Featured Mobster: TV Listings for Android

June 15, 2010 | Posted By : Laura In : Android, Featured Mobster

TV Listings for Android is an app that provides listings for all of the major channels, over 12,000 in total. In short it lets users see whats on TV right now, and it also lets them filter any movies or sports events that are running. It’s an app people keep on their phones and use frequently…they have a user retention (defined as a user having downloaded the app and used it in the last seven days) of about 35% and approx. 50% of users start the app more than once a day!

The Stats:

Total Downloads: 300,000

Monthly Unique Users (May 2010): 100,000

We interviewed creator Tomas Mazowski, check out what he has to say…

1) What inspired you to build the app?

We felt that the smart phone app business was going to get BIG when we first saw the iPhone. We wanted to build something and be part of it… but what should we build? There were a lot of iFart / Flashlight type apps out there and we saw a need for an app that would make people’s everyday lives easier and save them a lot of time. Since we both watch a lot of TV, a TV guide application seemed like the perfect candidate! Many late night coding sessions later we had the first version of our app ready… and the rest is history, as they say

2) Why does the ad revenue model make sense for you?

The ad revenue model fits us perfectly since TV listings is something you come back to time and again and spend a lot of time browsing. We have a very high user retention rate and long sessions on avg during which we can serve quite a few ad impressions. It also means we need to show many different ads from different networks to prevent users from getting bored and keep CTRs up – but that’s where Mobclix comes in.

3) Why did you choose Mobclix?

We tried different mediators but eventually chose Mobclix because they were (1) free, (2) have a very good Android SDK and (3) have truly excellent support (I can’t stress this last point enough). Also, since we don’t want to spend every waking hour looking at real time ad revenue stats, we really appreciate the automatic optimization feature that switches your inventory to whichever network that runs the best campaigns at the moment.

4) What tips do you have for other developers?

Once you decide to go down the ad supported road, our best piece of advice is to think “free” and “dynamic” from the start. When we first launched, we included only one ad network and had to release updates whenever we wanted to try a different ad partner. We ended up having money on a bunch of different sites and had a hard time compiling reports and getting an overview of how we were doing. With a mediator like Mobclix you get everything in one place: reports, payouts and the option to switch ad networks without posting any updates.