With app discovery the #1 hot topic for iPhone developers in 2010, we caught up with Joe Bayen, CEO of ICS Mobile and the initiator of FreeAppADay.com, a new promotion portal that will be offering you the chance to get free iPhone games daily when it launches on Monday 18th January.

"Our goal at FreeAppADay.com is to guarantee that smaller developers with polished apps will be able to monetise the process of giving away their game for free over the longterm," says Bayen.

"It's important to stress that we're focused on high quality apps though. That's why we practice a strict selection process to ensure each game or app posted on the site has the potential to generate revenue for its developer."

Using ICS Mobile's experience with its Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense game over the Christmas period, Bayen further explains why he expects the site - which will also be promoted through mobile advertising tech provider TapJoy's SDK, and OpenFeint new's consumer app - will make money for developers, despite its overtly free nature.

Only free for a day

"To get a commercial return after giving away our game for free, we did a combination of things," he says.

"The boost we got the day Navy Patrol was free on the Appvent Calendar was combined with TapJoy's pay-per-install solution. This enabled us to hold onto our new position in the App Store, which in turn meant we could generate more daily income from the paid version of the game."

He says, the result was the game went from generating between $40-$60 per day to around $200 per day.

Following the release of another version, Navy Patrol: Coastal Defense Zero, which linked into TapJoy's virtual goods system, daily revenue jumped to $350, peaking at $700 at weekends.

Visibility is cash

Explaining each of these steps in turn, making a game free for a day obviously results in a lot of downloads, which will boost its paid chart position the following day when it reverts.

TapJoy's pay-per-install system works by encouraging gamers to download and launch free and paid games to get favours (or points) to upgrade their turrets and get more maps for TapJoy's TapDefense game, which is one of the most downloaded games on the App Store.

Everytime someone buys a game through this mechanic, it's picked up by the installed TapJoy SDK, with the money split seeing TapJoy gets 50c, Apple 30c and the developer 20c for every dollar of game purchase.

A little times a lot

"20 cents doesn't seem like much but the point is the TapJoy store generates visibility that allows you to make a sale you wouldn't otherwise have achieved," Bayen says.

"This is combined with the multiplier effect because every sale helps you hold your position in the App Store. As we all know, there's a big difference between being number 24 or number 51 because each time a iPhone user scrolls down the store listings, the likelihood they'll check out the next page diminishes massively."

"So from our experience, a day of giving away a game for free provides visibility and pushes you up the rankings, while TapJoy helps you hold on to and monetise that position."

The bottomline then is that FreeAppADay.com will provide developers with the initial push and mass visibility.

Maintaining that visibility, subsequent chart position and some cash return, will be provided by TapJoy, while OpenFeint will provide a viral distribution bonus.

Developers interested in getting involved with FreeAppADay.com should fill in the contact form on the website.