This week we feature a special guest, Melissa Lim, the MobileSleepDoc app CEO and Managing Partner. We’re focusing on the app history, marketing challenges Melissa faced when the app was released on a market and how mobile apps help people with a sleep disorder in general. We also touch upon advantages and disadvantages mobile apps have, compared w…

App user behavior analysis it’s not an easy task, but when it comes to mobile game user behavior it’s when things become really complicated! There are only a few companies on the market that tackle this hard task and empower game developers with the right toolbox. This week I’m talking to Allison from GameAnalytics and we’re covering the range...…

The nonprofit organization Sunlight Foundation has been keeping track of the tweets politicians didn’t want you to see anymore. The site, called Politwoops, saved the tweets deleted by lawmakers. For the past three years, it tracked thousands of blunders and position changes. It also helped track how Twitter was being used for political discourse. …

The tiny bombardier beetle is explosive. Literally. To fight off predators, it creates explosions inside its abdomen that allows it spray a stream of chemicals at its foes. Now scientists are studying this phenomenon in more detail to see if the bug’s defense mechanism might have practical applications for things like body armor and crash helmets. …

In 2014 microbes collected from our favorite Chicago dinosaur, that would be the Field Museum’s Sue the T-Rex , were launched into space. It was part of an effort to send microbes from all kinds of earth environments into space to see how they grow. The point? To learn how microbes associated with everyday human life react in a closed, limited-grav…

Thousands of people across the country are taking part in the third annual National Day of Civic Hacking. Groups in more than 100 cities will meet to design apps, websites and services to try to solve problems in their communities. Chicago is hosting four events in 2015, with goals from improving neighborhoods to creating more sustainable fisheries…

The FCC proposes subsidizing broadband access for the poor; Google introduces some pretty fantastic technology; and the latest supercomputing news. Those are just a few stories we explore on our Tech Shift Week in Review. We’re joined by Argonne’s Deputy Director for its leadership computing facility, Susan Coghlan, as well as our WBEZ super digita…

All week on Tech Shift we’re talking about opportunities for kids to boost their STEM skills over the summer. WBEZ digital producer and co-host of the Nerdette podcast, Tricia Bobeda, joins us in studio with some science, engineering, technology and math resources Chicago once school lets out.By WBEZ's Tech Shift

All this week on Tech Shift we’re looking at summer camp options for kids that focus on science, math or technology. With dozens of camps out there - and some with tuition that costs about $1,000 a week - how do you know which one is worth the price? We thought we’d turn to the people at Chicago Tech Academy for some advice. They sift through many …

Now that the Memorial Day weekend is over, students around Chicago are counting down to the end of the school year. And for some, that means coding camp is right around the corner. All this week on Tech Shift, we’re looking at different options kids have to explore science, technology, engineering and math over the summer. We examine a new program …

Questions about 1871’s success - a big win for local company Everpurse - and Washington’s working on helping modernize health care technology. It’s Tech Shift Week in review.By WBEZ's Tech Shift

It’s a Robot revolution! At least at the Museum of Science and Industry. We took a field trip to the museum to see the exhibit aimed at introducing the public to the future of robotics. “Robot Revolution” starts here in Chicago then goes on a national tour. It runs at the MSI May 21 through January 3.…

When it comes to medical emergencies, time is precious. But we’ve all seen ambulances or fire trucks stuck in traffic, sometimes barely inching along. One organization is trying to change that. United Hatzalah is a free emergency service that uses “ambucycles” or a motorcycle ambulance, to navigate the busy city streets of Jerusalem. It also uses a…

Ever since Bitcoin was created in 2008 it has gotten a lot of buzz. Wall Street, whole governments and even presidential candidates have expressed interest in the viability of the digital currency. But it hasn't exactly changed the world yet. Could it? New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper has a new book out, Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside…

What is the most important metric for you to measure as an app owner? It’s not how many installs your app is getting, it’s about engagement inside of the app! This week I’m talking to Dennis Mink, VP at Liftoff, Inc. From the average price to acquire a registered user to the cost of acquiring a user that purchases a...…

Suzanne Muchin leads Mind + Matter Studio in Chicago. She and Amanda Lannert, CEO of Jellyvision, were tired of the trend pieces and think pieces about the problem of women being underrepresented in tech businesses that didn’t focus enough on tangible solutions. So they published a list of the five things they’re dedicated to actually doing to help…

