
Betaworks Launches iPhone App Promotion Ring - moses1400
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2011/02/betaworks-launches-iphone-app.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d65bcc54a243fb3%2C0
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gyardley
This looks a bit like AdBrite's now-defunct Spottt, but brought to iPhone
applications.

I'm a little skeptical, because over the past couple of years tons of
advertising networks have tried to make in-app ads for other applications
work, and they've all failed. Conversion rates have always been abysmally
poor, to the point where it's not worth crapping up the user experience with
an advertising banner. There's been tons of blog posts on this from a variety
of sources.

Because conversion rates for most applications ads are so poor, companies like
Flurry and Tapjoy focus on incentivized installs, where the user gets a bit of
virtual currency in exchange for downloading the advertised app. (Disclaimer:
I own a chunk of Flurry.) Those actually work really well, but that's because
the user's been bribed.

Betaworks is full of sharp people, so I'm wondering what I'm missing - it's
not like them to release a product that flies in the face of a couple years of
market data.

Perhaps they'll move towards very small, hand-curated sets of thematically-
linked applications, and distinctive ad units that don't look like anything
else on the market - something like The Deck (<http://decknetwork.net/>).
That's the only online model I can currently think of that hasn't been tried
in the mobile app space.

