Hi guys, its been a while since we last chatted so its time for a quick round of updates.

First of all - you should totally , its great to have our community active in a real-time fashion on Twitter.

HTTPS Access: As more developers recently started using our Analytics Dashboard we've been getting more and more requests to support HTTPS access. I'm happy to update you that the Developer area has been supporting HTTPS for a week now and everything's been smooth. We've switched the header link for the Dashboard to the HTTPS version as well so just remember to update your bookmarks.

Early Access program: We're creating a program where we will share info on products that are still in development with a select group of developers. Our focus is getting high-quality feedback on some of the new product directions we are working on as well as enlisting launch partners for these products. To sign-up for the early-access program please email us at info@appsto.com and tell us about the apps you've already built.

App-Buttons Craze: Our monkeys have been rendering Custom App-Buttons like crazy over the past few weeks and wow has it been overwhelming. We wanted to say thanks and show our love by sharing some of those uses:

(download)

Click here to download:

developer-https-access-early-access-program-and-app-buttons-craze-trpAgBhhippwhbyJgjpy.zip (652 KB)

Here are the websites: 1. http://hourstrackerapp.com/ 2. http://pengas.com/
3. http://www.liveimagephoto.com/ 4. http://carrarodev.com/
5. http://onlinemoviesbox.com/iphone-app/ 6. http://www.adamsmedia.com/
7. http://scrappad.me/ 8. http://powdesigns.com/

New FAQs: Got questions about Appsto.com or our Short-URLs? We've got answers, head over to the FAQ and let us know if there's anything you'd still like to know.

That's it for this update, we'll be back soon with some cool announcements so hang out there and spread the word.

Yours

The Appsto.com team

Lets go over what the new buttons offer:

• Details included - Our new buttons include your App's core details: Icon, Name, Price and Star-Rating. Your prospective users will appreciate the visibility into this useful info.
• Use anywhere - Buttons are now self-contained units that carry context, so you can use them outside your App's descriptive Website. A great place to start is your Email and Forum Signatures.
• Beautiful - We offer 3 elegant colors and 2 adequate sizes totaling 6 beautiful options.
• Customizable - Maintain control of your button's content with the ability to show/hide Star-Rating, Price and to modify the App name.
• Simple to use - It takes seconds to get your buttons, and they're simple to use because buttons are static PNG files that are rendered, cached and served from our servers.

We're sure you'll love our new buttons and can't wait to see them on your website, so go ahead and get your buttons.

Appsto.re started a year ago with the small idea of creating an aesthetic URL-shortener for iPhone Apps. We later added Analytics to the party and appsto.re usage has continued to grow ever since.

As time went by we came to a better understanding of why we created appsto.re. We believe iOS (iPhone/iPod/iPad) developers deserve better tools to market their Apps. We help developers market their Apps by creating thoughtful, effective and beautiful marketing tools. We started by offering a great URL-shortening & Analytics service called appsto.re, and we will be launching several new tools during August.

Appsto.re will remain the domain-name for our URL-shortening & Analytics service, and will be one of several tools we will be offering at our new home - http://appsto.com. We feel that appsto.com is a broader name that provides us with more room to launch a variety of tools and services.

Thanks for reading and supporting,

Ohad Eder-Pressman, CEO & Co-Founder - Appsto.com

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Some one once told me "You make what you measure."* Why try new things if you can't measure the impact they have on your bottom line? This was our motivation for the latest addition to the appsto.re stats dashboard. Now you can measure how many sales each marketing campaign generates and easily calculate the ROI on your efforts. 

Introducing Ad Code tracking...

By placing a code at the end of your appsto.re url in the form "?code=ad_campaign_1" we will track the sales conversion from clicks on those specific codes. Using ad codes is also helpful when doing email marketing. In the past clicks coming from email clients were grouped into the "direct" traffic category. Now you have finer granularity on where sales are coming from. You make what you measure... so get measuring today :).

* I was reminded by a friend that this quote was from a talk by Joe Kraus at a y combinator diner in 2008.

It can be frustrating being an iPhone developer. You are competing with ~100,000 apps and you have almost no analytics to tell you what is working and what is not. There are a lot of people talking about how app discovery is such a problem but what I think we really need is better analytics for developers. The only thing Apple gives you as a developer is the number of times your app has been downloaded. That is not nearly enough. Imagine if Google Analytics only told you the number of people visiting your website and you had no information about where people came from or what your bounce rate was. That is basically the state of analytics for iPhone developers at the moment. 

Well we have been working on something at appsto.re to help the iPhone development community get better stats on what is and isn't working, and it is 100% free. Our focus was to answer two key questions for developers…

What are the referral sources of traffic to my app?

What is the sales conversion of each referral source?

By answering these two simple questions you will be able to get feedback on how well your app page is converting viewers into paying customers. This gives you the opportunity to change screen shots or description text on your app page and measure the impact on sales. You are also in a position to discover what the best sources of traffic are for your app and double your focus on the marketing channels that drive the most sales. 

How does it work?

1. Go to our developer section at http://appsto.re/developers/login.

2. Register your app, it only takes a minute and is 1000% free. This will give you access to the stats dashboard for your app.

3. Get your custom http://appsto.re/"name of your app" url. This link opens straight into your iTunes app page and we will track the referral source and sales conversions for clicks on your url.*

4. Use your appsto.re url everywhere and get the sales feedback you need to help increase sales.

What do you get?

The appsto.re stat dashboard gives you the key feedback you need to improve sales. Check out the photo gallery for a sneak peak at what you are going to get in the developer stats dashboard...

 *Footnote: Appsto.re url's have an affiliate link attached to them. The main reason we have the affiliate link is to enable sales conversion tracking so you have better stats. Apple pays us a small commission (5% of their 30%, ~1.5% of the total sale) when someone purchases your app. This comes out of Apple's part of the pie so the service is 100% free for developers.  So for example on a 99 cent app sale we make a whopping 1.5 cents, not the best monetization strategy ;).

(download)

Click here to download:

The_stats_iPhone_developers_ar.zip (112 KB)