Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge: A Top Grossing App Despite Being Free

A week ago, I wrote that only three of Apple's top twenty grossing iPhone Apps feature in-app purchases. I wondered whether developers have determined that direct sales were more dependable and profitable than relying on user-engagement to derive revenue. Proof it can be done the other way: Tapulous' hit iPhone application, Tap Tap Revenge, is a free application... and it has now cracked the top twenty-five grossing apps - purely through the in-app downloads / purchases. Tap Tap Revenge went free just before Christmas and had over 2,000,000 downloads in the subsequent week:

Tapulous, developers of the popular Tap Tap Revenge series, check in with good news. They’ve pulled down over 2 million installs of Tap Tap Revenge 3 since going free last Wednesday, 700,000 of which came on Christmas day. Between Tap Tap Revenge 1/2/3 and the Metallica/Lady GaGa editions, Tapulous now has 5 applications in the Top 100 grossing apps. (More on TechCrunch from Daniel Brusolovsky)

Tap Tap Revenge's top in-app purchases are all 'packs': nine of the top ten are either two or six-track downloads. Two-packs are $0.99 and six-packs are $2.99. Interestingly, the only individual track is the Avatar theme song (Avatar also has the #22 top-grossing app at $6.99). The paid applications are in addition to the weekly free apps released each Thursday:

Tap Tap Revenge comes with more than 40 free songs! Best of all, we offer Tap Tap Thursdays: every Thursday we feature a FREE hot new or exclusive track from top artists. So far we've featured songs by Katy Perry, Anberlin, Everlast, Michael Franti, Lady Antebellum, Lee Perry, 3OH!3 and Bitter:Sweet, to name just a few. Check out the full list here.

Not that it is directly related to the their revenue success, but Tapulous also does a great job communicating with their users through their outstanding blog. It is regularly updated with status updates, contests, new music, etc. But despite having over 4,000 Facebook Fans, their Fan Page is totally empty:

beRecruited.com: 7 Million Recruiting Connections in 2009

beRecruited.com had a terrific 2009 - as a recruiting platform, an athletic network and a business (covered in the Sports Business Daily here). During 2009, the beRecruited platform drove nearly 7,000,000 recruiting connections between high school athletes and NCAA coaches. Those connections resulted in beRecruited athletes reporting commitments to more than 1,500 different colleges and universities in 2009.

beRecruited is a 'freemium' business model: users can upgrade to "Deluxe Memberships" which include premium tools (like the College Tracker) and increased exposure within search results. Subscriptions are both monthly and lifetime.

Here are some of the 2009 usage numbers:

Number of Athlete Logins: 3.15 million Number of Connections: 6,984,354 Number of Photos Added: 405,632

- Males accounted for 59.63 percent of the new student-athletes that registered with the site; the females accounted for more than 40 percent of new athletes in 2009, a significantly higher percentage than in previous years

- California generated the most registered athletes, followed by Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina

- Football athletes were the most active on the site, logging in more than 500,000 times. Other sports generating at least 200,000 athlete logins included baseball, basketball, track and field, soccer, volleyball, swimming and softball

- Volleyball college coaches were the most active on the site, leading a growth in activity for women’s college sports in 2009

Apple's iPod Nano Takes Over ESPN Homepage

There are a handful of websites that push the edge on rich ad units: the New York Times, Gizmodo, Yahoo and ESPN (to name a few). There are also a handful of brands that create great rich ad units... Apple is clearly one of them. For instance, Apple has taken over ESPN and Yahoo to promote iPhone gaming.

Apple and ESPN teamed up once again - but this time to promote the iPod Nano... its a tie to the television campaign that is currently running - but it is also the first time I have seen a major online campaign for the Nano (particularly when the iPhone and iPod Touch are so hot / important).

The movement in the ad expands beyond the unit's traditional size (which is already quite big) and the Nano / dancers move fluidly into ESPN's header. It is quite attractive and, any time large / slick movement occurs, it is certainly eye-popping.

Also notable: large ads like this can load slowly and cause usability issues - this was done quite well and usability was not affected. In fact, the ad (and it's noise and movement) can be easily avoided.

ESPN's Mobile Application Strategy (and Ad Campaign to Match)

ESPN's Scorecenter iPhone App is the top sports application in iTunes, alongside several other successful ESPN apps: ESPN Radio ($2.99), ESPN Fantasy Football ($2.99), ESPN Zoom ($2.99), ESPN Streak for the Cash, ESPN 2010 World Cup, and so on.

Paid mobile apps are a key part of ESPN's digital strategy:

“I think we are evolving into a mobile applications world, which offers much more personalization, and we’re moving towards more paid content in mobile,” said John Kosner, senior vice president and general manager of digital media at ESPN, Bristol, CT. “We take it for granted that content is free on Web sites, but I think you’ll see something different evolve on mobile. “We’re committed to multiple revenue streams, and Apple’s iTunes billing and carrier billing makes it easier to do paid mobile content,” he said. “Advertisers want scale, and we’re able to provide that by delivering want fans want.

“It’s all about value—fans will pay for content that they value and they can’t find other places, and we’ve also been able to reach scale and have enough of an audience mobile so it interests advertisers.”

The focus on mobile applications is evident from the advertising and cross-promotion online, on-radio, in-print, and even on-air. Listen to an ESPN radio broadcast and you will hear several personality-driven promotions of the new ESPN Radio App... and, if you visited ESPN.com yesterday, you surely noticed that the homepage was taken over to promote ESPN's Scorecenter application:

Traditionally, ESPN saves the homepage for high CPM, rich ad units; here, they are promoting a free application for mobile users. That app is then used to promote ESPN's paid applications (average of $2.99 per download) through overlays, interstitials, etc. It is an interesting move considering that the holiday shopping season just concluded and that iTunes is seeing record traffic post-Christmas.

