St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 30, 2009 – Andy Johnson, CEO of W3i, to speak at Software Business 2009 today in San Diego, CA. Andy will address ways to increase revenue for applications with the freemium model.

Many applications start with a developer passionate about technology looking for a better way to accomplish something online. They love to build the application but hate to market, frequently giving their application away for free. Andy will cover various business models as well as W3i’s unique application network. By making money, passionate developers can continue to develop applications that enrich people’s lives.

“I appreciate the opportunity to attend Software Business 2009 and discuss new ways to increase distribution and revenue generation for application marketers,” comments Andy Johnson.

About W3i
W3i, an application network that increases revenue, distribution and engagement for Windows applications and plug-ins, combining the demand for free and trial applications monetized by the distribution of recommended, relevant applications when the consumer is in the installation mindset. The W3i Application Network uses InstallIQ, W3i’s proprietary Windows installation manager, the first installation manager to be certified in the TRUSTe Trusted Download Program. Tested and optimized on over 300 million installs–currently over 9 million installs monthly and growing, W3i will prove to be a valued partner in growing your application business. To learn more, visit the W3i Application Network.

About Andy Johnson
Andy, CEO of W3i Holdings, LLC, formerly served as President of CMS Direct, a leading network database company serving the direct marketing industry. Earlier, Johnson served as President of Prefer Network, a leader in the network database industry.

Prior to that, he served as President of Fingerhut’s Electronic Commerce Division and managed Fingerhut’s Credit Card Portfolio. His background in various marketing management capacities includes direct response catalog marketing, customer acquisition, database management, credit marketing and telemarketing. In 1995 while serving as Fingerhut’s Senior Vice President Marketing, Johnson led the development effort to bring Andysgarage on line. Andysgarage was Fingerhut’s award winning closeout merchandise e-commerce site that brought the “Big Deal of the Day” to millions of consumers worldwide. In addition to numerous other awards, Andysgarage was named Best Retail Site in 1997 and Best Auction Site in 1999 by the Web Marketing Association. Johnson led the launch of Fingerhut.com in June 1997, which was the beginning of Fingerhut’s transformation from its catalog heritage into a leading web based direct marketer.

Press Contact:
Deborah Manthei
W3i Holdings, LLC
deborah.manthei@W3i.com
320-257-7571

I love getting a great deal, and I don’t have a lot of time to search for alternative offers so I use a shopping application. The shopping comparison sites are great. I bookmarked Overstock.com, Shopzilla, SmartBargains, Shopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, and Yahoo! Shopping. Of course, there is always Amazon and eBay. (Dangerous, as these sites are addicting and I couldn’t pass up several great bargains doing my research.)

However, I really love the convenience of desktop applications. And there are many benefits for the retailer. Being on the user’s desktop keeps your site top-of-mind and increases impulse purchases. Who doesn’t get distracted occasionally and begin to play with the apps on their desktops? Voila, a potential sale for you. Or the app can jump in when the user is searching for an item that the retailer has in their inventory. Voila, another potential sale.

Reminders. Shopping applications can offer reminders and promotions—creating an urgency to buy during key times of the year. What man doesn’t need to be reminded that they should buy their wife or girlfriend a gift during the holidays? Also if they are planning to buy online, they might need a reminder to buy now in order to get the gift there in time for the holidays. Gift suggestions can also do the trick. Shopping apps can offer more product information as well as recommendations; things that increase the value for the user.

While shopping applications were once difficult and time consuming to develop, new tools such as Adobe AIR exponentially speed up time to market. Adobe AIR allows developers to use web based technologies such as HTML, JavaScript and AJAX to develop shopping applications with the ability to support multiple operating systems. Adobe AIR also allows the shopping application to interact with your website if the user has it open in their browser. Previously this was much more difficult to do. Typically websites are sandboxed, however, Adobe AIR gives developers the ability to access some operating system features that only the typical shopping application could access to in the past. Adobe AIR is a remarkable technology that will allow you to get your app developed and out to your customers in no time.

