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Tap Tap Revenge was downloaded 10 million times during that period and is still the most installed application. “The iPhone marked the beginning of mobile 2.0. Engagement was dramatically bigger than any mobile device that came before. That means the iPhone App Store is disruptive. Old models die, new ones will emerge. You no longer produce a product and ship it, but you create one as a free service and build business on top. Tap Tap Revenge is a free service, but we license new music every week, offer game enhancers and keep it fresh with continuous updates. The goal is to build a social network around the game that keeps people coming back. People like our game because it’s simple, fun and there’s something new every week. We have also invested a lot of time in the user community,” says Bart. Some critics doubted whether the app store would prove profitable for anyone but the producers of the top ten apps, but Decrem retorts: “For 10 to 30, 000 dollars, you can produce a very good app. You don’t need to charge very much to make a profit, especially not when you offer the app as a service and monetise in a more creative way, which is much easier since the advent of in-app commerce with the iPhone 3 OS.” Bart is also excited about other revolutions the app store will bring about: “It's like the Internet back in 1994. It was hard to make money then, but very important to figure out how it worked. Here’s a new medium coming of age, and we’re still learning from each other. Some companies have made a lot of money, some developers a bit, and some people very
little. However over time, there will be a smaller number of established brands/companies, that get a large piece of the pie, just like with the internet.” Bart is an open source enthusiast but says other platforms and smartphones will not only have to be compatible, but offer as good a user experience as Apple, or they won’t stand a chance. He predicts the app store model will be taken up by many systems, and is open for collaboration with anyone: “As long as I like what I’m doing and I am part of an exciting usercentered development, I couldn’t be happier,” says our man who made a big business out of small apps. (KVG)
© Pierre-Philippe Duchâtelet
SMALL APPLICATIONS MEAN BIG BUSINESS
Small applications mean big business Tastes in smartphones may differ, but no one can deny that Apple’s app store has shaken things up in the software world. The Word talked to Belgian serial entrepreneur Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, home to the most downloaded game in the app store, and most popular iPhone application, Tap Tap Revenge. Software used to come in physical packages, on CDs that had to be installed and upgraded. Nowadays, it behaves like a service on the web, or at least, it lives on the web and you download it. The openness of many software platforms and social networks, along with the advent of mobile surfi ng, brought along ‘molecular’ software, to be plugged into any system, taking up very little space. By losing its material form though, software risked becoming yet another kind of free web content (like music and newspapers). But then came the iTunes app store, proving that money could be made from even the tiniest, free apps. The central entry point for over 63, 000 apps and counting, the app store had one billion downloads in the fi rst nine months of its existence.
Widget
A small graphical object that gives access to a specific application or user interface. The widget is just the symbol for it, the entry point. Application
Any piece of software that makes you do things, or does things for you: it is software that directly interacts with the user. Plug-in
An extension of an existing program that brings new functionality to its host. Plug-ins are often developed by users, so that they can add functionality without intervening with the basic software.