Smule reveals 700k Ocarina iPhone downloads

You might think that Smule's Ocarina is a novelty music app for iPhone. And it is. But 700,000 people have downloaded it according to co-founder Ge Wang.

He revealed the figure at this week's eComm conference in California. At $0.99 a pop, that means Ocarina has generated more than $485,000 of revenues for the company so far.

Wang also says that more than 1,200 user-created scores have been uploaded to the company's website, while people's songs have been listened to more than 40 million times. And, of course, YouTube is full of Ocarina performances.

Smule now has ten full-time staff trying to repeat its success, having recently taken $3.9 million of new funding.

It might not be a game, as such, but the way Ocarina has gone viral in recent months is a valuable example for iPhone games developers considering whether to add social features to their titles.