Football Apps Experiment Update Nov 2012

I started this little experiment for Windows Phone as a test.  First, I am a football fan and love to get news on my favorite team.  But I wanted to see if a team specific app approach would work with NFL teams.  I only did a few of the teams based upon their social network popularity.

20% trial conversion!

This REALLY surprised me.  I had previously only built and released apps for free.  The total amount I made on those apps was quite disappointing.  I was half expecting to only see a few dozen downloads of a trial to paid app after all the information I had read about free app vs paid app downloads.  Maybe that is true for games, but in my sports apps the paid got a lot of trial downloads.

949 Trials generated 190 paid users.  That is something I did not expect.  I made way, way more money from the paid app that I ever would have made from ads running in those apps.  If I look at a similar app that is free and has about the same number of sessions for this period (one of my non football apps) I only made $3.65 for that period.  Compare that to the $283.10 I made from the NFL apps.

I have been selling apps for mobile devices since the late 90’s and this is the best conversion rate I have ever had.  Of course the Windows Marketplace makes that possible.  You would never have been able to get 1,000 people to download your trial after finding you in some search engine.  I did have good success on Blackberry in the early days, but it all points back to having a store is key.  I think this is why app developers on Windows 8 (PCs, not phones) will do so well.  Imagine having a market of 400+ million users to find you in the store. 

Time to get paid

Yep, I have made $283.10 before Microsoft’s cut, which should equal $198.17 after the store fee.  Guess how much you have to make before Microsoft will cut you a check?  $200!  WTF!?!? I honestly could not believe that number.  I am sure the vast majority of Windows Phone apps never make $200, so why is that value set so high?  I remember getting checks for my Palm apps that were in the $40-50 dollar range every month and being happy every time they arrived.

Microsoft needs to pay out faster to developers

I honestly think Microsoft is missing the part of the enjoyment as a developer when you see MONEY come in from your work.  I think they should drop that amount to $25 if you have an ACH account setup for a quick transfer, maybe higher if you want a physical check.  But no where near $200.

Breakdown by Team

Which team has the most number of users?  It is pretty close between Cowboys, Steelers, and Seahawks.

I don’t have a chart to show it, but the Cowboys users actually ran the app about twice as much as any other user.  No real point to that, just interesting to note.  Cowboys fans love their team.

Windows Phone 8 Plans

So, what’s next?  I am working on an update to all of the apps for Windows Phone 8.  It allows the user to set the lockscreen wallpaper to their favorite team!  I am also trying to figure out how to make the teams W-L record and next game on the lock screen.  I think that would be a pretty good update to celebrate the Windows Phone 8 launch.