With the simplicity of Adobe AIR. a shopping application can be built to maximize sales for this year’s holiday. Once a shopping comparison application is built, a large user base is necessary to reap the rewards. W3i has distributed over 300 million applications with proven results for e-retailers. The VP of Business Development at a major shopping comparison site comments about W3i’s Application Network, “W3i’s distribution partnership helped us build a loyal and active user base of well over three million daily consumers comparing prices across thousands of Internet stores within six months of launch.” Click Here to learn more about the W3i Application Network, a performance-based distribution opportunity, and how it can begin building your user base.

Thomas Heitz, Business Development, W3i
Thomas is a Business Development Executive at W3i, an application network that increases revenue, distribution, and engagement for Windows applications and plug-ins.  His expertise is in increasing revenue and traffic for shopping and entertainment applications.

I suspect that most of you reading this blog post are interested in applications and are not Minnesota Timberwolves junkies or have some strange fix for the silly Trix rabbit.

Last week was an interesting week.  I found you can learn a lot about application marketing by listening to other successful businesses. 

I started off the week working with my team here at W3i on finalizing a survey for anyone in our industry on the topic of Application Distribution And Business Models.  For the first time, W3i offered a free White Paper to contacts who participated in the survey.  Immediately, we saw the number of completed surveys per solicitation outperform our wildest expectations (feel free to participate if you like).

On Wednesday, I headed to the Twin Cities for the PDMA event being hosted by General Mills’ iSquad team.  iSquad is a specialized business unit which helps facilitate new product development/innovation for Generall Mills.  General Mills sells $15B+ of food every year and has hundreds of products including my very own favorite, Trix cereal.  I hear a lot about General Mills’ world class marketing team, and after attending their presentation, I was not let down.

The iSquad team delivered a presentation on innovating innovation.  The four key aspects they outlined for their process were.

• Find Great Ideas Regularly
  • Using the I3 approach to identify great ideas.
    • Immersion – Understand the problem
    • Interaction – Experience the problem
    • Idea Creation – Solve the problem
• Expand Available Talent
  • Isaac Newton said it best “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants,” meaning you should leverage the best internal and external knowledge available so that you are not inefficiently discovering things which were already discovered. 
  • Similarly, you could think about partnering with other companies to increase your available talent
• Get Smarter Sooner
  • A new product blunder cost the company $16M which could have been prevented if they would have released an earlier prototype of the product and understood how it would be used.  Get Smarter Sooner is a commitment they have to get high quality, but not perfect, products to market to real consumers faster so that they have a better understanding of the opportunity/challenges for the product.
• Pave A New Way
  • They try to work within their organization to have cross-functional resources involved in new product development so that as the new product is developed and deployed there are experts who are prepared to help with the transition post-launch.

Last night Kurt Rambis (the new head coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves and NBA legend) and players (7th overall draft pick Johnny Flynn and Ryan Gomes) presented my brother and co-founder, Rob and I with the The Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal’s 2009 Young Entrepreneur Award. Kurt spoke about the Timberwolves need to innovate if they are to become more effective than their recent struggles. The Timberwolves sponsored the event to engage the business community (potential customers of their corporate suites, etc.) with the major changes underway with the franchise. The changes to the front office, coaching staff, and players have led to a totally new team for 2009/10. 70% of the roster is comprised of players that were not on the team last year. Rambis spoke a lot about the personnel changes made as well as his process, knowledge, and experience that led to his past success (7 championships as a player/coach with the Lakers). I was quite surprised by the interaction and openness by the Timberwolves coach in responding to questions and sharing his perspective on the team. I believe that Kurt will be a great coach and a welcomed member of the community.

As VP of Corporate Strategy, I oversee the Product Management team here at W3i. We are constantly soliciting our business contacts and users for feedback so that we can be more tuned in with their needs.

Click here to complete the Application Distribution and Business Models Survey (only takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete) and you’ll receive a free White Paper to help you become more informed on this subject and support innovation with your application business.

A special thanks to all of the many users and business contacts who have provided feedback which have helped W3i get to where it is at today.

Ryan Weber, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Co-Founder, W3i, LLC
Entrepreneur and pioneer of Internet marketing focusing on increasing revenue and distribution for digital downloads.

