Show HN: Xplode – Mobile App Promotion and Monetization
xplode.iddiction.comApps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected, unless designed for a specific approved need (e.g. health management, aviation, accessibility, etc.) or which provide significant added value for a specific group of customers
Wow no response to the fact you can't use it on apples app store. I take no pleasure in pointing it out but this is pretty fundamental. Time for a new project?
After watching the video and reading the FAQ, I still don't really understand how it works. Is there some bar always hanging out at the bottom of my app that a user taps on to bring up the app discovery grid?
If so, I'm personally not interested. No offense, it just feels as painful of a user experience as iAd.
I'd much rather programmatically call up the app discovery grid based on some action a user in my app takes.
That all said, my comment may be moot, but I wouldn't be able to tell because I haven't been able to figure out how Xplode works from the Xplode site.
Good points! Integration is completely customizable. The bar is optional, and you're free to programmatically call up the grid using breakpoints defined in your code. If you do choose to integrate the bar, it can be completely customized to fit the style of your app. It can also be placed on the top of your interface if this is more appropriate.
We're allowing complete customization so that the developers that know their users best can decide how to implement it in their apps.
Ahh ok - that's much, much more appealing. I would definitely consider something like this.
Stop with the buzzwords. How does it work? Tell me and I'll pay you.
As it is, it looks like a bunch of BS. And Disney uses it? Really? Do you want me to email some exec from Disney to verify this? Because I have a contact.. don't make me do it!
It looks like a clone of ChartBoost and AppFlood. As an indie game developer, I have found these sorts of things somewhat handy. Often you don't really want to bother monetizing a game with ads and the like while it is growing and you would only make a couple hundred a month anyway. Instead you can show these cross promotion options instead. Basically it is like selling ads and using the money to buy ads for yourself, but more efficient since you are cutting out the middle.
Cross promotion methods are part of how larger companies get their games so many users. E.g. farmville will advertise cityville, etc.. So options like these help smaller guys compete with some of the powers of larger companies.
Your blue <h2> tagged text is underlined on hover, leading me to believe they are links. They are not.
Right away, I am unhappy.
Then I realize this is your how it works page and there is no text about how it works anywhere on the page.
-Actually, that's not your how it works page, you've just got the wrong link in your faq, taking me to /#how-it-works and not #!page/how-it-works. Pretty confusing.
I don't want to watch your video. If you want me to watch it, you'd probably do better by having a mid-sized box video preview, so I don't worry that the player isn't embedded.
You can't have a CTR of 140%. That's not possible. It would mean 40% more people clicked an ad than saw it. I'm not the mayor of Chicago; I can't get more people to vote for me than exist in my district. Likewise, you have to see my ad to click it.
Thanks for the tips and the note about the broken link. We'll fix these things.
As I mentioned in another comment, we had a developer that saw an overall 140% CTR because his users clicked on the app discovery grid multiple times. Meaning - there were users that clicked on multiple apps in the app discovery grid.
So, if I'm reading you right, you have a grid with multiple options open, and you counted clicking each option once so if I click two options, that's +2, 3 options would be +3, but viewing the options page only counts as 1?
The problem is that you should only get 1 click from 1 view for a particular object. So if I am selling 3 things in your grid, and someone clicks on all 3, it's not +300% for me, it's 100%. If someone clicks one out of the three options, then overall I'd have a 33%.
It's not as useful that way, though. So if I transition this to talking about a series of banner ads as an example: If I have 3 ads for 3 different products on the same page, I'll count their CTR separately. If someone clicks on ad 1 but not ad 2 or three, then ad 1 has 100% and 2 and 3 both are at 0. If someone clicks all three on the same view somehow, then each ctr would be 100% for that view.
100% is the max. Otherwise it's not really useful; how do you know from your way which ad is successful? That's really what CTR starts to measure.
Plus, 140% out of how many options on the list? What if there are 20? It's just not useful unless 100% is the max.
Dude, calm down.
I would be really curious to see a ratio comparing user engagement and usage when they download from something like this vs when they discover you on the app store.
I would assume that app store or other inbound discovery that was within the context of their search would become a much more engaged user of my app - but I would really like to see data on that spread.
I see your point. I think cross-promotion, if done right, can drive some very engaged users. In both cases, it's a true organic user. However, with this, it's likely you're getting users with better engagement than a random user browsing through the store. A lot of developers have integrated our app discovery grid with a button that the user chooses to tap on. This results in installs from dedicated users who are already engaged with that developer's apps and chose to view it in an effort to find more of the developer's apps or apps the developer would recommend.
Although this doesn't contain the control data you're curious about, here's an example of the results one of the developers on our platform is seeing: http://easytigerapps.tumblr.com/post/78759270430/developers-....
So you are saying the apps which show up are curated with respect to context. So if I make a bible reading app, strip club apps will not show up as options...more likely you will see religious or reading apps?
It is completely up to the app developer to choose which apps they want to show. The developer controls this. So they can just show their own apps and / or apps that are complementary to theirs. They can change this in realtime on our backend dashboard.
Does anyone have suggestions on their favorite static site generator for building a standard html/css/js website? Looking for basic templating and file formats sublime will understand how to work with.
I'd like to try it. But guess I need an invite. If you can send one that would be awesome.
Our company is currently looking for a new iOS monetization strategy.
Awesome! Just request a code on the Xplode registration screen and we'll send one your way: https://xplode.iddiction.com/registration
Why won't they be up front and explain how they plan to make money?
140% CTR? What does that even mean?
We had a developer that saw an overall 140% CTR because his users clicked on the app discovery grid multiple times. Meaning - there were users that clicked on multiple apps in the app discovery grid.