Following the news that free app store GetJar has raised a further $11 million in funding, we caught up with its veep of marketing Patrick Mork to find out more about the company's plans for the future.
Some of that money is going to be invested in business infrastructure, such as setting up new offices and expanding existing locations, with the UK targeted as a particular focus.
Improving the GetJar website, as well as the analytics and other marketing and upselling options available to developers and publishers will be another outlet.
New ways to pay
More significant however are the ways GetJar will be tweaking its business model.
As previously discussed when we caught up with Mork in February, one such will be offering the option for paid apps.
"We'll introduced payment options by the end of 2010 in terms of Android apps," Mork explains. "As everyone knows, payment isn't yet working properly on Android so we're going to partner with a thirdparty to deliver this."
Even more surprising however, is the way GetJar hopes to kickstart paid game downloads from its site.
"We're planning to launch a new program specifically for game publishers where we'll pay them for a limited time to release their content. Game are important enough for us to be prepared to do this," he reveals.
"We're going to be very serious about games for the next three to six months."
Portal in an app
Of course, it's been the ability to offer over 71,000 free mobile apps that's driven GetJar's spectacular rise during 2009 and 2010, and so the company is also looking to bulk up its free distribution potential.
One way of doing this will be offering on-device clients that operators and OEMs can embed into their devices.
"Many apps have such as short lifespan, it doesn't make sense to embed them," Mork explains. "But if you can pre-load an entire portal that's a great solution for users."
Interview
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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