Washington tries to strike a balance between privacy and security, Reddit wants its users to stop harassing each other, and move over, Raspberry Pi! Now there’s Chip, the $9 computer. Those are a few headlines we’re talking about today on Tech Shift Week in Review. Our panelists are Jayna Cooke, CEO of EVENTup and Jen Myers, Founder of Code and Cup…

Improvements in virtual reality may offer doctors a chance for advanced training in ways never before possible. Mary Spio is President and Founder of Next Galaxy. It focuses on developing consumer virtual reality technology. Next Galaxy recently partnered with Miami Children's Hospital to work on this kind of virtual reality application. Mary joins…

Many of us have opened news articles through Facebook’s app, and know it can sometimes take a while for the article to load on the mobile web. Well, Facebook is launching an instant articles feature, which allows stories to load more quickly on Facebook’s app. Casey Newton is the Silicon Valley Editor at tech news site The Verge and he joins us wit…

After much fanfare, Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute is open. After winning a $70 million federal grant back in 2014 for advanced manufacturing, the UI Labs tech hub is up and running. UI Labs chairman Warren Holtsberg gives us the details.By WBEZ's Tech Shift

Chicago has gotten a lot of attention for its open data efforts, but cities around the region are also getting into the space. Evanston launched its open data portal in February and is starting to see how citizens are using the information and where to go next. Luke Stowe, Digital Services Coordinator for the city of Evanston, joins us with more.…

Uber is in the market for a new mapping system and sets sights on Nokia’s digital mapping service. Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants a universal taxi app for Chicago cabbies to compete with ridesharing services like Uber. We discuss some of the week’s biggest tech stories with Justin Massa of Food Genius and Wailin Wong, editor and writer…

Lightning storms look cool - a brilliant flash of light in the dark, a massive bolt suddenly streaks across the sky. For the most part, we understand lightning. But what about thunder? Scientists from Southwest Research Institute have been conducting experiments to literally get a better picture of how thunder works. Dr. Maher Dayeh is a Space Phys…

Physicists around the world are theorizing that reality as we know it may just be one big hologram. That means, the 3-D objects you see around you aren’t actually 3-dimensional. At the moment, this is just an idea. But a team of physicists and researchers at Fermilab are conducting an experiment to try to find evidence that such a theory is possibl…

The University of Illinois is launching a new online MBA program using massive open online courses, or MOOCs. U of I is no stranger to MOOCs. They already offer dozens of courses through Coursera, the largest provider of MOOC education. Coursera representatives say this program would be the first MBA program of its kind. Joining us with more on thi…

Over the past decade many governments, including Chicago’s, have put the spotlight on open data. But how do citizens really feel about these initiatives? A new study from the Pew Research Center found big splits in the public’s awareness of open data and its value for users. John Horrigan, a Senior Researcher at Pew and one of the authors of that r…

Apple Watch Notifications and Apple Watch as the rising smartwatch star are on the table for me and Spencer Burke to talk about this week. At the beginning of April Appboy announced the support for customizing both short-look and long-look Apple Watch interface notifications. We’re talking about how these notifications may change the dynamics of iO…

User feedback is highly beneficial and most valuable to mobile app owners. The range of use cases is very broad. Use cases range from deciding what app features should be improved or dropped to whether an app owner should display ads inside of an app to monetize it or choose another way of making a profit. So how can...…

Quarterly, VisionMobile, the UK-based leading research company in the app economy, issues a comprehensive report that provides a snapshot of the mobile app world. This week we welcome back Mark Wilcox, Business Analyst at VisionMobile. We talk about competition between iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and other mobile app development platforms along wi…

On this week episode I cover a number of mobile app marketing aspects with Charlyn Keating, the host of Appreneur Summit, mobile app & game developer. We talk about steps for an app developer to launch his mobile app on a market, common mistakes app developers do, differences between consumer and enterprise app marketing and app marketing trends fo…

According to a recent VisionMobile whitepaper article, there are about 5.5 million app developers in the world. Global mobile ad spend is projected to reach $125 billion in 2018, this growth is fueled by an enormous number of mobile ad campaigns. A robust analytical tool for your mobile ad campaign is a must. This week we have two guests,...…

According to this year’s forecast, the video gaming industry will reach a $90 billion threshold. This week we welcome back Joost Van Dreunen, CEO of SuperDataResearch.com. The SuperDataResearch team specializes in digial game research as well as publishing comprehensive reports. In this interview we discuss what aspects will disrupt the video-game …

App Annie is the equivalent to ComScore for the mobile app ecosystem. During this episode we look at what the mobile app world looked like in 2014 with App Annie’s EVP Oliver Lo. On January 28th the company issued the App Annie Index: 2014 Retrospective report. In this interview we cover top app trends, top apps and publishers by country,...…