How to Avoid the Video Game Dead Pool

As the economy continues to slide, consumers are holding on to their money more tightly than ever. They want the entertainment value of online games but are reluctant to pay for it. This has put a tremendous strain on game publishers, who in the recent past have been compelled to explore ad-supported business models that offer games for free. This has helped minimize the risk of developing and marketing a game that ultimately ends up in the video game dead pool, but questions still remain whether meaningful money can be made.

The fact is, assuming that only around 2% of users convert to paying for a game following a free trial, then money is left on the table, because there are alternatives to the try-and-buy model for game marketing with which revenue can be earned from the other 98% of the traffic. These alternative business models for online games include: in-game ad model, ad-supported installer model, and the alternative-payment model.

In-game Advertising
Using computer and video games to deliver advertising is becoming an acceptable business model as big brands are testing it as a way to reach elusive markets. According to eMarketer, in-game advertising spending grew from $295 million in 2007 to $403 million in 2008—a growth rate of over 36%. By 2012, that figure should reach $650 million. Meanwhile, IGA Worldwide1 research shows that 82% of consumers feel the games are just as enjoyable with ads and 66% feel that the ads are not intrusive. Some of the top in-game advertising companies are:

1. Massive Incorporated
2. Double Fusion
3. JOGO Media
4. IGA Worldwide
5. NeoEdge Networks (casual games)

Although in-game advertising is growing, it can be difficult to execute and has a long payment cycle. For it to work, the creative must fit seamlessly with the game theme and not deter from gameplay. Additionally, users must spend considerable time playing the game for your ad revenue to build up.

Ad-Supported Installer Model
The W3i Application Network (AppNet) is a new revenue stream worth considering. AppNet is a network of companies with downloadable content—including downloadable games. A unique Windows installer, Install IQ (certified in the TRUSTe Trusted Download Program) is used during the installation process to offer the user a value-add of additional software—in categories like trialware, search, and e-commerce applications. AppNet requires minimal in-house resources, and you can start earning quickly once Install IQ is in place and new users install your games. Since users see ads only during the installation of your game, they have no interruption during gameplay. Additionally, since all of the revenue activity happens during the installation, the actual gameplay itself is not affected. For each qualified installation, the W3i partner receives from $.50 to $1.50.

Jenkat Games launched its downloadable game player in March 2009. With its success, Jenkat ramped up distribution, increasing install volume by 2,991% from its launch of individual game titles in January 2007. Malcolm Michaels, President of Jenkat Media, Inc., predicts that the company’s Jenkat Game Manager will grow to over 100,000 monthly installs by the end of 2009 fueled by W3i’s monetization capabilities. In addition, each game-manager install represents the opportunity to market and install multiple games, leading to millions of additional installations.

Alternative Payment Model
Companies like TrialPay (www.trialpay.com) offer a third option: the alternative-payment model. With TrialPay, a user can purchase your game or virtual currency by completing one advertising offer, such as subscribing to Netflix, buying jeans from Gap, or sending flowers from FTD. The advertiser pays for your game, which you then give to the user for free. Although the game is not technically “free” in this scenario inasmuch as the user must make another purchase in order to receive your game, it does represent another way to monetize those who might not otherwise pay to play your game. Playfish, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing social games companies, uses TrialPay to increase virtual currency sales. For example, in the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, Playfish let users get free virtual currency by sending flowers from FTD—and significantly increased sales.

Conclusion
Use creativity in your marketing plan by reviewing alternative business models. Many business models can be combined to give your bottom line an additional lift. For example, W3i’s Application Network can be layered onto other business models like trial and in-game advertising. Users respond to ads for “free” games. Why not put the power of free to work for your game while using an alternative revenue model to keep your company out of the dead pool?

Josh Fiedler, Business Development, W3i
Josh Fiedler is the Business Development Manager at W3i, a provider of integrated desktop and browser marketing solutions.  His expertise is in increasing revenue and traffic for downloadable games and utility software.

How are application installation rates impacted if multiple application ads are presented in the installer? This is a question that is frequently asked by application publishers when they consider the revenue- generating opportunity made possible by cross-selling additional applications during their installation process–the monetization model offered by the W3i Application Network. W3i conducted a test to attempt to answer this question.

