In a significant move, GetJar has announced its own virtual currency system for Android.

Part of its 'paid games for free' Gold initiative, the Gold currency is designed to improve its distribution of Android apps; invigorating the activity of users as well as of advertisers.

"The scale of what we can do with Gold depends on the amount of advertising money we can generate," says GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs.

"The whole industry's moving to free-to-play and we needed to find a way of funding that via advertising."

Expand the wallet

Because of its free-to-consumer model, GetJar also needs to keep its operation as simple as possible for users.

"Billing platforms are a problem," says Laurs. "Google Checkout isn't available globally, and lots of people don't have credit cards. Payment is very inconvenient."

Gold virtual currency is designed to bridge these two issues.

The concept works as users earn coins by downloading apps that use the GetJar's SDK, whether they be hosted on GetJar, Android Market or Amazon Appstore for Android.

Laurs says that Google's terms and conditions mean Android is open in terms of such virtual currency systems, unlike Apple. And there are already a couple of live apps on the Amazon store, so however surprising, the assumption is it's fine with the practice too.

Perceived value

Earned coins are stored in a virtual wallet on each user's phone - handled in the cloud - and can be used as credit to download games and apps or buy IAP in supported games and apps.

Typically, users might get 5 coins for each download, while a sponsored game might 'cost' between 30 to 50 coins to 'buy'.

US mobile monetisation outfit Fiksu launched a similar system, called FreeMyApps, in the US late in 2011.

In turn, the coins transfered via this activity will be credited to the GetJar accounts of developers whose apps have been downloaded. They can cash this out at any time, exchanging 90 percent of the virtual currency for real cash.

GetJar's 10 percent transaction cut at this point of the process is the method by which it gets paid. As Laurs points out, this is better for developers than the standard 70:30 app store revenue split.

Chinese walls

The trick in the system, however, is that coins won't ever have a monetary value to consumers.

"Think of it as a loyal scheme or an air miles program," Laurs explains.

For example, they won't be able to buy additional coins.

Coins will purely be something that can be gained by downloading more Android apps; something that fits right into GetJar's business model - which is to provide a global platform for the free-to-consumer distribution of apps and games.

In this way, GetJar doesn't have to worry about the different legal requirements of real cash systems, nor does it need to run an registration or log-in system for the wallets, which would reduce user penetration, especially in emerging markets.