January 2023 - ASO & Roadmap Progress

Gian Lazzarini -

This month there was a massive jump in user account creation. I went from 266 user accounts created to 485, almost doubling the user count! I attribute this to last month's change to the expedited getting started process vs the old registration upfront. Along with that, I made changes to the ASO (App Store Optimization) keywords, description & title. This was done from my learnings with an online App marketing course, which seems to be paying off nicely.

Mind you though, these ASO changes were only made on the Apple App Store, not the Google Play Market. So to be totally honest I'm still kinda scratching my head on how to interpret the growth metrics, but more on that below...

Growth & Metrics

For the apple growth metrics, I continue to see steady growth in the number of downloads.

For the Google Play Console, I'm still learning to discern the information available through the various statistics. For example with the "Installed Audience" statistic below, I had been interpreting as the number of installs per day. However, I've recently discovered other seemingly contradicting information on the dashboard of the Play Console.

Below on the Play Console Dashboard, I see the performance of the store listing, along with "New device acquisitions (Cumulative)". The "New device acquisitions (Cumulative)" doesn't seem to add up to the "Installed audience" chart above which leads me to believe I was reading it incorrectly. Based on "New device acquisitions (Cumulative)", which I think is probably actually the closest equivalent to Apple's "Total Download" count? That would put me at 651 downloads this month.

I think going forward I probably should seek out some guidance/mentorship on interpreting these statistics from someone who knows more about mobile app marketing.

Also, a big caveat here, is that there's now the inclusion of the PWA version of the app for which I'm not tracking any statistics on its usage, other than some debugging info. So I've got a blind spot on that platform.

Lazztech Hub Roadmap

This month's efforts were primarily focused on burning down roadmap features. Of which was focused on building out the events features and improving the ease of inviting users. I'm going to continue with this process as I've been making good headway and am still predominantly focused on the feedback from my personal community user base that has been guiding the feature development of this project.

One quality of the app that seems to need more thought going forward is the utility and value proposition for Hubs and how they facilitate spontaneous gatherings. The concept of "activating" a hub to notify users that the space is open and show the currently present members seems to have resulted in continued confusion. I think this needs to be revisited, though I'd like to continue burning down the events and invites roadmap sections before rethinking the "How do Hubs facilitate spontaneous gatherings?" question.

Lazztech Hub Roadmap

  • finish events feature
    • 01-02-2023 ✅ Default end date for events to one hour after the start set
    • 01-02-2023 ✅ Lock event time selection to 15 or 30 minute increments
    • 01-04-2023 ✅ Duplicate prior events
    • 01-15-2023 ✅ Add events to calendar
    • 01-16-2023 ✅ Export calendar event ics web
    • 01-19-2023 ✅ Admin invitees (ability to remove invitees)
    • Events at hubs
    • Prefilled hub as location when creating an event from the hub page
    • Geofences at events for presence count
    • Min & Max event capacity
    • Sync with calendar?
      • canceled pending user research
    • Import event from calendar
      • canceled until I can validate that this would be used
  • Improve invites
    • 01-9-2023 ✅ QR invites
    • 01-12-2023 ✅ Alphabetize invite people section
    • 01-17-2023 ✅ Add search to people invite section
    • Invite everyone from an existing Hub or Event
    • Import contacts for easier inviting
      • canceled until I can validate that this would be used
  • Rework notifications
    • Fix duplicate notifications
    • Interactive notifications
    • Robust per Hub/Event notification preferences
    • Robust global notification preferences
    • Red notification count circle
    • Opt in check in / check out notifications
    • 01-17-2023 ✅ Minimize notifications to only the essentials
      • Hub activation
      • Hub invites
      • Event invites
  • Media sharing
    • Media sharing on hubs
    • Media sharing on events
    • User tagging in media
    • Media explore page
  • Publicly listed hubs & events
    • Search for public content
    • Filter public content by city/state
  • Ongoing bug fixes/improvements
    • Easier toggling of hub activity
    • In app feedback/bug reporting
    • URL & socials on profile
    • URL on hub or event
    • New lines in hub/event descriptions
    • Share user device battery level
    • Fix rounded corners on map card
    • "Automagic Check in / Check out" device setting status page
    • Share if user has geofences enabled for a given hub
    • Retina resolution on map tiles
      • canceled due to cost though may revisit later

Marketing

The apple ad campaign continues to be performing, & contributing substantially to the installs on iOS. I see no reason to change this here.

The Google Ads campaign has doubled in cost per click from 2 to 4 cents, so I'll be keeping an eye on that...