2013 Buzztouch Year in Review We've come along way since New Year's Day 2013 and looking back on some of the high points, low points, and fun points is appropriate. Fun Stats for 2013: 59,000 New Buzztouch Users...app building is here to stay. 23 Backend Hardware Failures...99.9% uptime is tougher than it sounds. 37,000 New Buzztouch Projects...not everyone creates apps. 465,000 New Screens in Projects...that's a few maps and menus! 36 David Nervous Breakdowns...he needs therapy at least three times a month. 48,000 Forum Comments...that's some serious chatter. 8 New Buzztouch Teammates...this isn't possible without these folks! 59,000 BTU Quiz Results...looks like we're all eager to learn. 389,000,000 Device API Requests...million, that's alot of refreshes! 1,000 Unimplemented Ideas...at least this many. We'll get to them eventually. 4,000 Unique Device Models used the API...Android fragmentation anyone! 48 User Contributed How To's...thank the top 25 folks, they work hard on this. 655,000 Unique site visitors...Half a million folks saw Tim's face on the homepage :-) 258 Unique Countries...Visitors from countries we never new existed! Highs: Buzztouch Plugins: The Buzztouch Plugin Market grew significantly in 2013. Adding the self serve option for developers, which allowed them to submit their creations without approval, increased the number of available plugins dramatically. There are now nearly 100 free and paid plugins available in the market and the list continues to grow. Buzztouch Membership: We introduced the Buzztouch Guest vs Member concept this year in an effort to simplify the offering, offer more to members of our community willing to help us pay the bills, and to better ensure the long term existance of Buzztouch itself. Buzztouch Members continue to be our focus and we look forward to growing the member benefit list in 2014. Buzztouch Events: There were more than 70 online and in person Buzztouch Events in 2013, including the first ever BuzzCon in April in St. Louis. The first ever international Buzztouch event happend in 2013. BuzzDay Oxford was amazing! If you haven't made an in-person event, find the time, it's super fun. BuzzCon: The first ever BuzzCon was held in St. Louis in 2013 and it was a huge success. Nearly every attendee is still an important part of the Buzztouch Community. BuzzCon for 2014 will be in Las Vegas and all are welcome to this free, fun, and informative event. Mark Saturday April 26, 2014 on your calendar if you haven't already. SDK Partners: We created strong relationships with nearly two dozen SDK Partners that help us all make higher quality apps. In almost all cases it's best to include one or more of these powerful SDK's in your apps. Buzztouch Blog: We introduced the Buzztouch Blog midway through the year and continue to add entertaining and meaningful content. If you don't follow the BT Blog, you're missing out. Buzztouch Developers: We began coordinating a list Buzztouch Developers and look forward to helping them find profitable opportunities both inside and outside of the Buzztouch Community. Be sure to get on the Buzztouch Developer's list if you're interested in stepping it up a notch. Buzztouch CodeCamp: We announced Buzztouch CodeCamp 2014 in the last quarter of 2013 and look forward to providing meaningful training to some serious ninja's. This 5 day intensive program will happen the week preceding BuzzCon in Las Vegas. Team: Buzztouch added 8 new team members in 2013 and their work represented the biggest steps forward this year. A larger team did introduce new challenges but there is no doubt that few of the highlights this year would have been possible without the tremendous support of the Buzztouch Leadership Team. If you bump into one of these faces, extend a giant thanks, Buzztouch would not be possible without them. Top 25: The Buzztouch Top 25 list morphed and changed throughout the year but bye-and-large it's the same names doing the same great work. It's easy to underestimate how important these members of our community are but rest assured, they are appreciated by a very large number of people. Be sure to give a shout out the next time you see a Top 25'er re-post the same answer to the same question, to solve the same types of problems site visitors run into over and over. Helping newcomers get going in the world of app making is no easy task! Lows: We made progress on some other fronts too, but not as much as we hoped. The Plugin Market still needs a re-design. The latest Buzztouch Core for Android and iOS have some yet-to-be-worked-out issues. The Self Hosted package needs an auto-update process engineered and implemented. We ran into some nefarious characters in our community this year and we're working on ways to prevent this in the future. There are countless other to-do's lingering around that we'll get to eventually. The single most important topic to resolve as we move into 2014 is the process (or lack of) that we use to track changes, updates, fixes, and bugs related to all the various working parts of Buzztouch. We've already begun to work these improvements out and look forward to great gains early in 2014. Overall, 2013 has been an exciting and successful year. We're still learning to evolve with the fast paced mobile development ecosystem, learning how to accept offers to help from eager community members, and we're continuing to learn how to better help members of our community produce higher quality apps. We can't thank our valued Buzztouch Members enough for their continued support and we look forward to an eventful 2014. On behalf of the entire Buzztouch Team, we wish you a happy, safe, and prosperous new year. 2014's gonna rock! David Book buzztouch.com

