

"Crap" iPhone App Milking $200/hr - kanny96
http://www.iphonedev.in/iPhone/Crap-iPhone-App-Milking-$200/hr.html

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thorax
I'm so tired of talking about fake gag iPhone apps.

I'd like to thank the person who made the Clinometer app, wherever he or she
is. It's like a $2 digital level. It's really a slick real-world tool I didn't
expect to turn my iPhone into.

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utnick
I don't understand where these ads he is displaying are showing up?

Can someone with an iphone explain please

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bouncingsoul
I just downloaded it: there's a thin banner across the top that says "Find
Golf Resorts Maui Hawaii Now!" with small "Ads by AdMob" text beneath that.

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ObieJazz
Anyone know if there are other options (besides AdMob) for developers to
insert these kinds of ads in their app?

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inerte
Google does :p

I am just saying that because I wondered too what company does iPhone ads. I
guess any "mobile ad" thingy will do it for you.

Anyway, in my 45 seconds research I found one called JumpTap.

What I didn't find is how much a publisher can expect to earn with any
company. If it's around the same rate as websites, let's speculate because
it's fun.

To achieve $200/hr at .50 cpm

$1 = 2000 "page views"

$200 = 400,000 "page views"

400,000... that's probably how many "sessions" with the app. Now with a:

10% ctr: 4,000,000 sessions per hour; 25% ctr: 1,600,000 sessions per hour;

Free app... 20 million possible user base... ah, whatever... that's getting
complicated :p But I bet a spreadsheet where we could tweak the numbers could
show what's the potential of popular apps to earn with ads...

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moe
I'm somewhat doubtful about the original claim of making $200 per hour exactly
because of the math that you present. Or rather, $200/hour for how long?

Even if all 20mio(?) iphone owners downloaded and used the app once that only
amounts to $10000 bucks. If we assume they show it to all their buddies in
school, say 20 times, then we arrive it $200k bucks. Heck, add a ton of
clickthroughs and real hardcore fans and make that $400k.

One hell of a deal for a 20 minute app, no question. But all under imho _very_
optimistic assumptions. I'd go as far as to smell a little PR stunt maybe?

Anyone know some real world figures about iphone app sales?

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utnick
Agreed, I think 200$/hr is probably an exaggeration. Although as a developer I
would love to hear otherwise.

I found this post from a couple years ago about admob:
[http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/07/admob-ups-ante-in-
mobile-a...](http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/07/admob-ups-ante-in-mobile-ad-
fight/)

The comments thread is interesting. Apparently admob is mostly a CPC company
not CPM. I can only imagine how low the clickthrough rate for golf resorts in
hawaii on a sound bomb app are.

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moe
After a bit more research on the subject I think it's fairly safe to call
bullshit on that $200/hour figure. It's either a concerted PR stunt or the app
developer is trying to push his market value.

While I didn't find much information about iphone app sales or revenue figures
I did indeed find some sobering bits about regular web ad gigs.

A good example with published stats is one that we all know: Desktop Tower
Defense. [http://novelconcepts.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/happy-
birthday...](http://novelconcepts.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/happy-birthday-
desktop-tower-defense/)

This game has undoubtly spawned one of the biggest viral hypes of the recent
years. Nonetheless and despite fairly reasonable advertising efforts under
massive traffic it "only" managed to pull in 100k over 12 months, or roughly
$11 per hour.

So yes, those hawaiian golf resorts must be paying one hell of a CPC/CPM rate.
Wonder what they'd pay me for wearing a t-shirt with their URL. I think I'd do
that for a measly $1/hour...

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inerte
Yeah, I feel you. I think I know what happened. Some "journalist" took poetic
licence interpreting what the developer probably said:

Dev: It took me 5 hours to build and I made $1000.

Reporter: Developer makes $200/hr building iPhone apps.

We've all done this kind of math before (revenue / work time), but I think
somewhere the context was lost on this one. _Unless_ somewhere we can find the
developer actually saying "I make $200/hr even when I am sleeping."

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pxlpshr
I have doubts that he's making $200 an hour w/ that app, especially with
AdMob. We dropped admob b/c of the terrible returns, check their forums.

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jpwagner
his "tip" is to do market research to prove that everyone is uncool? sorry
bud, you got lucky...

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harpastum
That seems to be his point. "Like the pop market, it's hit or miss; sometimes
it will work, sometimes it won't."

Basically he's just managed to find the immature market. The thing about that
is, it's extremely difficult to reproduce.

As much as gagware pollutes the market with bright colors, loud noises, and
minimally functioning apps, it obviously has market value, so it won't be
going away anytime soon.

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gcv
Kind of like spam? I doubt anyone would send 411 scam emails or sketchy
pharmacy ads if no one ever fell for them or bought pills.

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pmjordan
I'd say it's still a couple rungs above spam: you're still making something
people want. I don't think anyone actually _wants_ to be defrauded. (you could
bring up honey pots by law enforcement, but I don't think they're the inteded
market for scammers) In fact, if the outcome was desired by all involved
parties, you couldn't call it fraud.

