No Android users need SwiftKey. In fact, SwiftKey, an
alternative keyboard system for Android-based smartphones, seems
like one of the least-necessary apps in the Android ecosystem.
After all, every smartphone comes with a keyboard and at least
some rudimentary language technology. Yet Swiftkey--a smartphone
keyboard that adapts to how users write and predicts what they want
to say--is the top ranked paid app in Google Play and is also
licensed by top-tier phone makers, including BlackBerry.
SwiftKey
At SXSW this past weekend, I caught up with SwiftKey CMO Joe
Braidwood in the Austin Hilton lobby to find out what if any
traditional marketing the tech company does to get Android users to
pony up $3.99 for a better smartphone keyboard. Answer: not much.
In fact, his trip to SXSW cost more than any media buy he's made --
and is more effective.
SwiftKey is one of many mobile startups that, along with Samsung
and Google, are plying their wares in Austin, Tex., in a bid to
gain to gain traction among early-adopters, tech opinion-makers and
agencies. And like the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,
Apple is nowhere to be seen.
Paid downloads and licensing helped the SwiftKey's revenue reach
seven figures in 2012. SwiftKey's chief competitor Swype was
acquired by communication technology company Nuance in October 2011
for more than $100 million as a comparison.
This is all despite being shut out of Apple's App Store--iPhone users typically spend far more
on apps than Android users--and spending only $20 on promoted
Facebook posts and another "100 quid" on a recent Adwords campaign.
The company's growth can be almost entirely attributed to its
community management, its relationship with Google's mobile team
and embedding itself with the tech community by way of attending
events such as SXSW.
When SwiftKey noticed that one member of its online community
was an especially active commenter on its VIP member board, for
example, Mr. Braidwood hired him away from his job as a panini
waiter to be the company's community manager. Likewise, the company
integrates user suggestions into new iterations of its product.
"We empower everyone among our elite members to feel like
they're really meaningful," Mr. Braidwood said. "They get early
access to everything we build and they get to kick the tires on
everything we build."
In SwiftKey's case, this has meant allowing its users to cut
down on their finger-tapping time by recognizing their language
patterns in various formats, auto-populating text fields
accordingly. When posting to a friend's Facebook wall via an
Android phone, SwiftKey knows what colloquialisms a user is likely
to punch in. Likewise, the keyboard can help users maintain a more
professional tone when drafting an office email. One user said that
whenever he texts his wife, SwiftKey suggests "where are you"
before a single letter is typed.
But it's the first part--SwiftKey not being allowed to bring its
keyboard to the iPhone--that illustrates how Samsung and Google
have used SXSW to engender themselves to the members of the mobile
tech community that Apple has shunned. Samsung and Google--however complex their relationship may
be--have made a point of reaching out to the mobile tech
community and allowing them to improve their ecosystem of products
while Apple has opted to keep its closed.
"What Google did with Android was it allowed you to choose any
keyboard," Mr. Braidwood said. "That's one of the tenets of
[Google's] open philosophy toward its operating system: You
shouldn't control the user experience. And that's where Google
stands directly against what Apple does."