[My review of the 12min summary]

This book was better than I expected. A solid four stars for content. Its target audience is somewhat narrow. If you want to make a smartphone app, this is worth the read. Otherwise, skip it.

I expected that the author would extol the virtues of monetizing your users' private data, but he doesn't address that here. He does talk about how important analytics are, so you do have to collect ("anonymized") usage data. That's the data that tells how the app is used. Your goal is to maximize usage. If your app is useful, it will become popular, and you will have money.

The idea of the freemium business model is that you release an app with basic functionality. This has to be sufficiently useful that normal users can use those features alone. You also have a buttload of additional features that would be useful to the more-than-casual users, which they would have to pay for.

FINAL NOTES (quoted from 12min) "In order for your freemium product to take off, you will need to put a strong analytical framework in place. Create a product that appeals to a broad customer base, and track the retention, monetization, engagement, and virality of your product. The data you gather should be used to optimize your product along the way. If you do it right, you will quickly build a large customer base, of which around 5% will convert to regular, paying customers. The larger your customer base, the more money you will make."