Innovation Works Darling – Umeng, Grows Up

App Developers around the world are flocking to Android. Companies like Umeng are helping developers analyze and make sense of all the data that can be gathered from mobile app users, devices and markets. Developers especially like the bug analysis feature and marketers find channel analysis the most useful.  This is powerful information to help people focus on the right things and maximize their chance of success.

Umeng has been incubated by Innovation Works, the start-up incubator famously run by Dr. Kai Fu Lee. It has been making big a big impact in China, now serving more than 4,000 apps.

To get a little more insight into Umeng and its movements I talked with Linda Jiang, Business Development for Umeng.

Recent Umeng Developer Events

At Umeng we came up with the idea of holding developer community events across the country for 2 reasons, 1 as a great way to share Umeng’s industry data directly with developers and 2.Because it fits with Umeng’s goal of working closely with developers and bringing the community closer together.  Umeng wants to build an equal, open, efficient communication platform within the developer community.

Umeng held 3 events in Huazhong in March. 5^th March in Hangzhou, 6^th march in Nanjing 9^th march Shanghai. In total more than 250 developers attended and where entertained by talks from Dianping, Etouch, Taobao, Ttpod, Rockplayer, Piaoao which were all enthusiastically received. Our events are the first of their kind in Nanjing. After the events developers have really taken up the opportunity to network with each other and our events have become a great opportunity for the local developer community to meet each other, make new introductions, share experience and socialize.

Future Planned Umeng Developer Events

Following on from our successful events in HuaZhong, Umeng are holding back-to-back events in Guangzhou and Shenzhen on the 16^th and 17^th of April. These free developer events are a great chance for local developers to hear leading industry experts share their insight on a wide range of topics. This time around in Guangzhou and Shenzhen we have Hidroid.net, 365ok, infzm.com, Easou, paojiao.cn giving talks on mobile app design, how to build a good mobile product and how to improve user experience. At the events Umeng will be announcing our IOS apps analysis with the developer community. This will be the first time that this information will be in the public domain. Places at Umeng events are reserved for ticket holders only and places are limited so be quick to register at http://www.umeng.com/salon.

How was the move into the new office? What was it like? Does it feel like Umeng is growing very fast?

Umeng’s move to our new office felt like a big event, perhaps a similar feeling to moving out from your parent’s home for the first time. The team really pulled together to make this move possible with everyone contributing in their own unique way. The new office has a homely feel and will be a great environment in which to work. The move happened at the same time as our one year anniversary so we had a great office warming and birthday party last week. We all feel excited about the future and the opportunities ahead.