This is a transcript of one episode of the Samsung Developers Podcast, hosted by and produced by Tony Morelan. A listing of all podcast transcripts can be found here.
In the season one finale of POW, I interview Charlotte Allen and Hyunah Kwon. Charlotte is the driving force behind Samsung's annual Best of Galaxy Store Awards, and Hyunah is the Director of Product for Galaxy Store. Not only do we talk about the history of the awards, past highlights of previous awards, but we chat about exciting new changes to Galaxy Store, and our upcoming 2020 Best of Galaxy Store Awards show.
More About The Best of Galaxy Store Awards
Celebrating the year’s top performing apps in creativity, quality, design, and innovation, the Best of Galaxy Store Awards are the ultimate achievement for Samsung Galaxy Store sellers! Join us on December 9th, 5:00pm PST, as we reveal and celebrate this years' winners!
NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and reviewed by the Samsung Developers web team. Inaccuracies from the transcription process do occur, so please refer to the audio if you are in doubt about the transcript.
Tony Morelan 00:02
Hey, I'm Tony Morelan. And this is POW! Podcast of Wisdom from the Samsung Developer Program, where we talk about the latest tech new trends and give insight into all the opportunities available for developers looking to create for Samsung. On today's show, I interview Charlotte Allen and Hyunah Kwon. Charlotte is the driving force behind Samsung's annual Best of Galaxy Store Awards. Hyunah is the Director of Products for the Galaxy Store. Not only do we talk about the history of the awards, past highlights of previous awards, but we chat about exciting new changes to the Galaxy Store, and our upcoming award show where we will celebrate the amazing apps that will win awards during the 2020 Best of Galaxy Store Award Show. And what better way to celebrate our season finale of the power podcast. Enjoy. Hey, Charlotte, nice to have you back on the podcast.
Charlotte Allen 00:52
I know it's been a while.
Tony Morelan 00:55
So for those that don't remember, or might have missed the episode, Charlotte actually interviewed me at the beginning of the season so that our listeners could learn a little bit more about me, you know, find out who their host was. And a lot has happened since then. I think we've actually recorded about 12 episodes, but it has all been during this pandemic that we've been going through. So it's been a crazy year, needless to say, but the Galaxy Store has been going strong. This is the last episode, the season finale and what better way than to discuss the Best of Galaxy Store Awards for 2020. So I would love to talk a little bit about the history of the awards. Charlotte has been working on this awards program since its inception. Can you explain to the audience what are the Best of Galaxy Store Awards?
Charlotte Allen 01:44
Yeah, absolutely. The b Best of Galaxy Store Awards were created to recognize apps that have stood out amongst the crowd in the US Galaxy Store. We look for excellence in innovation, design, creativity, quality and performance. So I've been with Samsung for several years now. And they know that we've been doing this award show during that time. But when did the awards first start, the program was launched in 2018. As a pilot, recognizing just five Galaxy Store publishers. Our goal in creating the program was to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of designers developers to Samsung's ecosystem.
Tony Morelan 02:23
This will be the third year then
Charlotte Allen 02:27
right we are now in our third year, as you said, we increase the awards to five categories in over 20 winners. So we've come a long way in three short years, and we expect to continue to grow the best up Galaxy Store awards program in the future. So where were those previous award shows held. The inaugural best of Galaxy Store award ceremony in 2018, was held at the Samsung developer conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Last year's award ceremony was held at SDC 2019, at the San Jose Convention Center. And we recognize 25 developers and designers from around the world. And 21 of those winners were in attendance, which was great to see. And he showed us how important this recognition is from Samsung.
Tony Morelan 03:14
Yeah, I was actually the host of the award show last year in San Jose. And that was my highlight was actually meeting these developers for the first time, you know, we've been communicating with them, you know, throughout the year, but to actually meet them face to face, and to see how rewarding it was for them to receive this award. That was definitely an amazing moment.
Charlotte Allen 03:34
Yeah, I agree. It was also, I think, rewarding and inspiring for us to see, you know, their excitement and just how much effort they put into getting their work. Yeah, definitely. Let's talk about some of these past recipients. But where's the best way for people to learn, like who won in 2018, who won in 2019. So we have a great list of winners Now, having done this for two years and going into our third. So a list with our past winners can be found on Samsung's developer program site on the best of Galaxy Store landing page, and it features over 30 step Galaxy Store award winners and that is
Tony Morelan 04:12
developer.samsung.com. And if you go there, you can navigate over to the to the galaxy award page. Yes,
Charlotte Allen 04:19
yes, you can.
