Last week, free application store GetJar announced to introduce a “Gold” service for Google Android devices. This new service enables consumers to download premium applications such as Age of Zombies, Tuneln Radio Pro, Solo and Splashtop Remote Desktop for free. Consumers can choose from 50 free top applications at launch of GetJar’s Gold edition. Moreover, GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs has promised that new apps will be available daily. With this service, the battle amongst GetJar and Amazon’s Appstore to offer Android content outside of the Google Android Market is heating up. Both are competing heavily now on the best content to get exclusive in the stores, such as GetJar did last June by receiving the exclusive Android release of Cut the Rope.
GetJar attracts developers of premium applications by paying for every installed application. On the other hand, GetJar generates revenue by offering sponsored listings within the same Gold version to other developers. Developers bid on how much they are willing to pay per install. The higher the bid, the higher the rank in the GetJar Gold search results. This is quite similar to Google AdSense business model.
With this business model GetJar tries something completely different compared to its major independent Android application competitor, Amazon. Getjar pays developers in order to offer Gold users free top applications, while, in the case of Amazon, developers agree on not receiving any revenues for being an ‘App of the day’ that day.
Sponsored Apps Within The Free GetJar Gold Listings
Whether or not GetJar Gold will be a success in the future depends on three aspects: user-friendliness, amount of applications available and GetJar’s ability to monetize the service. The first point is important because smartphone users will only use this new service when the free applications are easy to discover and install. Secondly, GetJar Gold will only be a success when it is able to continuously contract leading developers of premium applications. Everything comes with a price: ‘There ain’t such a thing as a free lunch’. Will GetJar be able to build a sustainable offering with this model? It sure is an interesting new approach and work-around of the global billing issue parties like GetJar have to deal with. The first selection of titles contains some known publishers and it will be interesting to see how this offering will develop over the coming months.
Tiuri van Agten