Here's to 2014!

Happy New Year to all Joe Sprott Bodacious Media Melbourne, FL United States

Those are some interesting facts. No doubt 2013 has been a very productive year for all of us. Here's to 2014 being even better. Happy New Years all! -tM

Amazing 2013! Here's to an even bigger and better 2014. All the best to the Buzztouch community.

Thanks David and the BT team for your tireless efforts in 2013, take a few days off! Only an hour or so away from the new year here in Oz so off to find a party to rock in 2014! Wish you all a very productive and prosperous Buzztouch 2014!

Only 36 Nervous breakdowns? It *HAS* been a good year. :) Cheers! -- Smug

To a prosperous 2014. Thank you Buzztouch

Buzztouch is becoming a way of life for me and I wouldn't want it any other way. In 2013, I've published 17 Android apps with this site and seen my first couple of hundreds of dollars from them. So thank you David Book, and thanks to all the members of this site too. Here's to the better and more prosperous New 2014!

Happy New Years BT. Those are some great stats! Definitely those lows weren't even noticeable in my opinion. Up up and away in 2014!! Thanks for all Buzztouch Crew :)

Happy New Year to all. Thank you David and the Buzztouch team. Thank you to all of the forum participants who have walked me through to tough spots. Can't wait to see what 2014 holds for us all. Dave

"The Plugin Market still needs a re-design."... and more Android Plugins to match the iOS counterpart. Thanks David for starting BuzzTouch in the first place and Thanks to BuzzTouch Team and Community members for supporting.

Cheers! Tim

Wow! You've been busy David. I appreciate BT Ben more now. Happy New Year! And a prosperous one.

Thank you David for making 2013 great! Looking forward to BT v.2014.

Happy New Year Buzztouch! Mike

2014 certainly is going to rock!!! :-)) Big thanks to David and the BT team! So grateful!! Derval

36 Nervous Breakdowns is almost twice as many as Mick and Keith allowed for. I'll send some Mothers Little Helpers when the next one occurs... Thanks to all the BT Gang for all the great stuff in 2013!

Bonne Année 2014! Buzztouch, you are just FORMIDABLE! Farcat

Thank YOU! David you are an amazing man and I am so uber proud to call you a friend! Buzztouch is definitely a big part of my life and I see great things coming and so excited to be a part of it. Happy New Year Everyone. I personally want also thank all the husbands/wives/partners and families of people addicted to Buzztouch. Without them we would not be here! Wishing everyone a safe as VERY PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR! 2014 HERE WE COME!!!!!! ((((((HUGS))))) Sheri

Wow, 2013 was a productive year! I want to congratulate David and the BT Team for their amazing job keeping this all running. Jake

So happy to have found BT- thanks to David and the whole team, and especially the community! Like Derval, I am grateful!! =) Happy 2014 to all

Yeehaw! :-) -- Niraj

Thanks to all the BT team for an awesome year! Of course, a special any huge thanks to David. Wish all of you a great 2014. Thanks again, --Pancho.

