在手机应用这一领域，除了数不胜数的应用发行商外，还充斥着太多的开发公司和独立开发者，业内对手机应用本身竞争力的忧虑远甚于它们应该投放于哪个平台这个问题。手机应用是一个新型而有活力的营收来源，拥有巨大的发展空间。在这个开源和免费网络应用程序为主导的环境中，应用软件越难销售，这一领域的创收决窍就越有市场。

正如应用软件的发行拥有多种渠道一样，手机应用的创收也有多个门道值得摸索。这些对策并不相互排斥，而是彼此互补。每款应用产品都可以择其一而行之，也可以博采众长为己所用，只要对自己灵验就成。

mobile-apps

一、选择正确的付费渠道

手机操作系统各不相同，手机应用的付费渠道也因此殊为迥异。在iPhone平台上，所有的付费操作都是在同一个界面完成，即iTunes上的App Store。Windows Phone 7支持多种付费方式，比如说信用卡和来自用户服务供应商的第三方计费系统。运营商计费系统确实很方便，但我认为用户更情愿选择信用卡支付方式，因为大家总会担心手机话费帐单出错的情况。

至于Android平台，还是那个老大难的问题，就是平台的“分散性”。Android Market最主要的付费系统就是Google Checkout，但它恶劣的终端用户体验一直为人所诟病。不过你也可以直接付费给应用卖主，该平台还有多种商家选择的不同计费服务系统（Android平台最近还增加了贝宝系统）。

Android平台现在最缺乏的就是统一的付费界面。最有利于简化购买程序的途径，恐怕就是为用户的运营商计费系统提供一个可与其无缝对接的API。但目前Android平台还不能提供这种服务，不过据跨平台手机应用商店GetJar的市场营销副总裁帕特里克·莫克（Patrick Mork）所称，这种情形很快就会改观，因为谷歌已经公开表示正为此事与多个运营商进行协商。虽然还没有多少Android用户会选择贝宝（PayPal）服务系统，但这毕竟也算是Android朝这个方向迈出的第一步。

目前暂时不知这种巨变是否会催生一个新版的Android系统——旧款Android手机上的付费服务功能不会随着手机操作系统的升级而更新，所以在这一环上会落后于他人。苹果和微软各自都有可以无缝兼容的付费系统生态圈，因此Android如果不尽快改变这一状况，就很有可能主动为竞争对手腾出位置。另外，因为Android为终端用户提供的消费体验，往往取决于手机制造商因素，所以这种消费体验差异非常之大，以至于大量现存一代的Android手机仍然只能采用旧的商家计费系统。

对买家和卖主来说，让应用消费过程更加便捷会变得愈加重要。智能手机在普通用户和商务用户中的覆盖率正急速增长，许多新用户都还没有购买手机应用的经历，也不乐意体验那种繁琐复杂的购买过程。手机初创企业GeoMe公司的创始人里克·费拉罗（Ric Ferraro）表示，“许多应用交易都只是用户的一时消费冲动，人们对应用的需求也同样如此，购买流程越冗长越麻烦，用户执行付费操作的可能性就越低。”

莫克则另有看法，“最舒适的消费体验应该是，让用户在应用运行过程中就能直接付费。”

二、让产品脱颖而出

除了付费便捷性以外，应用曝光率也甚为关键，因为它决定了用户能否通过搜索找到你的产品，让它从其他竞争应用中脱颖而出。据说不少评论认为，Android应用商店的另一大劣势是功能雷同、风格趋近的克隆或山寨产品多得过剩。

从这一点可以看出，严格把关、对产品精挑细选的应用商店对开发商来说更为可靠，比如说iTunes的App Store。另外还有说法称，比起搜索界面的设置，应用商店的规模大小并不重要。很少用户会抱怨Amazon网站的应用搜索目录，部分原因是它更容易从纵深方向搜索应用，而非横向扩大搜索范围。