First, some background information on W3i and the W3i Application Network. How does W3i add value? For advertisers W3i creates value by providing a new channel to purchase distribution. For publishers W3i creates value by sharing the revenue generated by the distribution of these advertisers’ applications. For users W3i creates value by helping them discover new applications from advertisers and providing revenue to fund more application development.

W3i conducted a test to understand the impact of cross-selling applications in the installer.

• Cross Section of Applications Tested – two media players, two game applications, a utility, and a social networking application.
• 175,000 applications were installed by users

The number of cross-sells (advertiser’s offers) tested included 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Our findings show that a drop in the applications’ installation rate from 1 to 5 offers was less than 1.5 percentage points, equating to an average decrease of 12% with a full 5 offers. At W3i, publishers can choose the number of cross-sells that are available with their applications.

W3i observed that the acceptance rate of each cross-sell varies greatly from advertiser to advertiser and publisher to publisher. Additionally, applications have varying installation rates from application to application. This leads to the conclusion that it is not the quantity of cross-sells that impact the installation rate as much as it is the relevancy. W3i enables clients to select which applications to advertise with their apps to increase the relevancy for their users.

How many and what cross-sells are included is ultimately decided through balancing user acceptance and revenue generated. As the number of cross-sells increase, the relevancy and revenue decreases per cross-sell and so the reality is that there is limited number of cross-sells that maximize the lifetime revenue for a publisher.

Kristin Oberhaus, Product Manager, W3i Holdings, LLC
Kristin has over 13 years of product management experience and is a certified usability analyst. She is an avid believer in pragmatic marketing.

It is a never ending job understanding what goes on in the world and how it applies to improving business. At W3i, we are constantly reviewing data, analyzing information, and sharing performance data with our clients. Anytime we can provide more insight into how our clients can leverage the market to their advantage, and increase relevancy for our users, we step up to the proverbial plate.

Essential data is derived from our installation processes, research on personas that use specific products, and return visits of customers. Essentially as much information as we can gather without getting too specific.

Therein lies the challenge. At W3i, we are committed to not collecting personally identifiable information. So without PII, how does demographic targeting work on the internet?

We employ a large amount of secondary research to determine information on personas with regards to things like operating systems, installed applications, and conduct primary research on our returning customers. For example, users that have the latest operating system are more likely to have this system as their primary household computer. This is important because it equates to more application usage.

How can that tell us anything? Let’s take some obvious cues. Let’s say I have a game manager and I want to decide what game to offer up to a user, how would that decision making process happen?

First, we detect the operating system. It is Windows 2000. We know that most intensive games are not compatible with this environment, so a high definition game is probably not the best user experience for this user. Now, let’s detect for some basic software, such as Flash. The user does have Flash, so I know that flash-based casual games are compatible and will work. Now, consider the product that this user is downloading. They are downloading a patriotic screensaver so odds are a game that targets patriotism would be a good bet. But wait — there is another component to this. If that person downloads a patriotic screensaver on July 1, could it be that it is really what we call our Cement Goose Lady Persona? These are the women who make us smile by taking the time to make sure that even their cement goose is dressed appropriately for the occasion. If we take a look at their returning customer status, we determine that this is a common occurrence for this user to download a screensaver at holidays.

Given all this, our installer can choose an appropriate game for that persona during the installation process.

Why do we do this? First, and most importantly, this allows us to ensure each visitor to our sites receives software that works. Second, and only slightly less important, it provides the best value for our partners who are advertising with us. Of course, we benefit as well. A win/win/win situation. Maybe that is what W3i really stands for?

For more information on increasing revenue, distribution, and engagement for Windows Application contact W3i. With over nine years experience and 250 million installations W3i established an Application Network—app companies with user demand supported by app companies with a revenue-generating business model. Learn more about W3i’s Application Network today.

Kristin Oberhaus, Product Manager, W3i Holdings, LLC
Kristin has over 13 years of product management experience and is a certified usability analyst. She is an avid believer in pragmatic marketing.