That was indeed the year that was. The year David, Trish and I got robbed at a hack-a-thon. Enjoy tonight, stay safe, stay warm and let's code for a better future. Remember all, it's just a ride and it's a better ride for knowing all of you. Slainte!

happy new Year, almost here. It's been a really tough year in Portugal, but BT has definitely changed my life for better and helped getting through this crises. Being able to be at St. Louis and Oxford was super cool and made fantastic friends there, and virtual friends here. Still waiting for Mr. & Mrs. MacApple to come out to Portugal for a great (more or less great) champions final. Cheers to all and thanks for your support. Miguel

Happy profitable New Year to all.

Thank you so much for what you've done David. Buzztouch is really great thanks to you. If you didn't devote your blood, sweat and plane tickets for Buzztouch, many wouldn't be here including me. I will always remember when you sent me the surprise email stating you we're coming to Oxford. Fantastic. Hope to see ya soon!

@ MadRod Happy days indeed my friend. Highlights of the year include my scarf, you get my email about wearing it? Compliments as well. So many good folk on this thread that like family now 2 hrs to the bells in UK. Where would we all be without the greatest Book we have opened.

Keep up the great work. I hope to make it out to Buzzcon 14. I'm only a few hours from Vegas.

@First Run Publishing There is no 'hope' there is only 'do'!

Happy New Year everybody! 23 hardware failures that were noticed by just about no one...that's pretty impressive. Great job, David, at keeping the backend up and humming! Can't say enough about David, the leadership team, and just about every member of the Buzztouch community. You all simply ROCK! Mark

Thanks Mark, Happy New Year!

Happy new year to you @David and the whole buzztouch community. Looking forward to the next 12 months

I ended up with the flu over the holidays (yuck), but woke up today feeling great. I take that as an omen to say 2014 is here and it's going to be a great year! 2013 was certainly an amazing one. When I look back at where I was a year ago, it's incredible how far I've come. And that's thanks to Buzztouch and this incredible community. No clue what 2014 will bring, but it should be all good things. And that is exciting. Thank you David, the rest of the team, and especially all the wonderful people on this forum.

The new Plugin architecture is simply awesome. Then David hit a 2nd home run with the raw JSON capability to allow for easy customization. At a technical level, I am still amazed at how well it was done. Hat scraping on the ground with a deep bow, -- Niraj

Here we go for another great year of Buzztouch...thanks to all for the support!

Still waiting for the 2014 Buzztouch secret!

So last year I predicted 2013 would be the year of the plugins. With 95 and counting now in the market, I call that a successful prediction. 2014 I predict will be the year of growth. I think Buzztouch will really come into its own, which will bring challenges of its own.

Good stuff David! LA

Sweet looking forward to 2014

Late reply sorry. Congratulations to buzztouch for all of the accomplishments, bumps, advancements, support, and dedication to us. I -know- without a doubt in my mind buzztouch will become the next wordpress for apps, I know it. You don't need me to tell you you are doing a great job, just know that we are all a support chain, so David, or any other BT Leader, if you're overworked, stressed, or just need to talk, we are all here for you guys. Stoked to see what the next year will bring, and hope that we make many many more friends and family on the way. Cheers, David

2013 was great, but I am sure 2014 is going to be even more awesome! Looking forward to seeing at what the future brings for Buzztouch this year <3

@chris1... I agree that you made the correct prediction for 2013. For 2014, I believe this will be the year of the addons. I won't touch on this. A few may know what this is, but not many. I think by the end of the year, it's likely to see an AddOn market. Also, 2013 was a year of good communications. Buzztouch held the first BuzzCon, I held 8 Oxford meetups and of course BuzzDay Oxford. I hope that this will continue to flourish during 2014, with even more events. MrVanBeveren will be hosting the first real event of the year, and I'll be in a dismal second place with my regular Oxford meetups. I only hope our community can maintain this, and I'll be more than happy to support it.

@Thomas an AddOn market? @MrBV BT the wordpress for Apps? Predictions or spoilers leaked by Edward Snowden, info for only Level 7 developers (ref Marvels Shield)? Dang I'm still a minion in development. LOL

Lol it's okay Ed. I'm out of the loop with you! :)