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Distributing a simple application

Started by Dunge Feb 16, 2009 at 2:29 PM 3 replies 1.2k views

Original Post

Feb 16, 2009 at 2:29 PM

I had a simple idea the other day and after a bit of internet search, I was surprised that I was unable to find an application doing it so I created my own. Programming was simple, took me less than one day to get it working fine. Still, I think many gamers over the world would want this and so I would like to distribute it. The idea (hoping that nobody steal it) is this: Show in the MSN Messenger "quick message" box the current Windows game you are currently playing, using the "Show what I'm listening to" option just like the XBOX360 do when connected to Live! with an MSN account. Act like XFire, but for MSN. My application is a tray icon who scan for processes using D3D/OpenGL modules, take the first visible window title of this process and send it to MSN. It works fine for every games I tried yet. I can advertise it on many msn and gamers sites/forums for publicity, but I wouldn't want to make it look like bad spam. How could I make it spread? Also for distribution choices, what do I do?: 1. I send it to every freeware download sites and let them distribute it for free. 2. I make a website for centralized download and charge under $1 for it, or a 30-days trial with money to remove the time limit (I would prefer it to stay free). 3. I make a website for centralized download and add some banner publicity at the bottom. (Would that even gives me a penny?) 4. I make a website for centralized download and ask for PayPal donations. 5. CRAZY IDEA WARNING: Patent the idea, and fight against Microsoft's lawyers when they decide to add it into Windows 7 (or later) and ask for an amazing sum of money to let them do it. I told you it was crazy, but Microsoft is surely planning to do it one day or another for games using the "Games for Windows Live!" libraries. 6. Forget about it, application is too simple to be of any interest to anyone, even if it don't exist yet.

frob

Feb 16, 2009 at 5:37 PM

Take a step back and look at your market.

Who exactly would be interested in the product? Who exactly are your potential customers?

The market sounds like hardcore gamers who want XFire for MSN Messenger. It seems to me that this is an extremely small niche market.

Once you've figured out your market, you need to figure out how to get it to them. This corresponds with a marketing plan, you'll need to get them aware of your product and somehow entice them to acquire it. I cannot imagine a good way to market it because my imagined niche market is so incredibly small.

With your target audience and market plan figured out, you'll be able to determine what is the most likely way to get paid for the product.

I'd guess that because the app was extremely simple for you to write, any attempt to monetize it will result in clones that do it better and for free. To me that implies you treat it as an ad-based service, but since the market is small you may never hit critical mass of advertising.

Considering the two or three hours required to develop such an app, even getting a few bucks over the product lifetime is a relatively good profit; so maybe that is a good approach after all.

Dunge

Feb 16, 2009 at 6:02 PM

I don't like to see it as a "market" and "target customers", I want this application to be shared freely cause I agree it's a bit lame to ask money for it. I also wouldn't want to include publicity as part of the application, cause it's meant to be lite and adding publicity would greatly increase the resources needed to run it.

As for the "small niche", I don't think it's so small. It's for all PC gamers, not exclusively reserved to "hardcore gamers". Even if it were, the XFire community is amazingly big. Think of Twitter, people likes showing what they are doing to their friends. I would also like that everybody in my msn list had this application so I can see when they play games and what they like. It's something that not a lot of people will go ahead and search on internet to download, but if it were already included in MSN, I'm sure it would be used by thousands daily.

As for making profits, I don't really care if I do or not, but of course if I can I would prefer to make a few cents than nothing at all. The best idea until now is a banner on the website, but of course people visit the site only once, download the application and don't return so I don't think it would produces enough traffic to have anything. I am wrong?

gavco98

Feb 17, 2009 at 10:11 AM

Quote:
Original post by Dunge
As for making profits, I don't really care if I do or not, but of course if I can I would prefer to make a few cents than nothing at all. The best idea until now is a banner on the website, but of course people visit the site only once, download the application and don't return so I don't think it would produces enough traffic to have anything. I am wrong?

The MSN "What i am listening to" feature displays a hyperlink next to the users name showing the song title, clicking it takes you to an online store where you can buy the track.

I have no idea how the API works, but is it possible for you to do the same thing, or does it only allow you to display normal, none hyperlinked text?

If you can, then just hyperlink to an amazon search page based off of the name of the application. You will then gain commission through amazon sales affiliates.

Dunge

Feb 21, 2009 at 9:34 PM

If anyone is interested in the actual application, you can grab it for free at http://nowplayinggames.sytes.net

gavco98 : Clicking on a music link actually go to http://music.msn.com/search/. I can't control how MSN messenger react when they click on this link.

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