If you look at our website today you will notice some changes. We are excited to announce the “apprupt Performance Network”, which is an affiliate networks for mobile apps. We are launching this first beta version of the platform, but have been working on the Performance Network for the entire year of 2009.

We wanted to launch the platform before Christmas, but will add a lot more functionality in January. We call this our “unofficial launch”, as not all functionalities are available as of yet– so far you are able to sign up, download and integrate our download tracking library as well as integrate your app into our partner network. Functionalities like adding funds and getting download reports will be available in January.

What is the apprupt Performance Network?

As already mentioned, the Performance Network is basically an affiliate network for mobile apps – as of now we are offering distribution for iPhone apps, but will be adding other platforms in the future.

The Performance Network consists of wide-reaching partner sites (mobile websites as well as apps) that distribute the applications via an “App Store”, which is integrated within the partners existing site. The user sees a pre-selection of relevant apps and app reviews that link to the detail page of the app in the Apple App Store where the app can then be downloaded as usual.

You can find more information on the partner network here. We are proud to say that it consists of some of the most wide-reaching German mobile websites and we plan on extending the network to other countries in 2010.

We call it an “affiliate network” because we distribute apps on a performance basis, meaning developers may integrate their app into the apprupt partner network on a pay per download basis.

Developers pay 0,35 € per brokered download or 30% of the net revenues, depending on which is higher. We think this is a very fair price and there is no risk attached to it, as developers will know up-front how much they pay for one download.

Developers should read this section to get more information or register directly.

Why Do We Think The Performance Network Is Useful?

As also mentioned on this blog before, we think the main problem for developers (and their apps) as well as users regarding a centralized App Store is that they are unable to find each other. If an app is not in the Top 25 or Top 50 of a certain category it basically disappears in the App Store and most probably won’t be discovered by those users that might have downloaded and liked it. Additionally, there are no adequate means for developers to do marketing for their apps.

Besides trying to get some press coverage or the product spreading itself virally, what are the options? There are not many, and those that exist (buying reach/clicks) do not work for the bulk of developers out there, which means they overpay for customer acquisition. We want to change that.

We want to help users find great apps and developers to get to their target group and increase downloads. We also want to give publishers a chance to monetize existing traffic with content that is relevant to their users – and we think we are on the right track with what we have launched today.

We will not be blogging during the Christmas days, but will be back before New Years Eve with some updates. Until then, please take a look at our website, give us your thoughts and feedback in the comments or contact us directly.

And of course, developers as well as publishers: become part of our network!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and great holidays!

We just came across the latest Distimo report, which they produced in collaboration with Skyhook Wireless. The report focuses on location based apps. We have been talking about location before on this blog and the report seems to verify a lot of the assumptions we made. These are some key findings:

• The largest proportion of paid location based applications (57%) can be found on the Apple App Store – Blackberry is at 49% and Anroid at 21%. More than 50% is quite a large percentage considering the amount of apps on the App Store.
• Prices for Maps & Navigation remain stable, despite the launch of Google Maps Navigation, which is free.
• The average price of location based applications on the Apple App Store is $7.34 – it’s at $14.37 on BlackBerry App World.
• The most location based apps are published in the Navigation & Travel category, News & Weather as well as Social. What is interesting is that regarding the Social, Lifestyle and Utilities & Tools category, the most location based app are published on Android (relative to the overall number of apps in that category).

 
Have a look at the report – it is not extensive, but well worth a look. You can download it here.

Seems like Christmas is the time for app developers to step up their PR efforts. This is great, as we find out a lot about how 2009 went for them and what their outlook on 2010 is. Today we read about Shazam and Tapulous, two of the most successful mobile product companies.

Tapulous broke the news that their revenues per month are reaching 1 million US dollars and that they are already profitable. This is an example of a very successful app company, which claims that they (we) are only at the beginning of making money mobile. They see a huge wave of mobile commerce coming and they want to profit from it just like Zynga or Playfish did online. So far the company is earning money through advertising and selling music through its apps. Once users in general become more accustomed to buying virtual goods with their mobile phones, 600 million plays of Tapulous-songs up to today already seem like a great basis for future revenues. Quote Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous: “It’s going to be big and all of a sudden people are going to say, ‘holy cow, where did those guys come from?’”

The second example, Shazam, tells the world that it’s aiming for 100 million users in 2010. It is astounding and impressive to see the user growth the nine year old company has seen since the launch of the Apple App Store. Since then the company has nearly doubled its user base to 50 million, adding 500,000 uses a day as of lately. Moreover, the so far free service seems to have worked out a well working monetization strategy: freemium. They did not give out sales numbers, but as far as the premium app’s (Shazam Encore) ranking on the App Store goes, it seems to be working.