开发商还有另一个可行的选择，那就是综合性的应用搜索网站，就如费拉罗所描述的“一个单一性的或执行单一标准，可搜索多个手机平台或操作系统所运行产品的网站。一些企业已经开始从这方面入手，比如说由GSM Association赞助的Wholesale Applications Community，就准备设立一套统一标准，打造一个这种单一性的平台。”这个应用市场的主导方是用户，而非开发商本身，所以一切由用户说了算，开发商别无选择，只能去迎合用户的需求。

三、注意销售成本

影响开发商创收的另一个重要因素是应用的销售成本。苹果应用商店的双方营收分成是三七开，即苹果抽成30%；windows Phone 7的应用商店也是类似的三七开营收分成，但微软征收的30%份额中，有一部分将返还给网络运营商。苹果和微软的应用商店都要征收应用审核费用和会员年费—-微软是99美元，苹果则根据应用达标状况和iPhone软件开发工具使用情况，收取99至299美元不等的费用。

Android Market营收分成也是三七开，计费服务供应商和运营商将共同分享30%的份额。开发商的注册费用仅需25美元，但如果是针对已解除锁定的开发商手机，比如说Android Dev Phone和Google Nexus One，注册费用就可能高达500美元。这些手机并不在服务范围内，但它们可以提供强大的开发商功能，可接通任何GSM网络，Android Dev phone还支持安装任何定制的Android系统图象。

开发商还有多种可选择的应用商店，比如威瑞森（Verizon）正准备在11月份推出针对Android平台的V CAST Apps应用商店，它同样实行营收三七开分成的政策；独立应用商店GetJar则根据开发商每款应用的下载情况灵活收费。

Mobile Apps

四、考虑多种销售模式

开发商的应用创收方式多种多样，并不仅限于传统的一手交钱，一手交货模式。

1.免费下载模式

手机应用最直接最基本的创收渠道就是应用产品本身的销售，但就算是这么初级的创收方法也充满了复杂的影响因素。毕竟，到底有多少用户愿意为一款给定的手机应用买单仍然很成问题。把价格调低了，你就收不回开发成本，价格抬高了，又没有人理睬你。

解决这个问题的一个快捷方法就是，效仿PC领域盛行了数十年的模式：允许用户免费下载一个功能最为初级的应用版本，这个版本可以采用广告赞助形式，也可以设置一些未开启的工具箱，鼓励用户去购买完整的应用版本。

免费版本中缺失的功能不必非常强大，但必须让用户觉得物有所值。这种操作的另一种说法就是：免费发放应用，销售产品功能。

这种做法的要点就在于用户的感受：只要用户认为自己尝到了免费的甜头，他们就不会介意自己可能将为应用无休无止地付费。最重要的是，他们觉得自己的投资获得了回报。

在线游戏更是深谙其道，对这种操作已经是驾轻就熟。因为付费下载游戏正在失宠，“免费模式”游戏正当其道，游戏开发商因此想出了多个增加游戏营收的点子。费拉罗在采访中表示，“应用发行商可以通过免费手段来虏获用户，然后对应用进行不断升级，以此来创造营收。这种现象在手机游戏领域尤为常见，用户只有花钱消费，才能获得更高级的游戏体验。”

据称应用开发商的观望心态，是免费模式推广的最大障碍之一。GetJar的莫克表示，“品牌发行商认为推出免费应用，会让人觉得是在自贬身价，或者损害品牌价值，但这种情况在最近两年已经有所变化。”例如美国艺电（Electronic Arts）的在线游戏业务就已经在向免费模式转型，收购了《愤怒鸟》发行商Chillingo公司后更是强化了这种趋势。Chillingo的游戏开发SDK中包含了一些支持快速创造免费应用的技术，适用于所有跨平台发展的手机游戏开发商。

