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Freemium mobile software with in-app purchases might be racking up money for developers but not everyone is happy. Several EU member countries feel the approach is misleading, causing the European Commission to call a meeting of the minds.
Lots of startups get going by offering free services to win eyeballs and hope that wallets will follow. Small problem: It’s hard to support free forever.
LogMeIn, citing a “mature” market, is moving users of its free remote access service over to a paid model; following similar moves by Sugarsync, Droplr, and Mailstrom.
2013 has been a banner year for freemium, and many “free to play” apps have hit the big time in popularity and revenue. Here’s why it might not happen again.
Somebody had to do it: SugarSync says it’s ending free accounts. After a free trial period, it’s pay up or get off.
FreedomPop is broadening the scope of its all-IP voice and messaging beta program, allowing customers to activate Sprint Android phones on its network. As with its other services, customers can sign up for a free plan.
To celebrate Candy Crush Saga’s first birthday, developer King has shed some light onto the game’s uber-popularity.
FreedomPop became a full-service mobile operator today, selling its first smartphone coupled with voice and data service. The difference between FreedomPop and your typical carrier is that its services are entirely IP based.
Life360 got an unexpected post-Christmas gift this year. In January, downloads of its app began skyrocketing in Asia, Europe and South America, even though its designed solely for U.S. use.
Small app studio Impending is struggling with one of the most essential questions about today’s App Store: what to charge for a new app in the age of free-to-play apps.
Do limited time try-before-buying offers work for tech vendors? That’s the question Totango addressed in new research that shows that companies can boost their conversion rate simply by paying attention to the people who sign up and — shocker — communicating with them.
Electronic Arts has survived in the cut-throat gaming business since 1982. And it plans to keep its console games alive while diverting resources to the fast growing mobile and social gaming world, company senior vice president Nick Earl said today.
Gartner said that 89 percent of app downloads in 2012 are expected to be free and that number will only go up. But in-app purchase is rising as a monetization tool and will be present in 30 percent of apps by 2016.
In a bid to build market share, Egynte is offering “paying” Box customers free storage for the rest of the year. Box claims 10 million customers, but it’s unclear how many of them actually pay for their service.
The freemium business model propelled the phenomenal growth of Dropbox and Evernote, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Future Simple’s Uzi Shmilovici helps you decide if freemium is a good fit for your company and, if it is, how to make it work for you.
All that virtual currency sold in mobile games is anything but virtual in terms of revenue. Juniper Research, in a new mobile games report, said revenues from mobile in-game purchases totaled $2.1 billion in 2011 and are expected to grow to $4.8 billion by 2016.
Apple will be letting game publishers use in-app subscriptions, too, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Big Fish Games is the first publisher to use the feature and will allow users to access dozens of its titles for a recurring fee of $6.99 per month.
Shazam, a popular music tagging mobile app, announced on Thursday that it would remove the five-song limit from the free version of its iOS software. Why? More tagging leads to more sharing, more Apple iAd impressions and more revenue-generating music purchases from partners.
If you’re looking for the key to making money on the App Store for Apple’s iOS devices, a new report from Distimo suggests that in-app purchases are what you should be watching. In-app purchases now account for 72 percent of App Store revenue.
Android app downloads are expected to overtake iPhone apps this year for the first time, according to research firm Ovum, and will nearly double iPhone downloads by 2016. The growth in Android app downloads could have big implications for freemium app developers.
New iPhone MMORPG Please Stay Calm takes a lot of what makes freemium gaming titles successful on the App Store, and adds in a dash of zombies, and a heaping helping of location services. It’s social survival horror in your backyard — and it’s pretty awesome.
The money in mobile apps is increasingly tilting toward freemium apps and that is helping companies like Tapjoy, which said it now has 10,000 apps that are using its monetization and distribution platform. The company is also delivering more than 1 million ad completions every day.
Mobile in-app purchases have eclipsed paid downloads as a revenue driver for mobile developers. But how much is that worth? Flurry said the average in-app game transaction is worth $14, which speaks to the importance of reeling in what casino’s call whales, or big spenders.
Free-to-play games, which monetize through in-app purchases, now account for 65 percent of revenue among the top 100 games in the App Store, overtaking paid downloads, which were the most successful revenue model six months ago. It’s another sign that freemium rules for many developers.
iPhone photography app Camera+ recently crossed the 2 million copies sold mark. Developer taptaptap shared some info regarding the app’s success to date, and also provided us an inside look into how the studio minimizes its funding requirements while also maximizing its development investment.
Getting paid on Android has been a touchy subject for developers, who have had trouble turning their apps into big money makers. But now Google has rolled out a new web store for Android Market and in-app purchases for apps that developers are hoping will kick-start revenues.
PopCap’s string of success building top-notch video games like Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled has won it a reputation for making premium titles. But as the gaming industry moves to become more social and emphasize cheaper games and in-app purchases, PopCap is learning to evolve with it.
The news that Tapjoy, formerly Offerpal, raised $21 million in funding last week shows there is a big opportunity to be had by helping the freemium model expand on mobile. It’s a lesson that W3i, a desktop application marketing company, is looking to exploit.
App analytics firm Distimo reported that 49 percent of the revenue on iPhone apps came from in-app purchases in both free and paid apps. The news underscores the importance of in-app payments and the emergence of the freemium model as a revenue driver for app makers.
Don’t expect the ad revenue in mobile games to be the major driver of revenue. While ad revenue in mobile games is expected to rise from $87 million in 2010 to $894 million in 2015, it will still be dwarfed by download and in-app purchase revenues.
Contact pages on websites are usually boring. But Formsly gives your visitors detailed information about your business — the sort of information that you might find on Yelp or Google Places — but that information is embedded in your website, and you can control its format and content.
The freemium mobile app movement is now a full-fledged trend among consumers and developers with freemium apps representing one-third of the top grossing iPhone apps. Here’s a list of things to keep in mind for developers wanting to employ in-app purchases and freemium apps.
In-app purchases on the iOS platform allowed free apps to become some of the best revenue-generators on the App Store. That kind of success can’t have escaped Apple’s notice, so might it open the floodgates for freemium on OS X with the Mac App Store?
Mobile gaming network OpenFeint is launching a new tool for developers to implement freemium models and is enticing developers to hop on board with a $1 million challenge. The move helps developers tap the growing market for freemium games, expected to heavily drive mobile gaming revenues.
Have you ever wondered whether the “freemium” business model, nearly ubiquitous among the web apps that we review and use here at WebWorkerDaily, is workable? New data published by email marketing service provider MailChimp in a blog post suggests that it can be.
SlideShare, which allows users to upload and share PowerPoint and other presentations and slideshows, today launched a series of premium Pro accounts that have added features for businesses, including the ability to generate leads from within a presentation and to create a customized branded channel.
Speculation arose this past week that News Corp.-owned (s NWS) MySpace Music is considering moving to a paid model, as the cost…
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