The print version of the book, which Rovio published last year, goes by the same title, but the app is “not just a book,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Angry Birds CMO, to a crowd of people that included not just press and book fair attendees but also teenagers and children wearing Angry Birds sweatshirts. “We took the content from the book, 41 egg recipes, but didn’t want to just take the book, make a PDF and sell it to people. We actually made it a lot more interactive.”

“Bad Piggies’ Best Egg Recipes” is on sale in the iTunes store for an introductory price of $0.99 or €0.69 (an Android version is expected soon). The app includes step-by-step photo instructions, an egg timer and photos of the finished dishes. Users can also upload their own pictures of the recipes they make. A Chinese-language version of the app, featuring some additional recipes and photos, will be available in the Chinese app store soon.

“Look at the implications of Rovio getting into the book business,” Vesterbacka said. “With ‘Angry Birds’ the game, we have built the biggest distribution format on the planet, with more than 1 billion downloads. For us, it’s very, very easy and very fast to cross-promote the book in all our games.”

“We’re not looking thousands or tens of thousands of downloads,” he continued, “we’re looking for millions of downloads of this book…We’re going for massive, massive volume.”

On pricing, he said, “there’s no reason why you should price book applications any differently [from other kinds of apps]. There’s no reason why something should cost more just because it happened to be a book before it turned up on one of these digital platforms.” So the app is $0.99 for now — it will later go up to $4.99 — while the print version of “Best Egg Recipes” is $9.99 on Amazon.

Here’s a short video of the app demo at Rovio’s stand at Frankfurt.

Stalbow, who will continue to be based in Los Angeles, reports to Rovio CEO Mikael Hed as does Vesterbacka, who is Rovio’s Mighty Eagle and has been its ambassador to the U.S.

Much of Stalbow’s mission at Rovio will be similar to his role at Fox: developing partnerships but this time the target is the entertainment industry. Stalbow told me by phone from Helsinki that he’ll also be looking for video animation distribution channels to further Rovio’s plans to grow the franchise beyond games, keying off interest in video shorts on YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) that suggests a potentially valuable audience. (His portfolio doesn’t directly include the Angry Birds movie in development but he expects to work with that team.) He’s also be looking for ways to piggyback on the current success of Angry Birds to develop new revenue streams.

Stalbow explained the move: “They’ve recently bought an animation studio in Finland, and they’ve got some aggressive plans around video. For me, this is just a really exciting opportunity to work with a super-fast growing property. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

While Angry Birds Rio — with more than 65 million downloads and a heavy News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) marketing campaign — got the most attention, Stalbow led other recent mobile efforts at Fox that stand out including the preload deal to put Avatar on Samsung and the development of app Glee Karaoke.

He insists that this is not a reflection on the direction of mobile at Fox, which has seen more than its share of ups and downs. A Fox spokesperson said: “We wish Andrew the best and look forward to continuing to work with him as part of our incredibly successful partnership with Rovio. We have no announcements to make regarding a replacement at this time, but remain very committed to extending Fox’s leading TV and film content to mobile platforms and will continue to do so in the future.”

Peter Vesterbacka, the “Mighty Eagle” who oversees marketing and business development for Rovio, said that the developer has been in discussions with Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) to distribute the volume. His comments were made during a presentation at the Open Mobile Summit in London today.

He told mocoNews that Rovio decided to self-publish the volume after discussions with traditional publishers quickly broke down: “They offered to help us make the book, in exchange for 90 percent revenue share,” he said. “It was a short discussion.” By self-publishing, Vesterbacka says Rovio will net 90 percent on sales of the volume.

It may seem to some that Rovio is spreading itself too thin — remember that “peanut butter memo” at Yahoo? (NSDQ: YHOO) — but it turns out that despite how wildly popular Angry Birds is, it’s not making as much money as you would think.

Vesterbacka says that Angry Birds is on course to clock up 1.2 billion hours of usage in the U.S., which he pointed out was more than the time that Americans will watch TV: one billion hours. “Yet we are not even making three percent of their revenues from advertising, so we have a long way to go. It’s still very hard to sell mobile advertising.”

Rovio has so far been quiet on how much of their overall revenue today is coming from non-gaming activities, but Vesterbacka says it’s substantial: “It’s not a hobby,” he said. “It’s not like Apple TV. We have sold three million of these [holding up his plush-toy-keychain] and we have made a lot of money.” He also pointed out that Rovio has sold 20-30 million official t-shirts. “We can make a lot of money selling toys and t-shirts.”

Of course, books are only one extension of Rovio’s brand: there have been dozens more, in the form of t-shirts, plush toys, phone accessories and even earings. As Vesterbacka repeatedly said today, Rovio is not a mobile gaming company, but a major entertainment brand:

“It’s more than games.” He cited last week’s purchase of Finnish animation studio Kombo (financial terms undisclosed), as an example of how it will invest into new areas.

“It’s pretty obvious what we are doing there. We’re getting serious about animation.” He says that the animation videos that Rovio has put on YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) have had 120 million views to date. “We will make more, and what do you know? One day we will make a movie.”

“It’s an example of what you can do starting from mobile. We’re one of the first to do that but you can expect other brands emerging from mobile and going to other places.”

China. It’s not often that you hear companies celebrating knock-offs of their hard-won branding success, but Vesterbacka takes the view that copying is the sincerest form of flattery — and a forecast for the company’s potential in the market. “We’d much rather sell and officially license products there, but if no one copied us that would mean that nobody cares,” he said. “Next year, our ambition is to be the most copied brand in China because that would mean we are the leading entertainment brand there.”

