Monetizing Web apps

Application stores have created a whole ecosystem through which
developers can get compensated for their work, in particular because
they come tied with a payment mechanism, and an easy way to provide
in-app upgrades (which seems to be an increasingly effective way to make
money in native apps).

For Web apps (and focusing on cases where developers want to be paid for
the content/service they're offering), the traditional model has been to
use advertising, or to convince the user to enter their credit card
details.

Advertising has been show to be (at least currently) less effective on
mobile devices, in particular due to screen real estate; and entering
credit card info is often perceived as too cumbersome as well, given the
input constraints (although some UX efforts in this space are likely to
help, e.g. http://zdfs.github.com/toscani/paymentInfo/index.html )

There is a whole headlight project dedicated to payments on the Web:
http://www.w3.org/wiki/Payments_Task_Force
with which we could usefully collaborate (by e.g. making sure our
requirements are addressed).

But independently of the (complex) mechanisms needed for setting up
payments, I think it might be useful to look at:
* what in-app payment would look like in a Web app? Maybe the phonegap
plugin in this space could provide some inspiration
https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-plugins/tree/master/iPhone/InAppPurchaseManager

* what if anything could make advertising on mobile Web apps more
profitable

* if simple technical means for users to enter their credit card info
(e.g. a dedicated <input type>) could help on mobile; I know this has
been explored before, but don't know the details.

Is anyone interested in taking the lead on this?

Dom

Received on Thursday, 7 March 2013 10:59:24 UTC