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Want to be in Amazon's App Store? Think again!

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40hz:


This is one of "those stories" that just blows my mind:


Amazon App Store: Rotten To The Core (full story)

About 3 months ago, we set off on a little experiment into the world of the Amazon App Store. Back then people were hailing it as the solution to the problems with the Google Market, industry pundits like Andy Ihnatko called it ‘An Excellent Work in Progress‘.

Amazon’s biggest feature by far, has been their Free App Of The Day promotion. Publicly their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free. To both consumers and naive developers alike, this seems like a big chance to make something rare in the Android world: real money. But here’s the dirty secret Amazon don’t want you to know, they don’t pay developers a single cent.
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Amazing story of how the developer of an app called Pocket Casts (which had sold about 200 copies before being listed as Free App of the Day) suddenly had 101,491 copies downloaded in 24 hours with ZERO revenue to show for it!

Scary!  :tellme:

Read all about it here.

Stoic Joker:
  :huh:

So if I give away another authors work, it's piracy.

But if a large corporation gives away another authors work, it's a free promotional placement deal.

Freaking amazing what you can do with a good lawyer ain't it?

They basically got raped in an alley and then received a bill for their attacker's services.

40hz:
But if a large corporation gives away another authors work, it's a free promotional placement deal.
-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 08:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

Well, yes. But it wasn't without the developer's consent (emphasis added):

 All this seemed way too one sided to us, Amazon is being predatory here, and asking developers (who are often desperate for exposure) to give away their app, in order to promote Amazon. A heated debate broke out in our office about whether we should or not. I was firmly against, my business partner for. In the end we agreed that we had entered the world of Android development as an experiment, and it would seem silly not to add more data to the experiment we were conducting.
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I think the takeaway is more that if you want to play in the big leagues, you'd better think deeply about the ramifications (especially worst case) before you agree to anything.

This story sort of  reminds me of that great ad that was running on TV where a fictional small start-up manufacturing firm was intently watching a counter after they put up their web shopping cart. They cheered when the first order arrived. Then they did some back slapping and high fives as the number climbed to 100 and then 200 orders. Then the smiles faded and gradually turned into looks of stark horror as the 'orders received' counter inexorably climbed up by rapid leaps to six digits - and then kept on climbing...



Everybody plans for failure. Not enough planning goes into what to do if you succeed (in marketing) beyond your wildest dreams. Either scenario will sink a business. That's why many businesses mark the anniversary of their best year ever by oscillating out of control and doing a crash & burn.

 8)

Stoic Joker:
But if a large corporation gives away another authors work, it's a free promotional placement deal.
-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 08:11 PM)
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Well, yes. But it wasn't without the developer's consent (emphasis added):
-40hz (August 05, 2011, 09:10 PM)
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The developers consented because they thought they were getting paid for it:

At this point, we had a few seconds of excitement as well, had we mis-read the email and really earned $54,800 in one day? We would have done if our public agreement was in place, but we can now confirm that thanks to Amazon’s secret back-door deals, we made $0 on that day.
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That's where the lawyers and the alley come into play. ;)

Renegade:
  :huh:

So if I give away another authors work, it's piracy.

But if a large corporation gives away another authors work, it's a free promotional placement deal.
-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 08:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

Kill somebody and you're a murderer. Kill a thousand and you're a hero.

Freaking amazing what you can do with a good lawyer ain't it?
-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 08:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

Pulling out the oxymorons, eh?

They basically got raped in an alley and then received a bill for their attacker's services.
-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 08:11 PM)
--- End quote ---

Pretty much...

Amazon MUST have a clue about what kinds of numbers developers can expect from a "free promotion", so it seems that they're being grossly negligent in not informing the developer about the kinds of numbers they can expect. 100k new users in a day is a lot.

I feel sorry for those poor guys. Jeez...

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