In this Developer Feature series, Spiffy talks to up-and-coming developers to learn what makes them tick. This is part 2 of our interview with 16-year-old Yan Zheng Hao, a first-year Game Design & Development student from ITE College Central (tertiary student) in Singapore.
What is your app about and how did you come up with your idea?
The first few apps published on the Windows Phone Store are admittedly quite gimmickly such as Metal Detector, & Nokia Lumia Ringtone as I’m still trying to get used to C# and Silverlight. Those 2 apps are perhaps my foundation to building better apps.
A few months later with much support from the Nokia Developers community when Nokia embraced the Windows Phone platform. That is when my third app is released, with the hope of bringing xin MSN video (Localized version of MSN for Singapore market) to Windows Phone. As MSN video at that point of time only supports Flash and Silverlight, and neither one of them could be watched on Windows Phone. I used techniques such as HTML parsing to retrieve the data off the website since I do not have access to the APIs.
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-sg/store/app/xin-videos/7c906b24-e928-47e0-a911-f682ed89f203
It was rather encouraging to see myself actually accomplishing it, something that I once thought it was impossible without the APIs. A Windows Phone exclusive app to watch xinmsn video, where Android and iOS couldn’t. — Something I can tell my friends, this thing is only on Windows Phone and do you have it on Android or iOS?
Then came BUILD 2012 that got me excited. I knew Windows 8 it is going to be a huge ecosystem, and I really want to get into the market as soon as possible in terms of apps.
That was when I started joining events hosted by Microsoft Singapore such as Hackathons, Talks, Workshops, & etc with much support from the team (Joyce Huang, Chun Siong, Yizhe Shen and many more) as the new WinRT APIs were really quite unfamiliar to me. Those events are rarely held by Apple and Google, Singapore is mostly neglected and I have never considered building apps for those platforms. The process & tools needed to building apps for the Windows platform is unmatched too!
One of the app that was released a 3 weeks after Windows 8 was launched was MegaTube, which is a third party YouTube client for Windows 8. It is again something that I got the idea when I need to download a YouTube video for offline use, and many websites out there have enormously long delay (advertisements) before you get your video or requiring you to install software that cannot be run on the Windows RT platform such as Surface RT.
I was rather reluctant to create a third party YouTube client at first, as this space was rather competitive with established players such asPrimeTube, YouTube+, MetroTube (Windows Phone), & YouTube Player. Starting out & focusing as a ‘downloader’ really gave me an entry to the market, gradually I improved the app to a full pledged YouTube experience.
I was glad that I have made the right choice as it was well a success, with the app currently sitting on the top 100 free apps under the US store and over 1.4 million downloads to date.
One key marketing strategy was AdDuplex that really propelled my app to the top since its release, with over 100 million impressions served and 200,000 users acquired all for free. Great deal, considering that there will be times where there is no ads available from Microsoft PubCenter. AdDuplex is a fall back to advertising.
It proved that there is a market for Windows 8 even for individual developer like me that is not too saturated yet.
What’s your process for designing the user journey?
In terms of designing the user’s journey, I always start with my needs. As a Windows Phone & Windows 8 user, it is relatively easy to identify what the users are looking for. I typically ship just 1-2 weeks right after I got the idea of what I want to do next and it is gradually improved over time. App reviews are a crucial part to that improvements, often I spend more than 10 minutes each day reading it and iron out issues or the things that they demand.
The other aspect of my process of designing the user’s journey is to be the user myself. I tend to constantly use the app that I make over and over again to look for flaws, and ways I can improve it even further.
What’s next for you?
I am always looking out for new opportunities, there are certainly emerging technologies and ecosystem that I’ll be willing to try out.
For instance, the Xbox One that I’m looking forward to. With Windows NT kernel on board and probably some pressure from Apple TV, PS4 that Microsoft may one day open the platform for indi developers like me. Or perhaps the smart watch, glass, etc.
At the moment, I’ll be writing more apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone as and when there is a gap that needs to be filled. Such as#2InstaWithMassiveLove that I am currently developing. (A fully featured Instagram app for Windows Phone, as Facebook is reluctant to make one)
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