At the same time, the mobile advertising market is booming throughout the region. Research firm Gartner estimates that Western Europe now accounts for 25% of global mobile ad budgets, having more than doubled in size from 2010 to 2011. By 2015, predicts Gartner, Western Europe alone will account for more than $5 billion in mobile ad spend.

Here at Tapjoy we are certainly doing all we can to contribute to that incredible growth by evangelizing the opportunities and educating the market on our unique “Mobile Value Exchange” model. And to accelerate those efforts, we are proud to announce that we recently hired the seasoned ad industry executive Chris Bennett as our new EMEA Sales Director.

Chris brings to Tapjoy extensive commercial media experience gained from both traditional media companies and digital, interactive and mobile businesses. He joins us having worked most recently at Blyk, a European-based mobile media company that works with operators to strengthen and monetize their relationships with subscribers, where for three years he was Director of Media and Business Development. Prior to Blyk he was with Starcom MediaVest in the UK, consulting on digital strategy and operations.

Previously, Chris also worked at Google, where he was responsible for developing commercial relationships with entertainment and media companies through paid search and online display marketing including video and mobile. He also spent time in senior strategy roles within commercial TV and radio businesses.

Chris is married to Maria and is a dad to two boys – Charlie and Josh. He rides bikes (and confesses he has shaved his legs for being aerodynamic!), flies kites, and enjoys being imaginative and experimenting with food. He lives in Surrey, England, and for a long while was a championship hockey player.

Welcome to the team, Chris!

When we launched the Tapjoy Android Fund last summer, we got to put those prediction skills to the test, and we are glad to say that so far, we’re doing pretty well.

So far we’ve brought a whopping total of 130 total apps into the fund, and though most of those are still in development, of the apps that have launched a good number of them have turned out to be quite successful.

Take Overkill, for example. The nitty-gritty first-person shooter game by Craneballs Studios has been downloaded nearly 1 million times since it first launched, having received a user rating in the Market of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Or MachineWorks Northwest’s 3D Hunting: Alaskan Hunt, the “in-your-face” hunting arcade adventure game which has been downloaded more than 1 million times since it first launched.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and we are still aggressively searching for new and cool apps to bring into the fund. If you’re an app developer on iOS, Facebook or other social/mobile platforms and you need help bringing your app over to Android, drop us a line, or fill out our application for acceptance into the program.

If you’re accepted, you’ll benefit not only from our insights and expertise when it comes to building fun, high-engagement apps and games, but you’ll receive large-scale distribution through our performance ad network — which, by the way, now receives 25 million MAUs.

Check out the full press release below for more details.

For Immediate Release

The Tapjoy Android Fund Surpasses 130 Titles Worldwide

As its network grows to 25 million MAUs on Android, Tapjoy becomes one of the largest international publishers of mobile gaming apps 

San Francisco, CA – January 25, 2011 – Tapjoy, Inc. (www.tapjoy.com), a mobile advertising and monetization platform, announced today that its Android Fund has grown to include more than 130 total applications, making Tapjoy one of the largest international publishers of mobile gaming apps. The company also announced that its Android network went from approximately 171,000 total Monthly Active Users in January 2011 to more than 25 million in December.

The rapid growth of Tapjoy’s Android network has helped the company launch several hits from its Android Fund, since the company is able to promote applications to an ever-increasing base of Android users who are eager to discover new and relevant apps. The Tapjoy Android Fund includes such hits as MachineWorks Northwest’s 3D Hunting™: Alaskan Hunt, with more than 1 million total users, and Duke Nukem, which reached the top of the charts for Arcade & Action games; Craneballs Studios’ Overkill, with more than 900,000 users; Making Fun, Inc.’s Santa’s Village, which has 680,000 users; and many more.

Other developers in the fund include Qubyte Interactive, CerebralFix, Sneaky Games, SkyVu, Mambo Studios, Mention Mobile, Digital Harmony, VisionaryX, PixoFactor and many others from throughout the world. More apps will be launching in the coming weeks and months.

“Our goal for the Tapjoy Android Fund was to help enhance the Android ecosystem by bringing great games from Facebook, iOS and other platforms to the Android Market,” said Rob Carroll, Director of Publishing for Tapjoy. “Our fund is unique in that we don’t ask for creative control and we don’t push developers to adopt one strategy over another; we simply identify talented teams and arm them with the tools and resources they need to quickly build their apps and then turn them into top hits.”

The Tapjoy Android Fund offers monetary and discovery support to game developers looking to port existing apps to the Android platform. Developers selected to the program receive large-scale distribution through Tapjoy’s performance-based advertising network, which delivers targeted app recommendations based on a user’s interests. Developers also have the option to leverage Tapjoy’s virtual currency monetization engine, its game state server for virtual economy management, mobile analytics platform and other value-added services.

Much of the fund’s growth has come from international quarters—including Asia and Europe in particular, as Tapjoy has identified numerous high-quality developers in countries throughout those regions. Czech Republic-based Craneballs Studios is a prime example of one such case.