微软也已经敏锐地察觉到了这一趋势，因为Windows Phone 7的SDK也可以直接支持开发商创造免费模式的应用。使用这个SDK，开发商可以同时创造免费和完整版本的应用，将二者分离只需要一个解码就能搞定。用户不需要重新下载应用，这就节省了开发一个独立测试版本的时间，有了这种强大的武器在手，开发商实在很难找到不同时创造免费和付费应用的理由。

2.付费下载模式

手机应用的一个主要运营模式就是销售服务，应用产品本身只是获取服务的前台。但最大的问题是：什么样的服务才值得用户掏钱？

这个问题并不仅仅涉及服务的可用价值，更要重视服务资料本身的完整性。以Zagat引擎为例，它是餐厅和娱乐场所的最佳向导，可提供具体的餐厅，夜总会，酒店、世界各地商店信息和相关用户评论，每年的服务订阅费用是24.95美元。它的主要竞争对手是提供海量信息服务的Yelp应用，不过Zagat的商业模式比较不同，它提供的是专一、纵向、极具价值的信息服务，而Yelp的信息数据库主要针对更大范围的用户群体，所提供的信息也就不免鱼龙混杂，前后矛盾。

还有一种方法，是销售信息贮存数据库。例如，你在一家发行外语词典的公司上班，你想销售同类产品的手机电子版本。那么你就可以尝试免费发放这款手机应用的迷你版本，该产品只包含有限的词典数据（比如说2000个单词），然后再推出一款完全版本的词典应用（可以是一次性付费下载版本，也可以是定期更新的付费版本）。虽然业余的同行竞争者还是会不停地兜销他们自己的应用数据库，但是别担心，对一个认真严谨的外语学习者来说，价格适中而具有品牌积累的词典，永远比免费而不完整的词典更有吸引力。

3.广告赞助模式

第三种手机应用创收方法就是广告赞助。但要注意：广告赞助创收模式可能会引起不少争议。

广告赞助模式是一种驱使用户购买无广告、完整版本应用的重要手段。举例说，Android平台上的MixZing音乐播放应用是一个免费的广告赞助版本，如果你愿意花6.99美元，不但可以购买到无广告的完整版本，还能开启一些MP3标签编辑之类的新功能。

但这种广告赞助模式的问题就是，广告展示范围非常有限。如果是互联网页面上的赞助广告，它们可以以横幅形式体现，或在页面顶端滚动播出，不会占用太多的空间，干扰用户的正常活动。但在手机平台窄小的屏幕上，再小的视频广告也会影响用户界面的视觉效果，广告植入形式不佳的话则更让人抓狂，只会引起用户反感。广告如果离操作按钮太近，也会非常影响用户体验。

广告赞助模式的另一弊端是：如果用户的移动网络并不理想，这些广告植入就难免白费功夫。不过，随着手机平台数据配置的改善，以及本地Wi-Fi覆盖范围的扩大，这种情况应该不会再成为广告赞助模式发展的障碍。（另外，即使网络接触不良，点击后广告仍然无法完全展示，但只要用户对它有印象，这种广告赞助模式就仍然是有效的方法。）

另一种通过广告赞助实现营收的入口是搜索引擎。这方面的典型是Mozilla公司的火狐浏览器（Firefox），它也同样适用于手机应用的情况。无论用户在什么时候通过火狐浏览器执行网络搜索，Mozilla公司都可以获得因搜索而产生的一部分广告营收。

不过这种途径的弱点在于，它只对一小部分拥有搜索功能的手机应用有效，例如手机浏览器，而且这些应用的数量还非常有限。不过，将手机应用与搜索引擎相结合的创意方法，倒是完全有可能成为一种可行的创收之道。

结论：

因为手机应用市场目前还只是一支新生力量，处于多个平台百花齐放的竞争时期，与手机应用产品本身的情况一样，其创收和销售方式也仍处于摸索阶段。

不过可以肯定的一点是，出于对用户和开发商双方的考虑，手机应用销售和创收途径必须既方便又快捷。莫克表示，“如果想最大范围地接触用户，你就必须实行跨平台发展战略，你得多手准备运营模式，才能更好地服务不同的用户群体。”手机应用的病毒式推广可以让这种策略事半功倍，无论是通过口碑式营销还是直接的产品曝光，只要你朋友的iPhone上有的东西，你也会想给自己的Android手机安装一份。

