Comments on: 54,805 reasons not to be Amazon’s free app of the day http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/ Sat, 25 May 2013 14:22:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: C. Michaels http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644798 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:42:24 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644798 I wholeheartedly disagree. Lets look at what was gained and lost by the players in this little drama.

_Amazon_: An unknown sum of people, presumably well more than 101k, looked at the Amazon app store that day to see what the free app was. Perhaps a fraction of those were new to the Amazon app store so they gained some market share.

_Shifting Jelly_: Their download count jumped by *101,491*! They gained 233 reviews! Show of hands, how many of us, lacking any other details use download count and reviews as a rough gauge of whether an app is worth/safe to download?

What was lost? Presumably some future revenue as some of the people who may have purchased the app now have it for free. But what’s conspicuously left out of this article is this quote:

“To add insult to injury Pocket Casts relies on a server to parse podcast feeds (allowing instant updates on your phone), and all these new users forced us to buy more hardware just to meet demand. Hardware that we are going to have to support indefinitely at our own cost.”

They *choose* to give the app away for free *knowing* that there would be additional support costs involved. Shifting Jelly is bitter that they made a poor business decision and are trying to Shift (pun intended) the blame to Amazon.

]]> By: Matt Steed http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644513 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:49:04 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644513 I thought Amazon was going to give developers a percentage of the list price when they decided to discount it or offer it for free?

]]> By: JAy. http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644498 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:52:59 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644498 Sadly, I have to say that the problem with the ShiftyJelly (or whatever they call themselves) app is not that it was free for a day, but that it didn’t do anything that free apps could do. I actually downloaded it when it was free. I tried it out. I went back to the Google Listen app from Google Labs because it worked better for me.

They can complain all they want that Amazon didn’t help them, but in reality they didn’t help themselves by not having a unique, r even slightly special, app.

]]> By: Alok http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644476 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:52:59 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644476 I have been reading this story covered on several websites and if it is a marketing ploy, it worked. Although, I don’t think it deserved this much attention. Whether you do a freebie promo on an Appstore or any storefront, you cannot expect any revenue.

I agree with KenG and Srinivas.
As a non-developer who has experience with purchasing apps on iOS and Android stores, I will say that if this developer expected to earn $54,805.14, he is living in a dreamland. I haven’t downloaded or used their app but from salestrend I will say, on the best of best days, they can’t expect more than 100 sales. So, at best, eventhough there were 101,491 downloads, they lost the revenue worth 100 sales, i.e. $270. Almost all who downloaded, will not use it or delete it soon. So for $270, top placement on Amazon is a steal. I don’t know why are they crying foul.

]]> By: JohnnyB http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644418 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:30:47 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644418 Such silliness. Shifty Jelly was selling 20 downloads on a good day – and they can survive on this $37? Resellers offer product developers a chance to promote their products and the terms are very open and clear. The perspective of Shifty Jelly is a bit myopic; consumer demand and brands are not built overnight. Instead of lamenting the extra work they must do, Shifty Jelly should calculate the comparative advertising cost of the exposure that Amazon gave them and count themselves as big winners. I guarantee you there are countless developers who can only dream of being chosen for this opportunity and would see the real value instead of whining about an immediate payoff.

]]> By: Lava http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644369 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 08:08:05 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644369 The difference is that Apple takes 30% but they create a win-win-win scenario for Apple, developers, and consumers.

It makes you wonder. Why is that Apple is the ONLY mobile company that boasts about the size of the checks it writes to developers?

Amazon is only interested in winning for itself, and if developers get screwed, so what? There are other developers and other apps to take advantage of. Interesting that when Apple features apps on iTunes, they don’t ask for a payment? Apple doesn’t seem to feel the need to ask developers to change the price, adjust their take to promote the iOS ecosystem, or otherwise steal from the hard work of developers to enrich themselves.

Funny how Amazon does.

]]> By: Srinivas http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644368 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 08:02:48 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644368 Completely agree, KenG.
Kevin, Given the problem with discoverability, with NO additional cost, the developers got a lot out of this deal.
Saved on the marketing expense to get 100,000 downloads and the notional spend on acquiring the ~10% (10,000) – reviews/feedback/comments/ratings. Plus future sales, assuming they continue developing apps, will also benefit given that one of their apps was downloaded 100K times.
If anything, Amazon, has something to lose here if their pick isn’t appreciated by their visitors.

Subhash

]]> By: Russell http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644351 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:33:05 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644351 Seems to me that the author and the developer have missed the point of the free app promotion.
They have to look at the long term value of acquiring each customer and develop additional revenue streams or perhaps a lite version of the software that they can upgrade to a paid for version.
At the very least they now have over 100k new customers to sell other stuff too if they want.
Seems like a good deal to me.

]]> By: Sam http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644350 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:30:20 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644350 The developers agreed to have their app be free for a day in the first place. When Amazon paid $0 for $0 sales , the developers cry?

]]> By: bradt http://gigaom.com/2011/08/02/54805-reasons-not-to-be-amazons-free-app-of-the-day/#comment-644333 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:36:46 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=387001#comment-644333 The app is called Pocket Casts
Latest, Amazon won’t let them remove the app from Amazon App Store unless they also agree to remove from Google Market.
They do make money on iOS development and have been experimenting with Android. They don’t like ads and haven’t found the Android developement financially beneficial.

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