Tony Morelan 04:21
So having done this now for several years, I'm sure you've got a highlight tell me you know if you have a special story about maybe a past winner,
Charlotte Allen 04:28
yeah, there are several that come to mind. But one that I'll share is we awarded Bergen for Best New watch face designer, and his award was picked up by the Uruguay embassy who tweeted a congratulations to Bergen and I thought that was really amazing.
Tony Morelan 04:44
That is and Bergen is honestly an amazing designer ton of success. He was the designer when I was first looking into starting myself selling watch faces. I was seeing his work and I thought my god This guy is putting out you know; insanely creative watch faces. And my goal was to try and you know, do something at his level. I mean, he just amazing detail amazing depth, amazing features. So when I was starting out, he was the one that I looked up to trying to emulate, you know, his success. So great to see that he was awarded that year.
Charlotte Allen 05:20
Wow, pretty, pretty amazing.
Tony Morelan 05:22
So who qualifies for you know, potentially winning a best of Galaxy Store award?
Charlotte Allen 05:27
All Galaxy Store publishers qualify for bigger well-known brands to indie developers, designers, they all qualify.
Tony Morelan 05:33
That's, that's, that's great. They'd love to see how open Samsung is that? You know, it's not just a developer that is a big brand name. But you know, we'd like to recognize even the small person, the indie developer, who is absolutely, you know, maybe doesn't have all of that experience, but it's still putting out great content. So I thought it would be exciting if we actually brought somebody from the Galaxy Store team onto our podcast today. So I would like to welcome Hyunah Kwon Hi, Hyunah. Hi, Tony. Hi, Charlotte. Thanks for inviting me. So you are Director of Product Galaxy Store and Games? Can you tell me how long have you been in that role?
Hyunah Kwon 06:13
I've been in this role since this year to work for Galaxy Store and games. I've been in Samsung for about 13 years, starting with my experience in mobile devices in different product management in this domain of mobile. And we're very excited to expand to service businesses in Samsung, and I'm in charge of Galaxy Store app as well as gaming ecosystem
Tony Morelan 06:42
in Samsung. I had no idea you actually had been at Samsung for that long. Can you tell us what is new with the Galaxy Store?
Hyunah Kwon 06:48
Yes, this year has been a full of exciting news and updates and changes with the Galaxy Store, we just launched a new version introducing an enhanced game discovery experience. As you know, Samsung has been fully committed to offer an excellent mobile gaming experience with our hardware. It could be like this stunning screen experiences long battery and very powerful performance on a mobile gaming. And now galaxy, gamers can actually visit the Galaxy Store to discover new games. And they can view these stunning videos to learn more about the new games, they can pre-register for the upcoming seasons of their favorite games, and so forth. For that we can also share more details. And we also had interesting gear for all types of apps and content. We've been seeing a growing consumption of digital contents in the context of endemic as you know. So on the other hand, some people say that they're having a digital fatigue, if you will, caused by these exceptional circumstances. So we worked on simplifying this experience and make the downloading experience really quick and easy for our consumers, helping users to find the content they need with the better fit recommendations, as well as our editors recommendations for them as well. And we also refreshed our design with a clean and harmonious look. For example, now you will see it very reduced banner sizes here and there, we ensure that pleasant browsing experience and downloading. And the best part is the exclusive benefits that our consumers love about Galaxy Store. So we offer new promotions events almost every week. For example, in the US market. Remember, we integrated Samsung rewards last year so that users could spam their points against their purchase in our store. Earlier this year since July, we launched an always on points earning program. So now users can earn three points for every dollar spent with whether you purchase an app or a theme or enough items in your game app. So the more they enjoy Galaxy Store, and the more they can get rewarded.
Tony Morelan 09:09
Know that is specifically for us customers, correct?
Hyunah Kwon 09:14
Yes, so many other countries could have some different programs. But this is in the US. That sounds amazing.
Tony Morelan 09:21
So I thought it was interesting. You said that because of the pandemic because of COVID that you've actually seen an increase in people using their apps, and then they're starting to get the fatigue with it is that that's correct.