总而言之，那些擅用创收方式的发行商，以及编写出色应用的开发商，都有希望在这个市场上赚个钵满盆满。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

To many companies and independent developers — not just software publishers — mobile apps represent something even more powerful and important than a brand-new platform to deploy apps on. It’s a new and dynamic source of revenue, one with a lot of room to grow. And given how tough it can be to make money selling software at all, especially in this world of open-source and free Web apps, any proven way to make money in that field can become a magnet.

Just like there’s more than one way to deliver software in general, there’s more than one way to monetize mobile applications. The various strategies aren’t conflicting, but complementary. Each app can use the business model — or models — best suited to it.

The line at the register

With mobile apps, the purchasing process varies wildly, depending on which operating system you’re dealing with. On the iPhone, everything’s done through one interface: the App Store in iTunes.

Windows Phone 7 supports direct payment via credit cards and third-party billing of the customer’s service provider. Purchasing through a service provider is convenient, but I imagine people might still opt for credit cards to avoid the possibility of spurious charges on their phone bills.

But with Android, the dreaded “F” word — fragmentation — comes into the picture. The main way to pay for apps through the Android Market is via Google Checkout, widely criticized for its bad end -user experiences. You can also pay the app merchant directly and there are a number of other merchant mechanisms … all different. (PayPal has also recently been added to the mix.)

What’s most lacking in Android right now is a single, consistent interface for payments. The most seamless solution would be an API that allows app purchases to be added to the carrier’s bill (with user consent, of course), which would make the process of purchasing an application all but frictionless. This hasn’t happened yet, but Patrick Mork, vice president of marketing for GetJar, a cross-platform mobile app store, claims that it is “right around the corner” and that Google has made no secret of its negotiations with the various carriers to make this possible. Integration with PayPal is also a step in the right direction, even if not everyone uses it.

Less clear is whether such a sea change will require a new version of Android — meaning those stuck on older handsets that aren’t being updated to newer editions of the OS would be left behind.

Because Apple and Microsoft both have ecosystems where the purchasing system is already pretty seamless, Android runs the risk of falling behind unless the vast majority of its existing installed base can be brought up to speed when new merchant mechanisms arrive. And because of the way Android is delivered to the end user — by the handset maker rather than by Google alone, and with any number of gratuitous changes — a good chunk of the existing generation of Android phones might remain stuck on the old-school merchant systems.

The need to make app purchasing as convenient as possible will only become more important over time, to both the people buying and selling them. Smartphones have become increasingly prevalent among consumers as well as business people; many new users have no experience with buying an app and don’t want the experience to be more complex than a click or two. “Many apps are currently purchased

on an impulse,” says Ric Ferraro, founder of mobile start-up GeoMe. “People crave apps in the same way [as candy bars], and the longer it takes to buy the app, the less likely it is that the purchase will be completed.”

Mork puts it another way: “The best purchasing experience is probably the one where you never have to leave the app.”

Standing out from the crowd

Along with ease of purchase, discoverability — how easily you can find a given app and pick it out from its competition — will also become increasingly important. I’ve read more than a few comments to the effect that one drawback of the Android app stores is a proliferation of me-too apps that duplicate functionality to the point of redundancy.

From this comes the argument that an app store with a more carefully curated selection of products is more genuinely useful — like the iTunes app store, for instance. But it’s also possible to make an argument that the size of the store is not as important as the interface used to query it. Few people complain about the size of Amazon.com’s catalog, in part because it’s relatively easy to drill down and narrow the scope of a search.

