The whole app chain in one day

Israel Mobile Summit is the yearly day for apps, games and adtech in Israel. This year it took place on 29 October at Expo Tel Aviv, Pavilion 10, and I went to meet people and see the event. The organisers call it the biggest apps, games and adtech event in the country, with talks, panels, an expo zone and pre-booked one-to-one meetings. Xsolla was the diamond sponsor, and its name was on everything from the entrance board to the lanyards.

The day

The expo floor was busy around the booths. People stood at tall tables, talked in small groups and gathered at the counters. Xsolla's stand had a steady crowd under a banner that read "All the things for mobile game developers".

One thing a panelist said on stage matched what I saw. IMS has grown into an international event, and you can hear many languages in the halls. Credit for that goes to Ofir, the organiser, who brought together so many people who travelled to Tel Aviv for the day. I was glad to meet him at the summit and super glad to see so many people coming. Visiting this event is always exciting.

The people

Most of what I will remember are the conversations between sessions and the new people I met.

Aleph was there representing Twitch, and I was glad to see my Aleph colleagues there too.

The sessions

I followed four sessions and took notes. One line each:

1. "Every Request Counts: Building Resilient Ad-Ops in the Cloud": Oracle's Avi Zabary and Rtbid founder Elad Yosifon on running ad serving in the cloud, from Formula 1 to the risk of sharing infrastructure.
2. "Game Economy Redefined": a panel on direct-to-consumer web shops for games, with speakers from Appcharge, Overwolf (which owns Tebex), Huuuge Games and PayPal, moderated by Playtika.
3. "The New App Growth Playbook": Snapchat's Dor Alaluf on app growth, then "Real Signal vs. Noise: Measuring Real Impact at Peak Times" with Hadar Telem of INCRMNTAL.
4. A closing panel on scaling apps in the AI era. I caught only its final minutes, on what people working alongside AI will need.

One takeaway

I did not plan it this way, but the four sessions covered the chain behind a mobile app. The servers that answer an ad request in milliseconds. The web shop that turns a player into revenue. The channel that finds the user. The measurement that says whether any of it worked.

We usually discuss each link in its own meeting. A one-day summit puts them in one building, and the same people end up next to each other between sessions. That is the part I value most, and the reason I would go again.