Featured Mobster: TuneWiki

June 23, 2011 |  Posted By : Sharini  In : Developer Community, Featured Mobster

TuneWiki is an award-winning social music player for mobile phones. Having one of the  largest legally-licensed lyrics database in the world, TuneWiki is out to change the mobile music experience…and it has! We had an opportunity to chat with Michael Steiner and Kristin Pagano from TuneWiki to see what they had to say about the concept of TuneWiki, mobile app development and their experience with Mobclix!

Total Downloads: over 15 million!

1) What inspired you to build the app?
Originally, the app was designed because our founder was running and couldn’t understand the lyrics to a song he was listening to. He stopped running and tried searching for the lyrics but they were impossible to find on his phone. He realized that with the popularity of lyrics, this concept of synchronized (and translated) lyrics was a missing element on mobile phones. Today’s application has evolved from lyric synchronization into music discovery as our users frequently have told us they don’t have anywhere reliable to go for music recommendations. Having over 15 Million downloads across our platforms, we recognized this as an opportunity to connect music fans and allow them to recommend songs directly to their network of friends’ mobile devices. We’ve launched on Android recently and are looking to expand to other platforms quickly.

2) Why does the ad revenue model make sense for you?
At Tunewiki, we believe advertising, if done well and responsibly, can be a win-win for the user and the advertiser. For the user, it allows them to enjoy great content, and find content they might not otherwise find, for absolutely no cost. For advertisers, it’s a great way to reach consumers and customers when they can act on the need for their products and services, whether it is discovery of new applications or opportunities to use new services and products. Today, most people have their phone with them constantly, so mobile just works well.

3) Why did you choose Mobclix?
Velti is the largest pure mobile advertising company in the world. Velti’s worldwide sales force focused on mobile first and working hand in hand with Mobclix’s technology is a powerful advantage for Mobclix in the mobile advertising marketplace. At Mobclix, we always know mobile advertising is the first priority and not just an “add on” to a larger campaign.

Customer Service. The mobile advertising landscape is fragmented, complex, and in its early stages. After getting to the know the team at Mobclix, we quickly recognized this was a partner who wouldnt just “plug us in,” but be a true monetization partner who could help us with the entire range of services we needed: sales, optimization, ad ops, and ad technology to build our advertising business. Most importantly, when we call Mobclix, someone always picks up the phone to help us.

4) What tips do you have for other developers?
Two of the key pieces of information that are helpful is to make sure to take into account both the planning process and the submission process for iOS and Android. With the approval process of Apple being relatively unknown in terms of timing it takes to get approval, the planning for a launch of an app needs to take that into account if you are trying to coordinate marketing and PR activities. On Android, it’s imperative to plan for a lot of testing as there are so many different devices with different specs; it’s a complicated process to get right for the consumer as you continuously update the product.