Another possible solution would be a universal app catalog — “a single store or a single set of standards which can be accessed independent of the type of mobile device or OS it is running,” as Ferraro describes it. “Some initiatives are being set up to attempt this — for example, the Wholesale Applications Community initiative sponsored by the GSM Association could go a long way in setting unified standards and creating a single platform.”

That wouldn’t make things much easier for developers, who would still have to produce and test variations of a given app for different platforms — but the app market is driven by consumers and not developers alone, and where the consumers go, the developers inevitably must follow.

The cost of selling

One other major factor that comes into play when selling an app is the cost of making the app available in the first place. Apple’s iTunes store splits revenue 70-30, with Apple getting the 30%.

Windows Phone 7′s app store has a similar 70-30 split, but a portion of Microsoft’s 30% is distributed back to the network operators. Both also have application requirements and yearly membership fees — $99 for Microsoft, and from $99 to $299 for Apple, depending on whether you get the Standard or Enterprise iPhone software development kit.

The Android Market also features a 70-30 revenue split, but the 30% is distributed between the payment processor and the carrier. The registration fee for developers is also only $25, but an unlocked developer phone, either the Android Dev Phone or the Google Nexus One, can cost upwards of $500. These phones are not required, but they provide some major power-developer features: They can work with any GSM network, and the Android Dev phone also lets you install any custom Android system image.

Alternative places to obtain apps are also starting to become available. For example, Verizon is planning to open its Android V Cast apps store sometime in November, for which it will be offering a 70-30 revenue split. GetJar, an independent site, takes a varying fee for each app download, using a bidding system that starts at one cent per download.

Making a living at apps

All that being said, there are a number of different strategies that developers are using to earn money with their apps — most outside the traditional pay-for-product model.

The freemium model

The first and most basic approach to monetizing a mobile app is to just sell the application itself. But even a method this elementary is fraught with complexities. After all, how much will people be willing to pay for a given mobile app? Set the price too low and you can’t cover development costs; set it too high and nobody will touch it.

One quick way to resolve that problem is to adopt an approach that’s been used in the PC world for decades: Give away a minimally functional version of the application — sometimes ad-supported, sometimes just outfitted with nag boxes — and encourage the user to buy the full version. The missing feature or features don’t have to be significant but should be worth paying for. Another way to put this would be: Give away the app, sell the functionality.

The word freemium has been coined to describe this approach, and it has quickly become an essential means of bringing a mobile app to market. Ferraro described the freemium model in his blog as “a classic marketing tool available to mobile app developers to maintain the perception of a free service, while attempting to lock-in customers into some type of charging mechanism.”

The key word here is perception: As long as people feel as if they’re getting something for free, they don’t mind as much if they have to pay down the line — even if they have to pay again and again. What matters is the sense that they’re getting something for their investment.

Online games have developed this to the level of an art form. As subscription-based games lose favor and “freemium” gaming comes to the fore, the game makers have come up with any number of ways to scare up revenue that don’t depend on selling the game itself. Ferraro concurred on this point in an e-mail interview: “App publishers can monetize free by capitalizing on the audience they obtained, and promoting upgrades. This is particularly visible in mobile games, where more advanced gaming levels are only available at a premium.”

That said, reluctance on the part of app makers has been one obstacle to use of the freemium model. “Publishers of well-known brands didn’t want to be perceived as giving things away or devaluing the brand,” says GetJar’s Mork. “But this has changed in the past couple of years.” Electronic Arts, for instance, has been moving toward a freemium model for its online games — something enhanced all the more by its purchase of game publisher Chillingo, creator of the hit game Angry Birds. Chillingo’s game-development SDK includes technology to easily create freemium applications, something useful to any company that wants to push out such applications across multiple mobile platforms.

Microsoft sensed, quite correctly, the need for developers to create freemium apps. The Windows Phone 7 SDK has direct provisions for this. The free and full versions of an app created with the SDK can be the same binary; all that’s needed is an unlock code. No new download is required. This takes the work out of building a separate trial version — and gives app developers that many fewer excuses not to offer both options.

