Making Money With Android

Free Google+ Invites

By now you’ve probably heard of Google’s latest effort in the social space – Google+ (pronounced “Google Plus”). Based on the Google +1 concept, Google+ is more of a social network, integrated across all the Google sites. This includes Gmail, Google Search, Reader, and Buzz. You can read more about this ambitious project on the … Read more

Second Month on the Android Market

This post is a little late, but I’ll summarise the monthly stats here in order to present the full picture. My second month (9th May – 8th June) has been pretty straightforward, with Tap That! Number seeing regular growth in much the same pattern as the first month. I’ve now diversified a bit, releasing two new apps which has helped bump up the advertising revenue. Work and study commitments prevented me from spending a lot of time in actual development, but I did manage to push a major update to Tap That! Number – a new “memory mode” with hidden tiles. Read on for the full details from this month’s development, and a look at how the Flurry tracking service compares to Google Analytics.

Hacker News: The Aftermath

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to submit one of my articles to Hacker News. I didn’t really expect anything to come of it, due to my previous experience with sites like Digg and Reddit. Well, I was wrong. The article hit the front page of HN within minutes, and stayed there for over 10 hours. By the end of the day (Australian time), this website had handled over 7,000 visitors – which is about 6,500 more than a normal day.

Today, the same article has been featured on Reddit, Twitter and The Next Web, resulting in another 20,000 visits so far. All that exposure has resulting in some very interesting comments from Android and iOS developers alike. I’ve previously been writing for a fairly small audience, it’s a bit of a different experience to get critical review from all over the web. So what have I learned? Two things – that WordPress scales well with caching, and that there’s always someone with a different point of view.

Making Money with iAds – an iOS Developer’s Story

The developer of ProPassword (for iOS devices) has posted an interesting testimony on his blog. He released the app for free, relying on Apple’s advertising platform, iAd as the sole source of revenue. Over 15,000 downloads later, this developer decides that ad-supported free apps just aren’t a reliable revenue source.

Available in Android Market – Official Badges for your Site

Last night Google posted a tweet from @AndroidDev mentioning a new badge available for Android developers. If you’ve currently got an app on the Market, you can download the official badge titled “Available in Android Market” to place on your website. This is designed to help standardize the Android branding experience, and ensure your app marketing looks professional.

Development Update

This blog has been pretty quiet lately. I haven’t been able to post anything for a while due to work and study commitments. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to get back into things, and post about my second month on the Android Market.

In the meantime, here’s a quick update on what’s been happening in the past few weeks.

Hijack any Facebook account with Faceniff – Firesheep for Android

A hacker called Bartosz Ponurkiewicz has released a simple Android app called Faceniff (Facebook + Sniff), which allows you to hijack the Facebook profile of anyone on same wireless network as you. Think Firesheep, but running on something you can slip in your pocket and carry anywhere. Oh, and it’s “for educational use only” 😉 Understand?

The interesting thing about Faceniff is that it works with WPA2-PSK encrypted networks (as well as the lower grade WAP protocol). So it doesn’t matter how strong your wireless encryption is, it’s still susceptible to inside attacks. All you need is a rooted Android phone with Faceniff installed.

Android Asset Studio – Generate Icons for your Android App

I’d like to introduce you to a wonderful tool which I’ve been using recently for packaging all my Android apps. It’s called the Android Asset Studio, and contains a variety of tools you can use to generate icons for your Android app. If you’re looking for an easy way to generate professional looking launcher icons, or simply trying to resize your company logo to fit the Android notification tray, look no further. This handy little website is the perfect tool for all your Android icon needs.

How to add the Google Plus One (+1) Button to WordPress

Google Plus One Button Google has just announced the availability of the Plus One (+1) button for webmasters. Google +1 is similar to Facebook’s “Like” button. Clicking “+1” on a webpage will share the page publicly with your friends. But where can your friends see this? Unlike Facbook, Google doesn’t have a homepage where you can see all your friends’ activity. Instead, your +1’s will be shown to your friends – in the actual Google Search results. If you click +1 on a news article about Android, the next time your friend searches for “Android” there’s a good chance they’ll see this article, with a little icon beside it indicating you recommend the link.

Obviously, Google +1 is a powerful tool for website owners. By placing a simple button on your website where visitors will click, you can directly influence your search ranking! But how can you add the +1 button to WordPress? There are no plugins or widgets for +1 yet. Instead, I’ll show you how to add the Google +1 button directly to your WordPress site.