Announcing the BTB iPhone Application!

not wanting to rob your fantastic post, but if some reason we want to draft another pass rusher in the first or second round next year… perhaps look to Austin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSsLkBG_64Y

Only $2 for an app when I can just use my browser or RSS feed? Like Blogging The Boys? There’s an app for that!

BUT NOW?? What’s the point? Now I am complete! Well, as soon as I get an iphone anyway…

And it actually works really well. Not sure why you’d buy a version of the same thing.

I’m confused – you’re selling it for $1.99 and there’s still ads in it? why not just charge an extra dollar (or 2) and get rid of the ads?

I certainly understand the need to make money and would consider buying it, but having ads in a paid app is a real turn-off.

1) $2 isn’t the problem, but $2 + ads is a bit over the top

2) Any thoughts to developing one for the Blackberry? Since, y’know, Blackberry absolutely owns the smartphone market (especially in the US, where it has nearly a 60% market share).

Hi guys, I’m Wayne Vore from Pounding the Rock and it is my company, in conjunction with SBNation, that does the phone app. You guys have some good questions and comments here.

Just to throw out some answers:
Exit56 is correct. Very few, if any, iPhone apps have a price AND have ads.
There is an Android version.
Yes, people really do complain about $2.
Yes, the SBNation mobile version does have more features and it is free.
We are currently looking into the Blackberry support.
In the smartphone market, iPhone has a 60%+ share of the market for apps. Not Blackberry.

Now for discussion:
As Aaron and Dave mention above, we are doing this as a pilot project to figure out a few things about the market. One of the things we wanted to look at was whether or not we could charge for an app AND have ads in it. In our internal discussions, of the three guys, I was the only one who thought we could have both.

Why ads? I think the blog reader app is different than typical apps in that you need server support for it. It isn’t something like a minesweeper or other game that you can install and it is independent of the rest of the world. There is continuing servicing of the content. Much like BtB itself where there is an ongoing cost to running it and servicing your browser. BtB couldn’t sustain business if everybody paid $0.99 (or $1.99) 4 years ago to read it without ads forever.

Why a price? (Yes, people really do complain about $2, or even $1. It is a really consideration. People are very hesitant to spend that $0.99 on something. From business decision standpoint, it isn’t something to scoff at.) Well, I think that is the real question we needed to figure out. Would people pay for it? There are two things we had to consider.

One, is it a monetization opportunity? It may be a crude way to look at it, but I don’t think anybody is surprised that this is a business. Would people be willing to buy the app for their phone? What percentage would we lose because it wasn’t free and what is the potential ad revenue from those lost readers? You guy probably know that the ad market on the web right now is pretty poor. The free to pay loss ratio would have to be really high to not make it worth it.

Two, is the presence of an app in the app store an opportunity to grow readership? If so, then a free app might be much better. Our thinking go in to this was that it isn’t a readership growing opportunity for a blog. People finding the app can just go to the web site and see what content they would be getting. In that sense, I think it is much different than buying a game or something like that.

That brings up the question, why wouldn’t I just read the blog on my browser (phone or computer). This, to me, is the really tough one for us to answer. I think, and I’m biased, that the alerts are awesome and that the speed and format is great. However, I am completely aware it needs to support both reading and posting comments. The fact that it doesn’t is the single biggest issue. The people who really want the app are your hardest core fans. Those fans, like me, read for the comments and read many times a day. The fact that we don’t have comments causes your best readers to not get what they want out of the app and keeps page views (and thus ad impressions) much lower than we would like. Additionally, SBNation has done a good job updating their mobile site recently. About the only thing i can say is, “Hey, we’ve got Fanshots”!

Now getting back to doing both, I understand people being offended. I’m offended that I buy a ticket to a Spurs game and still get advertised to the entire time I’m there. It’s a calculated gamble you take. How many people will you turn away from your product? The other two guys in my company both thought this was a big risk.

As for Blackberry, we are working on it. We aren’t sure when we can get it out or if it will be part of the SBNation offerings. For us, as a company, Blackberry is a decent sized market. It isn’t however, the dominant force. 65% of all smartphone ads come from the iPhone OS (it also runs on iPod Touch). There are a ton of Blackberries in the world, but they don’t all support apps and Blackberry is a really platform to support because they don’t have good consistency among their devices.

There you have it. Some of my examples may be trite, but I don’t intend to be dismissive of anything anybody brought up. These are all issues that we have discussed at length and it is a marketplace we are trying to fully understand.

is this reserved to the US market ? I live in France and are planning on getting an iphone here (of couse with a French phone provider). Could i useyour product here ?
Thanks