The service-and-subscription model

A major business model for mobile apps is to sell access to a service and give away an application that’s just a convenient front-end for that service. The biggest question is: What service is worth paying for?

It’s not just a question of the service being useful. It’s about the integrity of the data provided by that service as well. Consider Zagat, the venerable dining and entertainment guide, which has a subscription version of its review service accessible through its mobile apps for $24.95 a year. Zagat’s main competition is from crowd-sourced services like Yelp, but Zagat’s business model is based on the idea that its information has such a known pedigree, it’s worth paying for. Yelp’s database may be contributed to by a broader range of people, but it’s arguably much messier and more inconsistent.

Another method for selling data involves creating applications that offer a repository of locally stored data. For example, let’s say you worked for a company that is known for publishing foreign- language dictionaries, and you wanted to sell mobile versions of its books. You could give away the app itself, with a minimal version of the dictionary data thrown in on top of that (say, 2,000 words), then sell the full-blown version of the dictionary, either all at once or in a regularly updated, periodic-subscription version. This wouldn’t stop amateur competitors from creating their own apps and data sets, but a free dictionary that’s not very accurate would have less appeal to a serious language student than a modestly priced one that has a brand-name pedigree behind it.

The ad-funded model

A third way to generate revenue from mobile apps is a method ported directly over from the Web at large: advertising. But be aware: Ad-supported apps come with all the controversies associated with using advertising as a revenue model, plus a few new ones.

Ad-supported apps can serve as a way to hook people into buying a full version of a program without the ads. For example, the MixZing Music Player for Android has a free, ad-supported version; pay $6.99 for the full version, and you not only remove the ads (which are at least unobtrusive), but unlock a slew of extra features, like an MP3 tag editor.

The problem with ads in a mobile application is — for lack of a better word — acreage. On an ad-supported Web page, ads can run in banner or skyscraper elements confined to the edges of the page and don’t have to be as intrusive. With a mobile app, the small screen means any ad is going to eat into the UI, and a badly integrated ad will turn people off. Ads placed too near controls, for instance, may mistakenly intercept button-press actions.

Another small drawback to advertising in mobile apps: The ad system is all but useless if the user doesn’t have an active data connection. This will become less of an obstacle as more mobile devices are sold with some form of data plan included and as municipal Wi-Fi becomes more pervasive. (Also, an ad can still be effective, even if it clicking on it doesn’t work due to a lack of networking. As long as it raises some awareness in the mind of the viewer, it’s still doing its job.)

Another method of monetizing through advertising is using revenue generated through a search engine. This has been Mozilla’s model with Firefox and could just as easily be applied to mobile apps as well. Whenever a user executes a Web search via Firefox’s native search box, a certain percentage of ad revenue generated from the search goes back to Mozilla through an affiliate program.

The downside to this approach is that it lends itself only to applications that have some search component — such as a mobile browser — which make up a very small segment of the existing app mix.

That said, it’s entirely possible that creative methods of integrating search with mobile apps will make search-engine revenue that much more viable a choice.

Conclusions

Because the current incarnation of the mobile apps market is still so new and only just now experiencing a flowering of cross-platform competition and innovation, the ways apps can be monetized and sold are likely to enjoy as much of a period of experimentation as the apps themselves.

What’s clearest is that the processes of selling and monetizing apps have to be as convenient as possible, for customers and developers alike. “To reach as wide an audience as possible, you have to be able to go cross-platform,” says Mork. “You need some sort of business model where you can reach different audiences depending on whether or not they have data plans or smartphones.” This goes double for apps that spread virally, by word-of-mouth or by direct exposure: If your friend has it on his iPhone, you’re going to want it on your Android as well.

To that end, those who can make the monetization process as seamless as possible are set to reap rewards of their own — along with those who write apps that are worth monetizing, of course.（source:idg）