While not all iPhone apps will make it into the App Store (sorry South Park – apparently it contains “potentially offensive” content), a recent guest post on TechCrunch from a first time app developer suggests the process isn’t that hard. Where the challenge really begins is figuring out pricing, marketing and updates to try to stay on top application lists. PinchMedia has put together a presentation based on data from over 30M downloads that attempts to de-mystify the impact of various app publisher choices in what may be a new field akin to SEO (App Store Optimization = ASO?). A few interesting highlights:
- making the top 100 list increases downloads by 2.3x
- after 30 days, less than 5% of users who downloaded an app will still be using it
- free apps achieve on average 7.5x as many unique users as paid apps
Special emphasis was paid to Colorado Clean Technology on Tuesday, as President Barack Obama flew in to sign the stimulus bill and tour the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In a speech tied to the signing ceremony, the President spoke of “new green energy economies that can create countless well-paying jobs.” But the Manhattan Institute’s Max Schulz, a Senior Fellow at the Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, believes such a promise can only come at the steep cost of pushing more jobs offshore. In his editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, Schulz makes a case that because alternative energy is so much more costly than dirtier fuels, the cost of power will rise and business will seek out less progressive havens for manufacturing and production. And a recent article from Exception Magazine paints a grim picture of the current employment situation in the Clean Tech space, citing that from July to November of 2008, applications were up 100% while listings fell 50% on one popular green job board.
