Today we’re introducing App Booster. A free lightweight SDK to boost the engagement and retention of users in mobile apps.

Background

One thing we’ve been struggling with since we exist is the necessity for quality services to promote mobile applications. We created a set of new ways to browse apps and services for developers to obtain quality visibility with potential new users

But what’s the point of getting so many new users, what’s the point of rushing to the rankings if eventually users don’t use or stick with your app? As the App market grows, too many developers are concerned with “user acquisition” vs “quality user acquisition” and the difference is engagement.

Of course it is all about creating a great app first. Crappy app won’t stick. But assume you create a great app. You have now to compete for attention on the device of your users along with other great apps. And there are many great apps out there.

So how will you manage?

One thing we observed, is that many apps do not create a relation with their users. Apps do what they do best but the developers have no real interaction with the users and no real impact on how they can optimize the usage of their apps. Some use push notification, which when accepted, can still be intrusive because…well everyone is sending push notifications..Some use unrelated communication channels: twitter, facebook, email…

But how about using your app as a communication channel? How about talking to your users where they are?

App Booster: the inbox for your app

Introducing App Booster: a simple, lightweight, elegant and customizable way for developers to include an inbox to broacast in-app notifications

This inbox worth both ways: users can also broadcast messages to the developers through a mobile specific feedback system - for ideas, bugs, contests and more..

It takes no time to include it in a mobile app (iOS + Android, soon HTML5). It is manageable by anyone who knows how to use a mouse and a computer (read made for non-techies)

What App Booster can do for you?

We’ve built this inbox really thinking about what’s best for an app developer. App booster is really a Swiss knife that will help you handle all your users’ relations in a convenient manner. Techies will call it the CRM toolkit. We also like to call it “the other half of push” or simply said “the inbox for your app”

Here is a short list of what you can do with App Booster

• Send a welcome message to new visitors (automatically)
• Automatically stimulate the update of a new version, as soon as it live
• Remind the features added by the last updated version (most users never read update notes)
• Organize contests or promotions in your app
• Give tips on how to use best the app
• Cross promote your other apps (if you own more than 1)
• organize barters easily for free with other developers
• Communicate on app maintenance
• Boost your social pages
• Broadcast a link to Safari/Android Browser in or outside his app for rich notifications
• Invite users to rate his app in his app store / android market reviews
• Re-optin users who did not accept push notifications

Bonus feature: the ultimate feedback system

One thing we felt was broken is the way users can reach out to developers. Yes, many apps include an email contact, but an empty email requires too much effort and can even be intimidating. What is missing is real context, a real feedback system, that makes is super easy for users to gather and send their thoughts

But not only: it should be also manageable for developers to handle those requests and understand how they are structured

• So we also created a super simple back office system to enable developers to
• receive in real time feedback in their email in addition to their web dashboard
• view that email in a beautifully designed, mobile friendly email format
• answer the user right from the email in a mobile friendly form or via email
• get the answer published back in the notification wall to interact, in the app, with the users
• It’s collaborative: the moment someone in your team answers a feedback the rest of the team in informed about it and knows who answered

Now here is the awesome part. By just adding this feedback system we saw our number of feedback multiply by x20, and the quality of the feedback muliplied by 5

In addition it helped us capture the negative feedback in our app instead of having it published in the app store. Many times a problem is unrelated to your app and here you have an opportunity to explain it

Now here is the juice. Positive feedbacks will be routed to the app store. And guess what it will X your positive reviews. It is not that you are doing something better. It is just that you are capturing the attention when required. We call it the rating booster.

Next? Well get in, it’s Free

Ah… we did not tell you? this is free. Just go to our site, Register. get the code, the documentation. Install it on an ad hoc build. play with it.

It’s build for iOS, Android. Translated in all key languages.

We’re not stopping there. We take this part of our strategy very seriously and we ll innovate with a lot more awesome tools to make your life easier and improve the way your users will stick to your app. We worked nearly a year on this system. We re not ready to stop.

It will make your app look good. It will make your users happier. it will make your life easier

Want to find out more about it? read what Techcrunch, Gigaom and NextWeb said about it