Hyunah Kwon 09:33
Yes. So the pandemic has been overwhelming for everyone, for sure. But it also was a great opportunity for some in many app developers. So we could see gaming industry, for example, has been really booming. utilizing this opportunity and media, the chance watching videos, or checking on news and healthcare app that user can You know, I actually spend a lot more time on the at home. So things like health care at home improvement apps has been actually pretty popular too. And overall, we had really great and busy year, we'll collaborate with our developers this year to help them really growing.
Tony Morelan 10:18
Yeah, that's, that's great to see that, you know, even though this is, you know, an unfortunate thing that our world is going through with a pandemic, that you found ways to help people out more, you know, considering that they are having to better devices and access this information. So you had mentioned also that you're involved with the gaming aspect of it. Can you tell me, are there any new features for gamers?
Hyunah Kwon 10:38
Yes, so we have simply fire up in two parts. One is the gaming. Another part is the access all the collection of the contents that we provide for galaxy users. So in that game tab, you will see an immersive the game discovery area. If you think about gaming in general has been developing, you now see a games that are very spectacular, they have a story in it, you can interact multiple players all together, you can create a history or you can, you know, be really in a deeper side of your action. All of that is pretty similar in movie industry, if you think about it. So when you watch a movie, you generally check a minute the trailer just to make sure you are watching a good movie, it's the same for games, we're providing our gamers the ability to discover what this game is about, and how they would play the download this game. Another party's our game introduction page, what we call the detail page of the app has been recolored. refreshed, so that they can actually see some very valid information about the games, we are providing a tag information, it can be something like this game is about a multiplayer game. It's a strategy RPG, or if it's casual gaming, or this game is featuring a medieval setting, with all kinds of information like that we are including more than 300 pack information, so that you can really see what these game is characterized for. Also some real time stats-based information, like you can see all these games, some are very popular, there's 10,000 users downloading this game at the moment right now, or it can be you know, 300 people are actually playing this particular game. And I think it's very important to highlight the personalized information is very key for our success. As we mentioned earlier, this is very important for any user to enjoy their experience not spending too much time making their efforts, there's this fatigue about finding the right apps for me, etc. So we also use a lot of user database recommendation that they can find the relevant game for them. And lastly, our Galaxy Store has been very appreciated by our speed to download and installation. So our consumers really love about our quick download feature, we actually feature this little button that you can directly install and download from what you're previewing from, you don't need to go through the detail page and click another time to download. We're just giving them a direct access to download. So we call we call that a quick download as well.
Tony Morelan 13:37
That's great. I know that that is a feature that I would definitely appreciate. So for developers that have joined the Samsung developer program, how can members grow their user base in their revenue
Hyunah Kwon 13:52
share our strategy is to empower our developer partners by enhancing our platform that support them. So obviously, there's many ways to grow their apps and their performance. There are many resources available, so publishers on the Galaxy Store to support their success. And one thing that I'd like to highlight is these days, in particular, the app discovery is really diversifying. So customers are learning about their new app that anymore in their app store like we did 10 years ago. And they're actually learning from their friends and social media, a lot many different channels. So the optimization of the contents inside our store is still being very important. But managing growth from multi-channel approach becomes even more important Galaxy Store is having our batch feature galaxies or batches that drive customers from their multiple channel of discovery to Galaxy Store pages in a single click. And that improves a conversion by optimizing Your discovery channel as well as all the listing information, you're providing a nice detail page. And we are going to provide more and more resources for you to optimize that listing information and grow the app developers revenues. To help our developers succeed in their acquisition campaigns with the Galaxy Store or optimizing their customer journey from discovery to download. We are also working with the leading mobile measurement partners so that developers can measure their campaign performance and to end with the accurate data. And generally, what we would recommend as tactics for growth will be things like, you know, generating more traffic and top of the funnel traffic, and from there, how to optimize their download conversion. And, as you know, download is not the end, most partners are frustrated, I get so many downloads, what I'm not where Why am I not growing from there? I think we also can help on our developers to manage their paid conversion and retention, because retention also is a key for your success and growth. And I would always advise people to lean into the customer lifetime value, rather than focusing on the download number itself.
Tony Morelan 16:21
Can you tell me how developers can learn how to maximize their growth with the with the Galaxy Store?
