Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, what now?

Posted by c1sc0 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @11:12AM
from the nytimes.com dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/technology/03atheist.html?_r=3&hp

So I have this app that has been steadily bringing in a tiny amount of passive income & then suddenly today I saw a huge spike in sales. I googled around a bit & it seems my app has made it into the paid Top 100 & the NYT has mentioned it.

My dilemma: this attention comes at a pretty bad time, because I'm working on a new venture & I really need to focus on that one.

Should I focus on the new venture & let this spike die out? Or should I try to use this spike in media attention now, & if so: how? I'm torn between long-term focus & short-term profit.

( 21 comments | 7 points | on HN )

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by jimfl on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:17PM (#1485872)

3. ...

4. PROPHET

What issue to you see arising from this exposure?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by bdlang on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:22PM (#1485880)

I assume you meant "profit". "Prophet" is probably not the way the OP intends to go, what with the atheism and all.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by ax0n on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:46PM (#1485915)

I'm pretty sure the wordplay was completely intentional for this exact reason.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by c1sc0 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:45PM (#1485913)

Isn't profit == prophet a valid statement most of the time? ;-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by endlessvoid94 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @02:27PM (#1486092)

It's always a VALID statement, it just happens to be TRUE in this instance ;-)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by KirinDave on Sunday July 04, 2010 @02:23PM (#1486086)

Congratulations on your newfound fame. But I can't help but notice something startling in the article.

Do people really still use the anthropic principle as a real argument? That's so silly it's almost sad. It's the logical equivalent of a double-ended knife; any non-trivial universe or solar system or planet is discarded by that misguided notion.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by petervandijck on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:22PM (#1485879)

- you probably won't get so much visits from it

- promote the story to bloggers/other press who may want to do a similar story on it. Offer them your own phone nr. and phone nr.s of other developers of these apps, make it easy for them.

- keep an eye on your stats, if you don't have real-time stats, install them for a week or so.

- make sure the site is up.

- perhaps add a message to your site "welcome nyt readers" trying to convert them

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by c1sc0 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:31PM (#1485892)

Any suggestions for a good real-time stats package?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by Zev on Sunday July 04, 2010 @02:08PM (#1486064)

I'm a fan of writing your own; it isn't very hard (just send back some data in appWillTerminate: and a quick ruby/perl/python/cgi/whahtever script to parse it into results) and it lets you keep track of information like the OS or device type that your users are running. Flurry and the like can no longer collect this data for you due to a change in Apple's dev agreement. Although, with your app, this might not be terribly important information.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by gte910h on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:33PM (#1485897)

I use appFigures.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by c1sc0 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:47PM (#1485917)

I don't think AppFigures qualifies. What I'm looking for is a tool that detects intra-day traffic spikes. Both AppFigures & Google Analytics arrive one day late at the party.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by gte910h on Sunday July 04, 2010 @01:25PM (#1485979)

Ahh, I see, you're looking more for a flurry type thing: http://www.flurry.com/

Lots of the Atlanta Shops use that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by endlessvoid94 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @02:28PM (#1486093)

Flurry isn't real time though, is it?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by gte910h on Sunday July 04, 2010 @03:49PM (#1486236)

"Flurry Analytics provides accurate, real time data to developers about how consumers use their mobile applications, as well as how applications are performing across different handsets. Application developers receive aggregated usage and performance data, as well as robust reporting and analysis tools. With this data, developers can identify issues and opportunities, create a more informed product roadmap, increase retention and grow their user base."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by edge17 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @01:01PM (#1485942)

Localytics is close to real time. I track my launches with it and can see the spikes from certain big blogs to be clearly visible.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by edge17 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:59PM (#1485937)

I use Localytics

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by l4u on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:52PM (#1485923)

piwik, clicky

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by phil on Sunday July 04, 2010 @02:23PM (#1486087)

Congratulations!

1 Put "as featured in the New York Times!" with the best quote about you from the article at the top of your app store description.

2 Consider temporarily dropping your price and trying to convert more of the people that check out your app after reading the article.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by the-kenny on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:02PM (#1485850)

Can't read it. I don't want to register.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by c1sc0 on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:08PM (#1485859)

I can read it, but I'm outside of the US. Does the print link work? : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/technology/03atheist.html?...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: Help, my iPhone app made it into the New York Times, wha... by bdlang on Sunday July 04, 2010 @12:24PM (#1485882)

I can read it just fine, I'm not registered with the site.

[ Parent | on HN ]