Said Martin Chamrad, co-founder and CEO of Craneballs Studios: “Our games were already very successful on iOS, but with Tapjoy’s help we were able to quickly and easily port them to Android and grow our user base more rapidly than we ever expected. Tapjoy offered sound advice and direction as we built Overkill for Android, but at the same time they let us do our own thing. The end result was a user experience that might just be our most intense yet, and it has paid off handsomely in terms of user growth, engagement and, perhaps most importantly, revenue.”

Applications for acceptance into the Tapjoy Android Fund are considered on a rolling basis. Developers interested in learning more about the program or applying to become part of it should visit www.tapjoy.com/AndroidFund.

About Tapjoy

Tapjoy is a mobile advertising and monetization platform whose unique Mobile Value Exchange™ model allows users to select personalized advertisements with which to engage for virtual currency or premium content.  Tapjoy helps unlock mobile joy by empowering more than 460 million mobile users who choose to watch videos, subscribe to services, install applications and participate in other types of advertisements in exchange for virtual currency they can use in their favorite apps.  Tapjoy’s turnkey in-app advertising platform helps developers acquire cost-effective, high-value new users and monetize their applications, while its powerful advertising marketplace lets brand advertisers reach a global mobile audience spanning more than 10,000 applications. Tapjoy is backed by top-tier investors including J.P.Morgan Asset Management, Rho Ventures, North Bridge Venture Partners, InterWest Partners and D.E. Shaw Ventures. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company also has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London and Tokyo. For more information, please visit www.tapjoy.com.

Tapjoy and the Tapjoy logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Tapjoy, Inc. All third party logos and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

# # #

For some advertisers — particularly those like insurance companies, financial services firms and others with complex products that often require some level of explanation — the ultimate lead is considered a highly-qualified phone call from an interested prospect, which allows the advertiser’s call center agent to walk the prospect through their options and explain how they might benefit by purchasing their product. The challenge for marketers is figuring out how to drive consumers to call and to ensure those that do call are motivated and likely to buy.

Today, we announced a partnership with the call-based performance marketing provider RingRevenue to help advertisers overcome this hurdle. The joint solution allows consumers to earn virtual currency or access premium content through our Mobile Value Exchange(TM) when they make purchases from in-exchange advertisers or conduct qualified phone engagements with participating advertisers.

The solution has been in use already by insurance goliath Allstate, and the results are impressive.

The way it works is that if you’re within our ad exchange and tap on an ad from an advertiser that has signed up for the program, you’ll be presented with the option to directly dial the company’s call center and be directed to an agent in order to complete the qualifying action, whether making a purchase, getting a quote for a service, or completing a customer survey. Once the action has been completed, the user gets immediate access to their reward currency or premium content.

This is one of those offerings that, although technically difficult to implement, is simple to complete  and makes complete sense from both the advertiser and consumer perspective. These transactions are taking place on smartphones, after all, which, the last time we checked, could still be used as phones. Therefore it creates a seamless experience between an ad that is of interest to the consumer and an advertiser who is willing to reward that consumer for their intent and self-selection.

You can read more details about it at a case study published here.

On January 19th, Tapjoy’s Director of Publishing, Rob Carroll, will be heading north to Vancouver, Canada to host our first workshop of the year!

Rob Carroll knows emerging markets and has been on the forefront of social media and mobile platform race for the past several years. Be it capitalizing on the Facebook platform or understanding how to be successful in the mobile market, he is able to deliver hard-hitting insights from years of seeing what works and what doesn’t.

During our workshop, he’ll share some of those insights for what he sees becoming the Next Big Thing- Android. Come listen to top things developers need to be doing now to fully capitalize on this untapped market.

We’re giving all RSVP attendees 2 free drinks and food. Hope to see you there as we provide valuable insights guaranteed to make your business grow stronger.

Date: Thursday, January 19

Time: 6:00 PM

Where: 131 Water Kitchen & Bar, Vancouver

Of course, our growth is not limited to the executive ranks. Throughout 2011 we’ve been hiring new people and opening new offices throughout the world, from New York and Los Angeles to Chicago and Atlanta and as far away as London, Tokyo and Seoul. We’ve added great new hires that touch every corner of the company – from sales and business development to marketing and analytics, product development and engineering, accounting, finance, legal and more – and it is these new hires that contribute just as much value (if not more!) than the top execs.

With all that growth comes the necessity to properly manage it, and so we’ve made several recent changes to our organizational structure that allow people to take on greater responsibility.

One particularly important change is the promotion of Linda Tong from VP of Products to Chief Product Officer. Linda is a wickedly smart and intensely focused product lead whose vision and passion have been a driving force behind many of Tapjoy’s product innovations since she joined the company more than a year ago. With a degree from Yale University and product marketing experience at Google working on Chrome and Android, Linda now takes the reigns of our product team to make sure they keep churning out the innovative tools and features that developers, advertisers and consumers have all come to expect from us.

