Contrary to stories of overnight fortunes and money-printing fart machines, making money with an iPhone app can be tough. Thus far, your primary options are to charge for it (risky, unless your app is amazing or you manage to pull in a decent amount of coverage), or to place advertisements in the app (which, depending on your users, ad placement, and app usage could work out to big money or barely enough to be called pocket change).
Offerpal Media thinks they’ve found the answer to monetizing iPhone applications. Built around the same system they have in place for development on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, and a number of other platforms, end users are able to participate in a variety of offers (from online surveys to product trials) in exchange for virtual currency. Users spend this currency on in-app goods, and the developers get paid.
Offerpal will be looking for partners to help them fine tune the system over the next 6 weeks, at which point the program will launch into beta. Each partner application will face a vetting process which, once they’ve opened the doors a bit more, CEO Anu Shukla says should take “around 24 hours.” Though the integration is a bit complex in its current state, Offerpal says they are moving toward a much simpler drag-and-drop integration method.
Just as traditional ads don’t work for all applications, I imagine that such a system might be a hard sell within certain apps – not all of them have a use for a virtual currency system. With a bit of creativity on the developer’s end, however, this might work out to a good chunk of change from an otherwise profitless application.
Yea, because it’s going to be a- really easy to go to these surveys, wait for them to load, and fill them out on your i-phones and b- I’ve been waiting for ages for some in-game currency so I can upgrade my monkey ball
Has Apple or will Apple even approve this model for apps?
Advertising is an approved method of monetization for this platform.
The IPhone demographic is totally different to OfferPal’s audience on social networks. IPhones are expensive devices and used by many business and technology savvy people who will not spend time filling out surveys – they know and understand how the data collected will be used.
I think you have a slightly skewed few of Apple’s audience, especially anything with the iBranding. There are tons of kids, teens, and young adults rocking iPhones (not to mention iPod Touches).
There are a few reasons I doubt this model, but audience isn’t one of them.
“Advertising is an approved method of monetization for this platform.”
Advertising is one thing… but does Apple really going to approve these spammy DR ringtone ads and free ipod crap….
each app and update is being manually approved… I don’t see it happening… they don’t need to approve it until they have competition.