cacophony

Business

Mobile Signal

Booking Holdings (BKNG) is scheduled to report earnings on 11/2. Downloads of its suite of mobile apps are up 24% YoY and 3% QoQ. Dive deeper into BKNG with a free trial of our Bloomberg Terminal App.

App Acquisition

Yaydoo has acquired Oyster, a financial services provider for small businesses in Mexico. The app has more than 205k lifetime installs.

Musings

Games get it done

So many activities! It's funny that Discord has finally launched games considering its original user base gathered in Discord to communicate while they played games. We have a natural fit here. These games are available to paid Nitro subscribers which is why we see a bump in IAP revenue. The app store will be where people can add games to their servers or upload new games for others. Games are becoming integrated in many more places than they used to be. Just recently, Match Group's dating app, Plenty of Fish launched its first game. I may look at the impact of that in next week's newsletter.

Cash in while you can

Gas is the latest anonymous chat app to reach #1 in the US App Store. Users vote on superlatives for other users and tell them what they like about them. Every year or so, it feels like there is a new one. Think about Yik Yak, tbh, Sarahah, NGL, etc. Gas is different in that it made the decision to monetize immediately, so even if it fades away, it will have recouped some cash. So far the app has generated close to $450k by selling an IAP called "God Mode" (anywhere from $5 - $7 depending on discount) where users can get hints about who voted for them in polls, and other information to help unveil the identity of the voters. The app is only available in the US on iOS. There is revenue starting on 9/1 but it's so small you cannot see it in the data visualization.

Insights & Updates

How SeatGeek is building a concierge for live events

This one's for the fans. This week I'm joined by Paula Segal, Head of Consumer Product at SeatGeek, a leading event ticketing and live experience app. Paula walks me through the role the mobile app plays in the customer's journey and how different widgets/SDKs improve the user experience leading up to and on the day of the event. We talk a little 13th century medieval history (obviously) and smoothly transition into how user acquisition and gathering user feedback work at SeatGeek. Fast forward to 26:41 if you're solely interested in hearing our favorite gameshow, Two Apps And a Lie.