The ad unit is terrific: it takes over the entire background of the page and features a 'swiping' finger. As the finger swipes between iPhone screens, ESPN's background synchronously shifts. It is great looking and does an excellent job showcasing the slick UI on the iPhone.

click to see each 'stage' in full size

Learning from Expresso Fitness: Make the Workout Interactive & Social

As an athlete and sports-enthusiast, I am disappointed by the news that Expresso Fitness is "turning out the lights" (according to the Wall Street Journal). Expresso makes interactive, web-connected stationary bikes for high end gyms. The machines monitor your workout while having you compete against the computer and/or other bikers on interactive courses. All of your activity is monitored, logged and available through the web-based system. I have logged hundreds of miles on these machines and, from a consumer perspective, I love the products... and I'm not alone, they usually have members lined-up waiting to use them. The trouble of course is that they are expensive to produce and expensive for the gyms to purchase / maintain (which is in part why there is usually a line - there is short supply). For full utility, they also need to be connected to the web (many gyms simply do not have this capability - even higher-end gyms).

I do believe there are opportunities in the sporting world (Athletes' Performance is a Polaris company and beRecruited's userbase and business are growing terrificly). While Expresso Fitness itself may not be the answer, I applaud them for:

- adding connectivity and interaction to the workout - it improves the actual workout and incents activity

- adding social to the gym - from contests to online activity, social 'game mechanics' make working out more enjoyable and consequently more effective. Brands like Athlete's Performance, Core Performance, and p90x understand this and are doing it in their own unique way

- adding analytics to workout - I love data - from the web to my golf game to my Facebook usage... data makes any routine more effective and productive

Golfshot iPhone App: a Major Advancement in Golf Technology

Golfers have two consistent pains: - determining the distance to the pin and measuring the length of your last shot - capturing data to analyze and improve your game

Golfers solved these needs respectively by purchasing expensive equipment and scratching / compiling notes on the scorecard. Enter the iPhone, which you already carry in your cart and is already equipped with GPS. And enter Golfshot, an application that costs $29.99 and has data about 15,000+ golf courses across the US.

Golfshot is as simple or complex as you want it to be - which is appropriate for golf: for instance, golfers can measure the distance to the pin or track the distance of every shot (even storing that data by club). The more data you enter (and it's easy to do - simple a swipe or button press), the more advanced the application's charting and measurement system becomes.

The charting system effectively becomes Google Analytics for your round and your season. Collect data on putts, greens in regulation, driving accuracy, distances, etc both in the app or online. The charts are presented in good-looking layers and can be sorted / diced in the same way that your marketing dashboard can be.

The simplest and most useful feature is the online scorecard. It syncs directly with your address book and then automatically delivers the digital scorecard to each golfer. Those scorecards are accessible online and you can annotate them at any point (during or after the round).

The app costs $29.99 - which is far cheaper than the $250-$500 golf GPS systems that only measure distances. Golfshot is now the #11 grossing iPhone App according to iTunes (ahead and behind the games Scrabble and Uno):

World Record Holder Gemma Spofforth is a beRecruited.com User

This week, as world records crumble at swimming's World Championships in Rome, Gemma Spofforth took home a gold medal and a world record in the 100 meter backstroke (today she is competing in the 200 backstroke). While her swimming accomplishments are certainly exciting - her story is also interesting because she, like 100,000s of other athletes, was a beRecruited user. The 21 year-old is from Portsmouth, UK and used beRecruited to find an athletic scholarship. It is another example of how beRecruited is helping athletes of all abilities and all geographies connect with coaches, athletic programs and scholarships:

After going on the website, berecruited.com, which offers scholarships to American universities, Gemma had to choose between going to university in either Florida or Hawaii.

She picked the University of Florida and flew out to America in 2006 to take up her place in the competitive swim programme there.

Gemma will soon begin her fourth and final year at the university, but is expected to remain across the Atlantic after she graduates as she focuses on getting ready for the Olympics in 2012.

You can read more about Gemma Spofforth in today's Portsmouth News And you can watch her world record-setting performance on YouTube.

MLB At Bat Now Streams all MLB Games to iPhone

MLB.com's At Bat 2009 iPhone App released a major update today that allows subscribers of both MLB.tv and the MLB At Bat app to stream all regular season games via the iPhone. Until today, At Bat subscribers were able to only watch the Game of the Day.

I am a paying subscriber of both and have reviewed both MLB products - in short, the video and audio quality of both services are unparalleled (in fact, no other offering even exists in other sports / leagues). The iPhone streaming is particularly impressive as it occurs both over 3G and Wifi - and the quality is not degraded in the same way that many other mobile video services are.

Hopefully the NFL, NBA and television networks are downloading these apps.

iPhone 3GS Video & Camera Demo: Using MLB.tv

Oh how technology and digital media have advanced. Below is a video demonstration:

- capturing an HD broadcast of a live Red Sox game (streamed from MLB.tv, through my computer, and onto the television) - the video was shot on the iPhone 3GS's new video capture - and uploaded to Youtube wirelessly via the iPhone... in less than 30 seconds

On the iPhone and the computer, the video quality is far better than what is displayed on Youtube... but it is still far from HD and, despite TechCrunch's argument otherwise, products like the Flip Mino HD still have a role within the market (for now).

Also worth noting, the iPhone 3GS's camera is markedly better than the previous model's - both in focus, function and output. This photo also does a better job conveying the quality of MLB.tv's broadcast... a product I am so thoroughly impressed with that I chose to cancel my Comcast MLB Package subscription after five years: