Free Mobile Apps as Promotional Tool?

[jkgourmet]

I don't know the answer to this, but I can tell you that virtually every app that I've downloaded to my iTouch that gives me a bunch of advertisements gets deleted very quickly. I keep a few of the freebie games apps that contain advertisements on it for my husband to play with on airplanes so he doesn't get too bored.


Maybe it's a pet peeve with me - I use TIVO when I watch TV so I can blast through the ads. And I get aggravated when I want to watch some video (usually news) that makes me sit through commercials before I get to the video.

I've also noticed that I don't buy things when I'm using the iTouch. I wait until I can get to a laptop. I may search for things, but putting in the credit card number, shipping address, etc. etc. is just too much of a pain with those little tiny keypads. And the .mobi sites don't show all the info about the product very easily (amazon is where I noticed that).

But I will be interested to see where this is going to go. Thanks for sharing it with us!

[jkgourmet]

$2.99 = sure I'd pay that (and have). I had no idea of the price from your OP.

Doesn't itunes show how many times an app has been downloaded? At least they show how many times this week, right? You could figure out the stats from that, couldnt' you?
they have separate list for most popular free and most popular paid.

[Baggs]

$8000 - $10000 (from the development costs) would buy you a lot of advertising if your only/main goal is to promote a site or product.

I can see how this might pay back though - for example there is a new app that photoshop.com have release that lets improves the iphone camera experience and lets iphone users upload and manipulate photos. The app is free, and the basic service is free, but I am sure they will make back development costs when people start paying for the premium features.