For the OP.. I think what Frank says above is very true.. although possibly not so big yet on Android. There are a couple of barriers that I wonder if we'll be able to get past. The biggest barrier to me is having to NOT use your carrier to pay for items. It would be VERY nice if the market would just charge stuff to the carrier bill and not have to deal with google checkout and such. That is one of those things that can be a deal breaker for many people that don't quite get how all that works. Even better would be a way for developers to be able to securely tap into that feature.. so they could offer pay services of some sort and not have to have a user log in to google checkout, paypal, etc to pay for it. If those two hurtles are overcome, I think you'll see a LOT more free apps with pay services attached.
I'll give you the best example I think you'll see.. and I certainly would do this myself even with the present semi-difficult pay arrangements needed. Game packs. Or app packs depending on the app (app packs could be plugins like codecs for a music player, etc). I see no reason why a game or app can't offer more updates without using the market, to get users to pay for those addons. One minor issue with this (although this may not be so) is the inability to store the stuff to the SD card. I think it could be possible tho..just not entirely sure. But being able to get a free or cheap game or app on the market.. then simply grab new updates via addon packs would be really nice. I just paid for some xbox 360 add-on packs for a couple games. I think the biggest problem for games on Android right now tho that will pretty much null the pay-for packs is the inability to create high quality games. There are some, for sure... but having read a few articles on them, presently android developers have to really really fine tune their apps to reak 30fps or better out of them. That will change once the JIT comes out for Dalvik AND OpenGL and OpenCL libraries are readily available! We should see iPhone like games/music apps soon after that. But I definitely would myself make use of this sort of business model. I think it gets your app/game into far more hands when it's free.. and if it's good, people will pay. The one area that may be difficult tho is avoiding piracy. Not sure yet how to get around that, but it would be nice if you could. If you're game requires internet, then it's possible you can always send a check to a server to make sure the game/add on pack is valid before allowing for it. For example, when the game users accepts to pay for an addon pack.. I can see the server side actually compiling in the code the game passed as part of the request, and returning a custom compiled/built add-on pack, so that the game can then verify that it's not a copied pack, and the server side could keep track of the actual game/pack code and if a 2nd one springs up, disallow it. I am sure there is a lot more to it tho. On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM, Frank Weiss <[email protected]> wrote: > I think hybrid business models are worth looking into. Look at the business > models of some of the free applications. For example, the Bank of America > application is free. Although the development investment was probably modest > (for a bank), the expense can be justified by the brand-building the > application provides. They could have perhaps charged for it, but they > weren't dependent on the revenue of selling the application. Another > perspective is the whole services vs applications model. You can charge only > once for the application, but repeatedly for the service. Yet another > perspective is to look for who benefits besides the user. Remember the > original MTV? The users got free music videos. The record stores sold more > music. This leads to another perspective. Think about what your users would > buy besides your application. > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Business Talk < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Do you think that the business model based on an application that >> displays/manages paid content is workable in the android environment? >> I think it is not due to the application market’s lack of support for >> the paid content? What I mean is that applications, such as iTunes, >> can be installed from the market but the paid content, such as mp3s, >> can not be purchased from the market. So, it would have to be >> purchased through a service outside of the market, as it is the case >> with iTunes, which is a well established service. In case of a new >> service, the user would have to open a separate account with the >> charge information, which is always a problem, specially when it’s a >> new service. Also, the service itself would have to manage the >> financial transactions, which introduces additional complexity. Any >> thought on the subject? >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Android Developers" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]<android-developers%[email protected]> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en >> > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<android-developers%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en >
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