Hyunah Kwon 16:26
Yes, sure. So as I mentioned before, there's lots of packets of growth available. So in terms of generating traffic, you can rely on us campaigns, it can be digital campaign, it can be social media campaigns, and we're going to be supportive on all your campaign executions. If you need a specific resource to optimize your campaign, please reach out to our team. As well, as very importantly, users are browsing from their search engine. So obviously, the search engine optimization techniques, or search engine-based advertising, all this traffic and also come into our store. And we can optimize that flow for your growth as well. In terms of download conversion, which is happening within our app, we are continuously improving our Detail page optimization tools, as well as we would encourage our developers to manage their own reviews of their apps. So we are providing the way that the developers can prompt their reviews, and allowing their users to write the positive reviews about their apps so that we can also optimize our conversion that way, so that way, we are continuously updating our product. And we believe it's important to provide our updated information on what developers can do with us. So we are planning to provide all this further information through block past webinars and dedicated resources. And now developer portal. As soon as our new features on our platform is available. So I would encourage all developers to visit our developer@samsung.com and stay tuned for more updates. And you can also sign up for our newsletter so that you can get this information available from galaxies
Tony Morelan 18:25
Yeah, in the in the link to sign up for the newsletter is developer samsung.com/newsletter. And I'll be sure to include all of these links that you've mentioned in the in the show notes. So Hyunah, I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to join me on the podcast today. love seeing how the Galaxy Store is evolving and super excited with what's coming up in the near future. So thanks again for joining us.
Hyunah Kwon 18:49
Thanks, Tony for inviting me to the podcast. It was a pleasure.
Tony Morelan 18:54
So Charlotte, getting back to the awards for this year. I know that the pandemic obviously has affected everybody in in many different ways. Can you tell us how it's actually impacting the award show for this year?
Charlotte Allen 19:07
It is in fact in many in person events this year as we know, including our Best of Galaxy Store Awards 2020 award ceremony, which is typically held at SDC. Our developer conference, this year's Best of Galaxy Store Awards 2020 ceremony will be held virtually, and premiered on YouTube on December 9 2020 at 5pm. Pacific Standard Time. So stay tuned to the best Galaxy Store awards page. If you're not a member of our Samsung developer program or Bixby developers, now is a great time to register to get all the updates and features I just shared.
Tony Morelan 19:44
Excellent. So I know in the past, in order to attend the award show you had to attend our conference, which meant you had to come out to the Bay area here and admission into the conference this year though, is that going to be different.
Charlotte Allen 19:55
The exciting thing for me is this year for the first time anyone can and attend and like you shared, the awards are typically held at our conference and even then, sometimes sessions conflict with our award ceremony. But this year, anyone can attend. And so we're really looking forward to having a great crowd attend this year's awards.
Tony Morelan 20:15
Yeah, no, I am excited too, as well. We talked about how the award show has been growing from Originally, it was just the five awards. And now we've expanded we're up over 20 Awards. Can you talk about some of the new categories for this year?
Charlotte Allen 20:28
Yes, this year's awards will acknowledge over 20 winners in five categories. And the categories include best app, this game best the best watch, and we've added Bixby to this year's Best of Galaxy Store Awards. And we're really excited about that.
Tony Morelan 20:44
Yeah. Earlier this year, I did a podcast interview with Roger Kibbe, at Bixby on the Viv lab team. So super excited. They're going to be joining us and in awarding their developers. Yeah, that is very exciting. Talking about the winners. Can you tell me how are winners selected?
Charlotte Allen 21:01
winners are selected by our Galaxy Store team who do a yearly editorial review of all apps published to the Galaxy Store?
Tony Morelan 21:09
What would you say is the biggest challenge with the with the award selection?
Charlotte Allen 21:14
I would say narrowing down the list of winners. The Galaxy Store offers expertly curated quality apps, which means we have a lot of great apps on the Galaxy Store.
