App Developer’s Corner: David Steinberger of comiXology

Today’s App Developer’s Corner features David Steinberger of comiXology.com, an online source for comic book geared apps and services. The following is what David had to share with us about how he has focused on the iPhone platform in his business.

Give us a quick overview about yourself–your team and company.
My name is David Steinberger and I run (along with John Roberts, my business partner) comiXology.com and our suite of comic book related services and apps. We have two main iPhone apps: comiXology (for print comic) and Comics (for digital comics).

Our goal at comiXology.com is to create an ecosystem for comic book consumers, and to introduce more people to the joy of reading comics. Through our services and applications, we connect comic fans to great comics (physically and digitally), publishers, creators and local comic shops. You can connect to local retailers and order books to pick up at the store.

Our team consists of many people helping with: web, editorial, service and app development.

Why did you move into the mobile space and what was your incentive to use the iPhone platform?
The iPhone is compelling for any graphically-oriented product or media, so it’s jumping off point for comiXology’s mobile apps strategy. Passion for comic books is very personal, and it just makes sense to be able to carry the passion with you to read or check in with what’s new at any time.

Our first app for the iPhone, comiXology, shows a list of what comics and merchandise are arriving at your local store, along with all our editorial work from the website (columns, podcasts, etc.). It lets comic book aficionados prepare their pre-order lists for comics that are coming out on Wednesday (new comic book day!). With the graphic orientation of the iPhone, showing tons of covers and preview pages became not only possible, but very compelling.

As for digital comics, the density of pixels on the iPhone screen combined with the power of the processor and SDK made digital comics really work for the first time, arguably on any device. The comics look amazing on the screen, and our patent-pending approach to presenting them really works well on the iPhone.

Wired.com said that we had “solved the problem of reading comics on the small screen.”

How did you turn your concept into an actual business?
Creating the business comes from a combination of 3 years of hard work and receiving the backing of individuals that believe there is a big market out there. Our goal has always been to become a unique player in the comic book market, and we’ve achieved that position. We’re a consumer-oriented business that connects disparate parts of the market via technology, and extracts a small bit of value from each part. So, we have a terrific consumer experience that gives us revenue producing subscription services for retailers, amazing PR opportunities for publishers and creators, the ability to sell mobile apps and digital comics, etc.

What would you say has been the most successful strategy/avenue for promoting and increasing visibility for your apps and your company?
We are the market leader in iPhone comics for one reason alone: we have the best of what’s available in the form that both consumers and reviewers of apps prefer. Making a great product that people want to use is absolutely #1. Without it, any other strategy is useless.

Now, of course we support our app with lots of standard marketing moves, reaching out to reviewers, buying some advertising, putting together great PR with our content partners, and more. We’ve also recently added tweeting directly from the app so people can tweet about the comic they just purchased. But without a high quality, beautiful, well-functioning app to support it, none of that would matter.

How has Pinch Analytics helped with app development, promotion, and marketing?
It’s been great to get to know our users better, and we’ve recently made even more changes to our analytics code to capture more information. The analytics code was a snap to integrate. We’re actually approaching 10 years of accumulated use time of our app, and that’s an amazing statistic to know. Most importantly is to see what’s working and what’s not working for the consumers, and our next update should give us much more of that information.

Do you have any piece of advice that you would like to share?
On the analytics side: be very thorough on the analytics side from the start. We missed a few opportunities to get data from our app that would help us promote more effectively, gain new partners, and support our consumers. Take the time to pick out all the actions you’d like to know about, and analyze that information to make a better consumer experience. Tracking what is used the most in the app, or what is used the least can indicate usability problems or let you know people are using the app in an unexpected way that you can improve in your next build.

On the app dev side: Build a feedback function into your app. This is invaluable.

On the customer service side: Answer every feedback email. This builds loyalty and one-to-one relationships with consumers. This will increase the value of your brand.

Chceck out comiXology for the latest about comics for the iPhone platform. And if you would like to track how your marketing strategies translate into resulting user behavior, register for an account at Pinch Media and let us know if you have any questions getting started.