Pretty much difficult to live in the era of abundance… where you have unlimited choices. Article from GigaOm about iPhone Apps extra Long Tail, few weeks ago, kind of got me thinking how… (random thoughts…)
The article in short presents the situation of an extreme long tail in Apple App Store, based on AdMob data (read: interpret this carefully, as the data might be skewed a bit [or a lot], but since there is not really hard data being published by Apple, it’s probably the best proxy). According to AdMob, many of AppStore applications are not picking any users. It’s 50k world of apps over there, so understandable.
It also mentioned that your app should be: 1) tied to big brands/user-base [Twitter, AOL/AIM, ESPN, ...], 2) really-really good and got a viral campaign, 3) boosted by promotion from Apple – put on the front page.
True. Marketing plays a important role here. But brute force marketing is not enough lah. Can a new developer compete with the big giants in launching his/her apps to receive enough spotlight?
Time to play smart? Collaborate with the giants… deal with brands to help them achieve something through your apps, collaborate with Telco to enhance their services, work with them during iPhone launches (and re-launches), link to successful web services, bundle with devices (err… in case of other handset brands ya).
Address a specific niche is always another choice. If the niche is size-able enough for survival.
Or just go solo and bold and ready to accept the fact that our app is only downloaded (and bought) by tens of users. Time to find another business model (rather than expecting users to buy/pay for our apps).
Anyway, it’s a life in long tail, where there is seldom big megahits anymore… Killer apps, anyone, ever?
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