Social media marketing is one of the time tested app marketing channels. Many app developers either promote their apps or use Google+ and Twitter. This week I decided to cover some ground for both platforms and help app owners to be more efficient in their app marketing efforts. My guest is Brett Relander, contributor for Entrepreneur.com and Huffi…

This week we take a virtual trip to the Australian app ecosystem to talk about local app marketing topics. We cover the differences between US and Australian app markets as well as the best techniques to gain loyal users for a mobile app. We also talk about what app marketing techniques are the hardest to crack for a mobile app...…

This week we have a very special guest with us. We usually cover the marketing side of mobile app development, but in this episode we’re talking to Brant DeBow, CTO of BiTE Interactive. In this segment we cover topics related to app development. We also cover Swift language and its adoption, app development for enterprise and problems associated wi…

There is no doubt that mobile app marketing has brought some specific techniques into the mobile world, but we have to remember that this is just a branch of digital marketing and there are many digital marketing principles that apply to it. This week we’re talking to Magdalena Georgieva, product manager at HubSpot. We cover topics such as what mar…

As 2014 is coming to an end, we want to take a look at what happened this year in the mobile world and what we may expect in 2015. On this special Christmas episode, we’re talking with five guests who have previously been on the show. We wanted to hear their thoughts about this past year and their forecasts for...…

This week we bringing the conversation back to App Store Optimization (ASO). We are specifically discussing what mistakes people make with ASO, what App Store categories are easier and more difficult to do App Store Optimization for and how important it is to be objective while doing a keywords analysis. We are also looking back into what 2014 brou…

There are many app marketing challenges that make the lives of app developers insanely difficult these days. What are those challenges you may ask? This week I want to figure it out with Sheila Bhardwaj, Director of Account Management at TUNE. If the company name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, HasOffers and MAT should! Apart from these challenges…

How do we search for apps? Could there be a better way than just launching the App Store app on an iOS device or a Google Play market app on an Android smartphone? In many ways the mobile app ecosystem follows the same path as websites did. This week we are talking about mobile app search with Quixey VP Marketing,...…

ASO is one of the best known acronyms in the mobile app development ecosystem. There are a handful of companies that provide a platform for performing App Store Optimization for an app. SensorTower, in my opinion, is the leading service provider among these various companies. This week we are talking about ASO with Hugh Kimura, the SensorTower Cont…

Games is the driving force behind the growth of major app stores both in terms of revenue and app numbers. This week we decided to invite an expert in the gaming field who comes from one of the leading mobile game analytical companies. Our guest is Joost Van Dreunen, CEO of SuperDataResearch.com. The topics we discuss range from the...…

This week on Marketing TidBits, we have invited a special guest in from the company that captures the entire app development picture, VisionMobile.com. It is difficult to find another company that publishes comprehensive and insightful reports and surveys about different aspects of the mobile app economy as well as VisionMobile does. In this interv…

With over two million apps on the app store, many developers are asking questions like how can I get feedback for an app before it’s launched? How can I make sure that my app is bug free? To answer some of these hard hitting questions, we invited the CEO of PreApps.com, Sean Casto. During our discussion, we covered some interesting...…

Media coverage has become one of the most discussed app marketing techniques in recent years. To discuss this topic, we decided to invite Dave Caolo, news editor for TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)! TUAW covers all things Apple including their hardware and software. In this interview with Dave, we give developers a perspective on how the app rev…

In today’s episode we join forces with Appboy to discuss such topics as app user behaviour. During our discussion, we talked about five different app user profiles that Appboy has come up with to characterize different user cases and individual’s interaction with mobile apps in general. Our discussion also covered app engagement in different app ca…

Any app developer who has marketed their app has used, or at least heard of the company, App Annie. In this interview with Marcos Sanchez, the VP of App Annie’s Worldwide Communications, we discuss the company’s history and such topics as – essential mobile app performance metrics, app discoverability and possible ways to resolve this 64 billion do…

When you think about marketing, one of the first things you visualize is the content you wish to create for your campaign. On this week’s episode, we discuss content production with Bernadette Burke, the CEO of Brella Productions. Bernadette Burke is the CEO and President of Brella Productions, a full-service communications company specializing in …

This week we have invited Shaun Johnson, entrepreneur and investor at Handmade Ventures, to discuss investing and the criteria for choosing a specific project or startup to invest in. Throughout this interview we also touched upon what kind of apps the current mobile app ecosystem is severely lacking. Shaun is responsible for partnershipship and de…