It is great to see more and more examples of app developers that develop an individual strategy for making money with a consistently growing user base while providing value. We are hoping to see a lot more of this in 2010.

The year is going by quickly and still a lot of things are happening these days – especially regarding wrap-ups on 2009 and look-outs for 2010. This is what we found important during the last week:

• AdMob released its metrics report for November, which helps getting some insights on 2009 and thus make assumptions for 2010.

• Morgan Stanley released their “Mobile Internet Report“ – it is an extensive paper, we recommend for everyone who has not read it yet to take the holidays as a chance to at least skim through it. Must read for mobile professionals.

• RedLaser lets us know more about their sales data – interesting for any iPhone developer without a marketing budget

• Android Market now offers 20,000+ apps – does it?

• THE Google Phone is coming – good start into 2010 for Android.

• EVERY online website and every brand will have an (iPhone) app. Latest addition: the wine.com iPhone app

 
Have a great weekend!

We have been wirting a lot on this blog about selling and making money from apps and how the two may or may not be the same. Furthermore we are strong believers in that In-App-Purchase poses a great chance for developers to actually create a business model that works – through upselling, selling virtual goods, selling additional levels, selling additional content etc. As a matter of fact, we did not really just come up with this point of view – many mobile experts view in-app purchase as a huge chance for app monetization and thus for the entire app industry.

But what do phrases like “finally a business model that works” or “a great chance for building a business around apps” actually imply? What about the other main business model around? We know you know what we mean: mobile advertising.

We do not want to argue that mobile advertising is not really working for developers (how could we), but it is pretty obvious that the industry is craving for additional (and alternative) business models. Despite the recent acquisition of AdMob by Google, Mobile Advertising just does not appear to be something that really works for app developers. To prove this, we would have to go deep into numbers which officially are only available to some extend. Additionally, we do not think this model is really broken. But basically, from an app developers perspective, there are only two things he or she should be worried about when using advertising in apps:

• eCPM or effective cost per thousand impressions: if this one sucks – it sucks.
• Fill rate: no matter how high the eCPM achieved on 5% of the traffic, if 95% of the traffic go unadvertised an app developer will have a hard time living from the 5 % actually filled.

 
So is using advertising in your apps a great way for you to make money from your app? If the answer is no (which is the feedback we get from many developers), at least one of the above mentioned points (if not both) doesn’t work out, yet. We know, the reasons could be plentiful (it’s a recession!) and we are hoping for advertising to be(come) a great way of making money for you. But right now, it just doesn’t feel that way, does it? Let us know if we are completely off track here.

Techcrunch has an interesting article up on their site today. The article is about iPhone app company Occipital (this is their Twitter-feed) and their app RedLaser. They claim there will be much more to come from them, but the case of RedLaser is already quite interesting in itself. Regarding numbers, up to now the app has been downloaded more than 750.000 times, bringing in more than a million US-dollars in revenues for them.

Much more interesting though is the way they got there: no marketing spend. Because the product was in the App Store since may 2009, but only started working well with an update in September, the app did not receive a lot of blog reviews or PR either. The founders themselves conclude that the app spread almost exclusively by word-of-mouth, which appears reasonable.

We wanted to share this case with you, as we think this is a rare case of a product simply spreading itself virally – because it is a product that just works and provides utility. But why is this not the case for every app out there that works and provides utility?

In our opinion, the answer is simple: uniqueness. The mentioned Techcrunch article also refers to the early days of the App Store and how things have changed since then. Nowadays, a lot of the apps in the top 25 have a marketing budget, many of them even are brands. So to get attention and compete with other apps, everyone needs a marketing budget. We think that for RedLaser this would not be any different, if they offered an app that was slightly better or slightly different from two to ten other apps. But they really have something unique. The product is great and there were not many other that went into the RedLaser direction when they first came out. Also, from a user perspective regarding a bar code scanning app, there probably isn’t a large grey zone between working and not working. It either works in most of the cases or it doesn’t – so uniqueness is strongly related to “success-of-reading-the-barcode-rate”. In the end, the next four or five apps that offer a related utility, will most probably need marketing to get attention (as of now, a few more apps have been added to the App Store that offer barcode search).

So, congrats to RedLaser and their achievement, we hope to see a lot more coming from them. As a bottom line, stories like the one of RedLaser are not likely to be copied by looking at what they did to promote the app, but rather by looking at the app itself and its positioning among other apps.