Things look a little bit different here at the Distribution Blog. We’ve re-launched and moved it within the Mobile App Distribution Portal to make easier for you to access. If you’re already a blog reader, you know that this is the place to hear the latest news about the Mobile App Distribution Program and Kindle Fire, and that’s not going to change. However, you’ll now be hearing more from our expert technical evangelists and marketing team.

I’m Alex Bowman, and I manage our developer social networking channels (including this developer blog) and many of the other channels that connect us to developers. I’ve been at Amazon for a year and a half, and before, I worked in various roles at BlackBerry. When I’m not looking for the coolest new apps on my Kindle Fire, I’m out scouting for the most delicious cheeseburger in Seattle.

I’ve asked the rest of the team to write a bit about themselves as well:

Mike Hines is our newspaper and magazine specialist, helping periodical developers deploy easily with a great product on Kindle Fire tablets. He joined the Kindle team in 2010, coming from a 13-year stint at Microsoft, doing QA, program, and product management on products like Microsoft Wine Guide and Encarta, as well as some time at an education software start-up. In his spare time, Mike studies political philosophy and enjoys going to Disneyland whenever he gets the chance.

Jeremy Cath works with entertainment app developers focused on providing great visual and auditory experiences on Kindle Fire tablets. Prior to joining Amazon, Jeremy worked at Microsoft for 6 years on the Developer & Platform Evangelism team, and prior to that, he spent a decade developing interactive and online experiences to complement television productions. When he isn’t working, Jeremy can be found riding his Harley (or polishing it, given the Seattle weather).

Jonathan Wise specializes in optimizing productivity, enterprise, and communications apps for Kindle Fire tablets. Prior to joining the Kindle team, Jonathan spent 10 years as a software engineer working on enterprise-scale applications and web technologies, plus 3 years at Microsoft as a Platform Evangelist. When he’s not up to his elbows in Kindles, Jonathan is pursing a master’s degree in Theology and enjoys helping his 3 young kids discover the world.

CJ Frost has been a technical evangelist for Amazon Kindle since the team’s creation. His passion and specialty is bringing great, engaging games to Kindle Fire. A dedicated, console, tablet, and PC gamer, CJ has a 17-year background in software architecture, distributed systems, and enterprise software solutions. Prior to joining the Kindle team, he worked as a Sr. Solutions Architect for Amazon Web Services. Before entering the world of web and gaming, CJ was a police officer and paramedic.

Peter Heinrich is a technical evangelist for Amazon GameCircle. Prior to starting at Amazon, Peter developed PC, console, online, and mobile games. When he’s not thinking about achievements and leaderboards, he’s exploring physics simulated, graphics rendering, and embedded hacking.

Lauren Stark helps to drive our team’s developer outreach, and is a frequent author and tweeter for @AmazonAppDev. Lauren has been at Amazon for 3 years, and prior to working on the Mobile App Distribution team, worked as a buyer for Amazon’s kitchen store. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking and loves to cook, with a keen interest in finding delicious recipes that only rivals her love of finding awesome mobile apps. 

Steve Johnson works closely with the teams developing APIs for the Amazon Mobile App SDK, ensuring they provide great experiences for our developers. In his spare time, Steve restores 1980s arcade machines.

Mudeem Siddiqui spends his time working with developers, helping them to build great apps and succeed with effective monetization strategies. He received his MBA from the University of California, Irvine. Before he joined Amazon, he worked at various start-ups in the video and semi-conductor space. He also is an avid photographer, and his favorite subject is his 8-month-old daughter.

Derek Gebhard also works with developers on building great apps. He’s spent the last 6 months at Amazon, and prior to that, worked on the Windows 8 team at Microsoft. When he’s not working, he’s cheering on sports teams from Detroit.

Sanyu Kiruluta has been a developer experience ninja since 2008. When not working to solve key problems for developers she can be found traveling to remote locales, scuba diving in the deep blue or working on her chakra in a Bikram yoga class.

E-dan Bloch specializes in software development and usability--making sure we develop the right platform and tools, and helping app developers make the most out of them. Prior to joining Amazon, E-dan spent 15 years as a software engineer developing websites, content management systems and working on system integration. E-dan holds an MBA in Finance & Internet Data Systems and enjoys spending his time working on one of his coding pet-projects, listening to metal or electronic music or watching movies.

Lisa Acton is our web store merchandiser. Since she’s been with the Amazon Mobile App Distribution team since the beginning, she has a broad understanding of the Mobile App Distribution Portal and submission process. She’s an avid pinner on Pinterest, and also likes to surprise her co-workers with delicious treats.

Rob Pulciani is the fearless leader of the marketing team. Rob’s only been at Amazon for only three months but been in the app ecosystem for years, and considers himself a “tech junkie”. He was previously at Microsoft for seven years, where he was in the Developer Platform Evangelism organization. Rob is married with two small daughters and one very old dog. His spare time is spent shuttling his daughters between dance, soccer, and yoga (if you know why a six year old needs to focus her chi, please contact him as he’d like to know).

Paul Cutsinger leads the developer relations team at Amazon. Most recently, he ran engineering for Disney's Club Penguin, after spending some time at Microsoft working on projects including Internet Explorer and Windows. Beyond helping developers build amazing apps, Paul is also a toxophilite (a lover of archery).

You may see some other names pop up on occasion, but expect to hear a lot from this team on the latest products and services for app developers, and best practices. We also take your feedback seriously and want to ensure that you find our blog content valuable. Send your blog feedback to mobile-app-marketing@amazon.com.

Today, we announced a new,free A/B Testing service for developers like you, who distribute their app or game through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program. This service was built to help you improve your customer retention and monetization through in-app experimentation. Amazon’s A/B Testing service is easy to integrate, simple to control, and is built on Amazon Web Services. This means you can be up and running in less than a day and trust that the service will scale with your app.

When we set out to buil dan A/B Testing service, we met with developers to learn what they needed most.We discovered that it was something very simple--to better understand customer needs and to be able to react to those needs quickly. Our A/B Testing service provides simple to integrate tools that enable you to continually create and run experiments, view how customers are reacting to these experiments, and release new, improved experiences without writing any more code or resubmitting your game or app.

The service’s benefits include:

Free to Use: our A/B Testing service is free to use for developers distributing their app or game through the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program.

Easy Integration: early partners report that the SDK can be integrated and ready for release in less than a day.

Precise Control: set up experiments and monitor results from the familiar Mobile App Distribution Portal.

Painless Deployment: server-side logic allows you to quickly iterate tests and deploy new, improved experiences to customers without having to resubmit your APK or write any additional client-side code.

Effortless Scaling: built on Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s A/B Testing service lets you focus on building great games and apps instead of architecting scalable back-end services.

With Amazon’s A/B Testing service you no longer need to guess when deciding between different customer experiences.You can evaluate which in-game promotion drives better performance, which button design maximizes customer click-through, or which tutorial offers the highest conversion rate. 

The Amazon A/B Testing service is currently available in beta. Learn more and get started with A/B Testing here.