He repeatedly emphasized that China is “extremely important” to Rovio. “Our ambition is to have 100 million downloads of our game in that market this year.” The main route to cracking China, he said, is to build custom versions of Rovio’s games for that market.

“We are in the top three brands in China already,” he said. “If you walk into stores, you see Disney (NYSE: DIS), Hello Kitty and Angry Birds.”

The milestone comes alongside news Rovio has 35 million downloads of Angry Birds Rio, a number that was a delight to Vesterbacka’s co-panelist at the conference, Fox Digital Entertainment’s Andrew Stalbow. Versterbacka told paidContent’s Staci Kramer than Rovio has said no to “lots of weird stuff” pitched by entertainment companies and studios hoping to piggyback on perhaps the hottest title in mobile gaming, but when Fox approached Rovio with a plan to link the movie Rio–an animated feature film about a pair of love birds traveling to Rio de Janiero–it made sense: the movie was about birds, people love the Angry Birds, and so Rovio could link its flagship title to something that people wouldn’t find offensive or strange.

From Fox’s perspective, it was a no-brainer to try and get a way into Angry Birds. “We’re a big media company that had an opportunity to do something in a way we couldn’t do ourselves,” Stalbow said. He expressed great admiration for how Rovio turned its most heavily trafficked page–the restart screen that pops up after you fail to complete a level–and found ways to insert ads and other forms of marketing that were unobtrusive and relevant to users.

Obviously, a Super Bowl commercial (aired on Fox) promoting the app and the movie didn’t hurt. But if Fox and Rovio had gotten the experience wrong, they would have heard about it, Stalbow said.

Vesterbacka thinks the growth of mobile platforms means that the next “entertainment franchises will emerge first on mobile,” he said, pointing out that quite a large company was built on the back of a simple black-and-white cartoon about a mouse long ago.

Albert Wenger, Union Square Ventures; Chrystia Freeland, Editor, Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) Digital; and Ben Jones, Vice President, Mobile, Zynga join an already strong roster including Bob Bowman, CEO, MLB Advanced Media; Mike Kelley, CEO, The Weather Channel; Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle, Rovio; Sara Öhrvall, Director of Global Research & Development, Bonnie; Andrew Stalbow, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Fox Digital Entertainment; Evan Harrison, Former President of Digital & EVP, *Clear Channel* Radio; Are Traasdahl, CEO of startup Tapad and founder of Thumbplay… With more to come.

Register now

If you’re interested in sponsoring paidContent Mobile: Platform Power, contact our ad department at advertising AT contentnext.com.

Our list of confirmed speakers so far:

»  Brian Alvey, President & Founder, Crowd Fusion
»  Bob Bowman, CEO, MLB Advanced Media
»  Walt Doyle, CEO, WHERE
»  Chrystia Freeland, Editor, Thomson Reuters Digital
»  Evan Harrison, Former President of Digital & EVP, *Clear Channel* Radio
»  Fran Hauser, President of Digital for *Time* Inc.’s Style & Entertainment and Lifestyle Groups
»  Ben Jones, Vice President, Mobile, Zynga
»  Mike Kelley, CEO, The Weather Channel
»  Sara Öhrvall, Director of Global Research & Development, Bonnier
»  Shiven Ramji, Vice President, Mobile Media and Advertiser Products, The Nielsen Company
»  Colleen Fahey Rush, EVP & Chief Research Officer, MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA).
»  Andrew Stalbow, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Fox Digital Entertainment
»  Are Traasdahl, CEO of startup Tapad and founder of Thumbplay.
»  Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle, Rovio
»  Albert Wenger, Union Square Ventures

Also joining us, Walt Doyle, CEO of WHERE, the location-services company eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) acquired this week for a reported $135 million.

They are among the newest additions to a full day of energetic discussion at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea.. Take a look at what we have planned for the day so far on our agenda page. Other sessions include Q&As with Bob Bowman, CEO, MLB Advanced Media; Mike Kelley, CEO, The Weather Channel; research about connected devices in the tablet age with Shiven Ramji, Vice President, Mobile Media and Advertiser Products, The Nielsen Company and insights into mobile use from Colleen Fahey Rush, EVP & Chief Research Officer, MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA).

Stay tuned as we’ll announce even more speakers and agenda details in the coming weeks but don’t wait to sign up.

Register now to take advantage of the early rate of $495.

If you’re interested in sponsoring paidContent Mobile: Platform Power, contact our ad department at advertising AT contentnext.com.

Our list of confirmed speakers so far:

»  Brian Alvey, President & Founder, Crowd Fusion
»  Bob Bowman, CEO, MLB Advanced Media
»  Walt Doyle, CEO, WHERE
»  Evan Harrison, Former President of Digital & EVP, *Clear Channel* Radio
»  Fran Hauser, President of Digital for *Time* Inc.’s Style & Entertainment and Lifestyle Groups
»  Mike Kelley, CEO, The Weather Channel
»  Sara Öhrvall, Director of Global Research & Development, Bonnier
»  Shiven Ramji, Vice President, Mobile Media and Advertiser Products, The Nielsen Company
»  Colleen Fahey Rush, EVP & Chief Research Officer, MTV Networks.
»  Andrew Stalbow, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Fox Digital Entertainment
»  Are Traasdahl, CEO of startup Tapad and founder of Thumbplay.
»  Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle, Rovio