someone)
• Were more parents flying with kids? (it's great for a long plane ride)
• Did we do a better job of marketing?
• Did someone tell all their friends?!

Well, we cannot say for sure (although we hope it is the latter two reasons), but we hope it continues!

Thanks to all who tried the app this week (and all weeks). Please keep telling your friends about SoDunked!

Advertising 102...

Our Google Ad

We just completed our Google ad campaign. Of the three campaigns we ran, this one was the most interesting to me. Facebook and MySpace gave us some options for customization since they track the demographics of their users, but Google gave us the ability to select keywords. This means that we could type in the keywords for the typical search that we think people who might want our app would use. Then, Google would place our ad where those people would see it.

One of many nice features of the Google AdWords tools and resources, is that Google rates your keywords, tells you how likely they are to produce results, and recommends additional keywords. Also, in their list of suggested keywords, they estimate how many people use this search term. When you see that one term is estimated to be used 1,000 times per month and another is 135,000 times, you really want to select the 135,000 times term! In our case, we couldn't use it because it was a search for free iTouch apps.

Google's suggested keywords

Google also allows you to select sites where you want to see your ad. Instead of selecting a specific demographic such as "professional women in Slovakia and India between the ages of 50-60" (just for example...) as you would in Facebook or MySpace, you can type in "parenting.com" and "ivillage.com/kids" or choose from a list of sites that they have suggested because of your keywords (by the way, pages within babygaga.com came up a lot in their list for us) so that Google will place your ads on these pages.

Some of these "big name" placements come at a premium, but that seems normal to me. Lyle and I have been trying to understand the pricing and logic behind these new online venues—not that they are difficult or opaque, just new and different.  So, it was a welcome "normal" for us. This was the first time we could see the parallels between the online and print advertising experiences—it was like placing an ad on the front page of a newspaper section rather than toward the back or advertising in the big paid newspaper and not in the free small local paper.

After our five-day campaign at Google, we got about 150 clicks and nearly 80,000 impressions. Did that translate into sales? Maybe. I saw a "few" more sales than we had had during the prior weeks. There was a pattern and, as I said, I believe the sales went up a smidgen, but I can't say it was solely because of the advertising. And, as I wrote last time, it costs us at least $1 for every click and we get only $.70 for every sale, so unless we made more than 150 sales from this campaign, we could not break even.

But what about the multiplier effect? If we did get a single $.70 sale after spending at least $1, can we expect that this one single sale will lead to other sales? It certainly worked in Facebook and Twitter as Lyle built our following. How would you go about measuring this for sales? We are looking forward to the next lesson in our crash course on advertising.

(By the way, did you know that SoDunked! is the app that makes kids—and the rest of us—giggle?!)

More Web Advertising 101(ish)

This is one of our ads.

In the olden days (that's supposed to make most of us laugh), people used to pay a flat fee to put an ad in a print—not online—newspaper or magazine or on a billboard or other physical location...or on the radio or television. I won't pretend to be an expert about the terms of ad placement in all of these realms, but I recall that a printed newspaper asked for a flat fee for a set amount of space and time, say $500 for an eighth of a page ad in a certain section of the newspaper for one week. On television, the numbers are much bigger, but I think it works much the same way. Maybe someone “in the know” can fill in the facts here with more certainty (send us a comment).

Nowadays, to buy space and time on a web site, you pay per click or impression. A click is when someone actually clicks on your ad to go to whatever your ad links to (for example your website or the iTunes store). This does not mean someone will buy your product. An impression is when your ad appears on a web site that someone is viewing. That's all it is. Every time you see an ad on a web page—whether you click it or not—the advertiser counts this as an impression. An impression does not mean someone will buy your product.

We just finished a whirlwind ad campaign on Facebook. I say “whirlwind” because $50 gave us about five days worth of advertising. Here’s what we got for it: Over 200,000 impressions and 43 clicks. The average cost per click was $1.16. The cost per click depends on your bid and some other factors such as where the ad appeared when it was clicked on—was it showing on good real estate with lots of eyeballs or in a mediocre spot with less visibility. Did I just say “eyeballs”? It’s an advertising thing. I am getting the lingo down, man.

Summary of clicks during our Facebook campaign

For the first few days of our campaign, we had zero impressions or clicks because our bid was way too low. We upped the bid—actually tripled it to match the minimum suggested bid—and it made a big difference.

Does any of this mean we get sales? My unscientific opinion is no. We have not noticed our sales going up at all during this campaign. I imagine we need more clicks, more visibility, longer campaigns, better ads. But, when the app nets us approximately $0.70 for every purchase, how can paying $1 or more per click be worth it even if we do make sales? One click costs us more than we get for selling one copy of the app. If 500 clicks produced one sale, we'd have spent more than $500 to get about $0.70 in sales! So, for our business, this path to creating sales is very limited--at least on the face of it.

Well, just because we have one more free campaign to try, we will begin a Google campaign and see what that brings. Tune in again soon to hear how it goes. And please send out a "please try the SoDunked! app" note to someone today.

Web Advertising 101(ish)

So you want to sell a product online. What is the formula for getting your product out there enough for people to buy it? Where do you begin....should you place ads? How many impressions equals a click? How many clicks equal a sale? What is an impression again? Is this really an effective way to sell a product?

I have a lot of questions and, where we have so little to spend, I have a lot of hesitation in spending money on traditional advertising. Unfortunately, the wisdom of the marketing world all points to "get the word out there" and traditional advertising is one--not the only one--of the paths to doing this. Just like placing an ad in a newspaper the way people used to do, you can buy space on a web page to place an ad for your product online.

Luckily, our internet service provider (the company through which we host our SoDunked! web site) offers a few promotional deals as a perk of doing business with them and the deals include $50 of advertising at Facebook and a few other similar offers to advertise on MySpace and Google. This seems great, but then you start reading the sign-up form and see the recommended amount to pay per click (approximately $1.30-1.80) and you find out that $50 does not go very far. And, a click does not necessarily equal a sale.

In the next post, we will fill you in on our adventures with clicks and impressions and what we think it all means. And, don't forget to spread the word and play with the SoDunked! app.