In other developments, Paul Longhenry, our VP of Business Development, is now also responsible for Asia Pacific, managing each of the GM’s covering Asian countries. Al Wood, meanwhile, was given the responsibility of managing our growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in addition to his CFO duties. Chris Akhavan, previously our VP of Developer Partnerships, has taken on the additional responsibility of overseeing all publishing programs and content partnerships and was given the new title of VP and GM, Partnerships and Strategic Operations. Similarly, Christine Lee was promoted from VP, Developer Relations, to VP and GM, Partner Relations.

Today, we are up to about 130 employees worldwide, but we’re not done yet—not even close. We are still hiring as quickly as we feasibly can, and we plan to again double the size of our team next year. We are currently looking for talented and passionate people in sales, marketing, product development, engineering, finance, customer service and other areas of the company. If you’re interested in joining us, check out our current job listings at JobScore.

Congrats to all of those who’ve been promoted and welcome aboard to all of those who have joined recently. We look forward to an exciting year ahead!

Tapjoy and the Tapjoy logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Tapjoy, Inc. All third party logos and trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

In Tapjoy’s world, there’s no shortage of data to look at. We have access to a plethora of data on mobile app consumption and user behaviors that illuminate the trends driving the new mobile app economy. We know what apps people are downloading, which platforms they’re downloading them on, how they interact with those apps, and much more.

The challenge is splicing and dicing the data in the right way to gain valuable new insights.  To heed Einstein’s advice, we seek to count the things that count – the right KPIs and industry figures – while making sure to maintain good data integrity and count the numbers correctly.

That is why we recently hired Phil O’Neill as our new Head of Analytics. Phil comes to us having served as the lead analytics director at a number of advertising companies, including Advertising.com, where he managed a high-impact team of analysts engaged in the creation of next-generation algorithms for AdLearn 5.0, the company’s revenue maximizing, ad-selection, optimization software. He also served as Director of Network Analytics at Videoegg, the online ad network that rebranded itself as Say Media, where he helped develop an ad creative optimization process and establish a market research program.

A serious mathematician by training (he received his BS in Applied Mathematics from the University of Chicago and an MBA with a concentration in Quantitative Finance from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley), Phil started his career as an actuary with Coopers & Lybrand in Chicago and later served as a math teacher in the United States Peace Corps, volunteering in Blantyre, Milawai.

We warmly welcome Phil to the Tapjoy team and look forward to having him build out his unit of business analysts. In the days ahead, you can look for special industry reports from Phil and his team sharing insights they glean from our wealth of consumer data. No doubt Phil will bring a deep level of analytical rigor that will help our overall business decision-making, but more importantly, he’ll make sure that we are counting what really counts.

This party was the celebration of many months of hard work to create something that we feel stands to shakeup the entire industry, if not the world. Our new “personal app marketplace” represents a whole new way of discovering, sharing and engaging in mobile apps, and we couldn’t be prouder of the version you see now at Tapjoy.com. Of course, there’s still lots of work to do, and the months ahead figure to be just as busy as the ones behind, but the official launch and last week’s party helped us realize just how far we’ve come and how much excitement there is for what we’re doing.

Check out a sampling of the pics below, and head on over to Flickr for even more.

The new Tapjoy marketplace delivers customized app recommendations based on your likes and dislikes, what apps you’re currently using, what apps your friends are using, and other factors that predict which apps you’ll enjoy the most. You can also engage deeper in your favorite apps via Tapjoy’s Mobile Value Exchange™, our unique approach to mobile advertising that allows you to earn virtual currency or acquire premium content in exchange for watching personalized, user-selected advertisements.

We think there’s a lot to love about the new Tapjoy – the personalized app recommendations, the social sharing and joint discovery, the editorial reviews and staff picks, the app dashboard. But it doesn’t matter what we think. We want to hear from you. Learn more in the brief video below, and then head over to www.Tapjoy.com. Ideally you will do so on your smartphone or tablet browser, as you’ll be able to personalize your experience by linking your device directly to your account.

Once you’ve done that, let us know what you think. We feel this is an exciting step towards making app discovery easier, faster and more personal for everyone, and we hope that once you take the new Tapjoy App Marketplace for a test drive, you’ll feel the same way. Please leave your comments below, or drop us a line at info@tapjoy.com.

BEST OVERALL: John Gronberg – PM

MOST UNIQUE: Brian Sapp – Sr. Manager, Developer Partnerships

FUNNIEST: Christine Lee – VP, Developer Relations

CREEPIEST: Allison Bieller – Receptionist/Admin 

Share your company party photos with us. Email them to partners@tapjoy.com and we’ll share them on our Facebook page.

“Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts.” — Paul Rand

So then what is the Conceptual Foundations of Art? Come found out at Tapjoy’s thought leadership series #2 this October 27th at the beautiful French Parlor in the Palace Hotel! And of course, food and drinks will be provided. We’ve invited CEO and Founder of Concept Art House, James Zhang, to share his knowledge regarding social and mobile art. This is an exclusive, invite-only event so please contact sunny@tapjoy.com to RSVP.

1. Introduction
2. Value of art in social/mobile games
3. How art has evolved
4. What you can do: Getting the most out of your art team and the most value out of your contractors, developers or vendors