Getting Started Developing Kindle Fire Apps

Welcome to another Geek Girl Marketing training video. In this video, we're gonna take a look at the basic steps you need to take to start developing applications for Kindle Fire. We'll also take a look at why it's so important to start developing right away. So let's get started. First things first, you can't win if you don't play. First thing you have to do is join Amazon's Mobile App Distribution Program. I'll walk you through the steps on the next slide. So how do you submit your apps? Well, the first thing you need to do is join Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program. Once you've joined that program, you'll be able to access the Mobile App Distribution Portal, which will give you access to your existing applications as well as the ability to submit new ones. You'll also see all the new initiatives and tools that Amazon is providing to its developers to create even better Kindle Fire applications. So why would you want to develop for Kindle Fire? Well, a lot of developers ask me this question. USA Today actually asked itself this question, and what they found was that their Kindle Fire app downloads far exceeded all their other Android tablets combined by almost twice as much. Sounds pretty compelling to me. So here, a company, Localytics, put together a global Android tablet market share diagram. You can see that most of the tablets are in the US, but that of course is changing. But more significantly, the majority of those tablets being sold are Kindle Fire tablets. So it's certainly worth, again, thinking, if I'm going to develop for an Android tablet, which one would I want to develop for? So why do developers and their companies love developing for Kindle Fire? Well, number one, Kindle Fire has a small number of devices to worry about. As a mobile application developer, we're often concerned with the Android development platform because of fragmentation. There's just so many versions to worry about, but Kindle Fire makes that easy. It's also built on Android, so if you know Android, you can start developing for Kindle Fire immediately. It's also got easy peasy APIs for in-app purchasing and mobile ads. They also have gamification integration with GameCircle, allowing you to use leaderboards if you choose to, to help increase engagement in your games and applications. It also has new virtual currency with a concept of coins, allowing users to use coins to purchase your applications. And of course, the most important thing is that it's Eclipse ready. If you know how to use Eclipse, if you have Eclipse already, you can download the tools right inside Eclipse in order to start developing your Kindle Fire applications immediately. So it's time to get started. Take a look at the link below: developer.amazon.com/welcome.html. This will take you to the place where you can download the tools, APIs, and all the resources you need to get started. It even has a tutorial to walk you through building your first Kindle Fire application. So I look forward to seeing you in the forums, and thanks for watching.