Tony Morelan 21:24
Yeah, I know because I've been involved with the with the selection and awarding process. And it is a challenge because you know, we've got a team that goes through all this and it makes their nominations and, and their selection as to who they think should win. And sometimes you know what your favorite app may be different than my favorite app. So we get to battle it out. Yeah, to figure out who is the winner for that award? Yes. So what is it that the Samsung developer program team is doing to help promote the winners,
Charlotte Allen 21:54
winners are featured in Galaxy Store merchandising for the award ceremony, we have a best of Galaxy Store press release that Samsung does. One winner per category is chosen to be featured in that press release. However, winners can write a press release with a quote from Samsung as well. We do post winner developer marketing newsletters, blogs, and podcasts interviews.
Tony Morelan 22:16
Yeah, I'm actually really looking forward to next season in the podcast where I get a chance to interview some of some of these winners for the best of awards. That should be a lot of fun. Now that you and I and our team has been involved with a selection process for the awards. Can you tell me what is your favorite award?
Charlotte Allen 22:36
Hmm, that's a tough one. I would say if I had to choose, I would say that collections, the theme collections and the watch collections because it shows a body of amazing work. Right. And so I think that if I had to choose, I would say that be my favorite. What about you?
Tony Morelan 22:55
You know, my favorite, I think it's the fact that we do recognize those indie developers. So it's the small, you know, new independent designer, that's they've just put together this amazing app. And we're recognizing that. So you don't have to be this big brand, you don't have to have, you know, a large collection, I love the fact that we are awarding those large collections, because it's an amazing, you know, opportunity for us to recognize when a designer has just got this amazing library of work. But I'd love the fact that we also recognize that individual, one key design that just stands out. So you know, you can even be the little developer and we're still going to find Yeah, and then recognize you for your great work. So what advice do you have for developers hoping to be considered for future awards?
Charlotte Allen 23:45
The biggest advice I can share is marketing your work digitally socially, as it drives awareness, it drives, downloads, ratings, and reviews. And if you have not already done so, download the galaxy batch, it supports marketing your ad driving users to the Galaxy Store to download or purchase your app. So my biggest advice is, if you have not posted it to your site, I encourage you to do it today.
Tony Morelan 24:12
Yeah, definitely. And in the reason being is that we need you to show up on our radar. So if you put out a great app, and it's not showing up in our in our analytics of you know, top selling apps or apps that are being downloaded, we're not going to find it. So it's a great way for us to find your app is when you're doing all of that marketing push behind it, then once we see it, then we can dive into a little deeper and see if it's worthy of the award. But yeah, you definitely have to get traction on your app. From a social standpoint, that's a huge way for us to discover your apps. So what's the best way for people to learn more about the Best of Galaxy Store Awards.
Charlotte Allen 24:54
We have a Galaxy Store landing page on our Samsung developer program site. And there, you'll find details about the program updates on the best of Galaxy Store Awards 2020. And highlights from past year's awards, including winner interviews. Yeah.
Tony Morelan 25:09
And as a reminder, that is developer.samsung.com. And from there, you can navigate over to the Galaxy Store awards page, all the links that we were mentioning, and the podcast will be included in the show notes. So you can check there. Can you tell me, are there any upcoming news that you can share that's related to the award show?
Charlotte Allen 25:29
We have some upcoming blogs, we're going to take a look back at some of last year's winners, highlight some of their successes, and really begin promoting the Best of Galaxy Store Awards 2020 as we get near to the virtual award ceremony, and we really can't wait.
Tony Morelan 25:47
Yeah, and one thing I'd like to share is that we are working on a trailer a little teaser for the award show. The trailer will be released exactly 30 days before the award show. So on November 9, we will be releasing our little teaser trailer for the award show. So be sure to stay tuned for that. So Charlotte, thank you very much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing all of the information about the award show. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast.
Charlotte Allen 26:16
Thanks. It's great to be back again.
Tony Morelan 26:18
And just to sign off, this is our final episode of season one of the podcast I hope you all have enjoyed not just this episode, but the prior 13 episodes that we did that make up Season One of the power podcast. We look forward to having you join us next year. We're going to start the new year off with Season Two and we are really excited with the shows that were lining up. And you definitely will be hearing from some of the winners of our Best of Galaxy Store Awards for 2020. So thank you very much.
Outro 26:51
Looking to start creating for Samsung, download the latest tools to code your next app, or get software for designing apps without coding at all. Sell your apps to the world on the Samsung Galaxy Store. Check out developer.samsung.com today and start your journey with Samsung. The POW! Podcast is brought to you by the Samsung Developer Program and produced by Tony Morelan.
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