

How Twitter Got an App Store: The Oneforty Story - Minnesota
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/10/06/how-twitter-got-an-app-store-the-oneforty-story-part-1/

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briansmith
I don't understand where Oneforty is adding value for developers. If you are a
developer of a Twitter app then why would you want to drive traffic there? I
would think you'd want to drive traffic _away_ from there and toward your own
site. As soon as users end up on Oneforty then (a) the paradox of choice kicks
in and (b) if you convert a sale, you are forced to share a big chunk of
revenue with Oneforty.

Maybe there is some added value that I don't see. But, really, it looks a lot
like Yelp, GetSatisfaction, or Ripoff Report: they create this big community
focused on saying stuff about your app and it ends up costing you if you
participate (in $$$) or if you don't (in customers).

Twitter already has an incredibly effective app-discovery mechanism: the "from
AppName" that appears on every tweet on the website. And, that mechanism is
100% free (for now). I don't really see how oneforty improves upon that.

Twitter app development is kind of a no-mans-land right now. Any day, Twitter
can change the cost model of developing apps for their platform. Recently,
Twitter just made app development much more expensive (in manhours) by adding
features that are fairly complicated to implement. In the future it seems
likely they will ask for some direct financial consideration too--e.g.
charging for use of their trademarks and/or charging for increased API rate
limits. So there's a lot of risk from the cost side, because you don't know
how much it is going to cost to develop & maintain the app.

Plus, there is the problem that 30% of 0 is zero while 30% of $1.00 is far
from zero. These AppStore taxes hurt people who charge money for their apps
and help the people who don't. In fact, the people who charge money end up
subsidizing their own competition in a not-so-indirect way.

Now, maybe Oneforty has some plans to add value that is worth more than the
value they are taking from app developers. But, reading through the material
they present, I haven't seen it. I sincerely hope that they come up with a
business model that is a net benefit to themselves and to app developers. But,
until then, It seems less risky for (commercial) app developers to nicely ask
Oneforty to pull their apps' listings from the site.

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bastian
I do see potential here. Think about better statistics for developer, a "from
AppName" link that goes directly to the store site (if they can prove better
conversion rates), or a centralized payment mechanism for premium apps (hard
to achieve but not impossible).

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briansmith
Twitter already has "from AppName" go directly to the developer's website,
which is his own private app store under his full control.

In the long term, I think Amazon, PayPal, and mobile carrier payment
mechanisms will work well for selling direct to customers. Amazon and PayPal
charge less than 10% per transaction. I think in a couple of years, mobile
carriers will be charging ~10% (like the Japanese carriers do). Once this
happens 70%/30% will seem ridiculous and will only be tolerated for platforms
that give developers no alternative, like the iPhone.

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bastian
Brian, i said "a "from AppName" link that goes directly to the store site", i
should have added "instead of to the developers site". I'm fully aware of what
the links do today.

In regards to the payment, i just meant that if oneforty offers the payment
(presumably via Amazon or Paypal) the developer has less to worry about. I
understand that this will only work if rates are not much higher than through
those payment providers directly.

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bastian
oneforty is a great idea, well executed and Laura rocks! I wish them all the
best. Also, if i were Twitter i would buy them now - great asset to have in
the long run.

~~~
gsmaverick
Agreed it's a natural extension of their little ad badges on the web
interface.

~~~
bastian
Also think about the potential of using the "via Tweetdeck" etc. links to
directly point to the app store. I understand that developers like them to
point to their site, so maybe developers could choose. It would be interesting
to compare the conversion rates of both, a twitter owned app store (or
oneforty for that matter) and a developers homepage.

