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How should monetize my desktop application?

by nikomaster
4 replies
Hi,

During these last 4 months, I have been developed an application to help internet marketers to increase their capacity to get more quality backlinks.
It is not an spam tool, is a mass search engine scrapper with integrated website analysis tools.

Here is my dilema, I always been a supporter of free software. However, these kind of applications are never free, specially those capable of returning absolute results :"this site is good for link building, and this is not".

Is there any other way to monetize this software other than selling it. I was thinking placing embeded advertising on it. I think in this kind of niche it will sell fine. Nevertheless, I do not even know any ad network that provides support for desktop applications.

Any ideas?
#application #desktop #monetize
  • Profile picture of the author Nigel Booker
    I think embedded advertising on destop applications puts a a 'red flag' up & would deter a good number of people from installing & using it.
    We all know about privacy issues with web based advertising & most people accept the trade off but as soon as the application comes accross to a users desktop generally I think users find that's a step too far...
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim Franklin
    The truth any software, website, application, has to be monetized in some way, either someone pays for ad placement, (advertising) or you pay to use the software, the same thing goes for websites, how many websites are not monetized in some way?

    Software is no different, just look at tucows.com

    70 percent of all the software on that website has some form of linking, advertising, or other methods of supporting the development of the software.

    If you do not want the advertising, or you want more software features you have to pay for that, just as you would not expect to be able to advertise here for free.

    There are tons of methods of managing ads, I think the most advantageous, methods are where you use a subliminal that does not distract from the use of the product is usually just fine, I have plenty of these apps and never had one single complaint, after all they get a useful product for free, if they happen to see an ad and click on it, that's cool, if they don't, that's ok too,

    The advertising game is changing, with Googles new privacy policy or should I say lack of privacy, nothing is sacred any more, and it looks like this is an all in thing, all the big players, in Internet retail sales, is following along with this goose stepping insanity,

    So, if you no longer have any expectation of privacy, online, at google and other large companies, what difference does it make on your desktop, because the browser, is also on your desktop, so really there is not a lot of difference there.

    Its happening on your computer, and on your cell phone, or tablet, the only difference is that on your cell phone they know where your at every min of every day.
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    • Profile picture of the author Brandon Tanner
      You could also monetize it by placing your affiliate link to a complimentary product somewhere in the user interface. That could take the form of a 1 line text ad, or a banner-type graphic.

      Then make a PAD file for your software and use a paid software submission service to blast it out to all of the popular freeware sites. If your software is good, it will get plenty of downloads, and you will make some affiliate commissions (provided your affiliate link text copy is good, and the salespage of the product it promotes is good).

      Also... at some of the freeware sites, your software listing will get bumped back up to the top of the category every time that you submit an updated version of it (even a minor update that only took you a couple hours to code... hint hint ).
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  • Profile picture of the author nikomaster
    Even if I add advertising into the application, I do not know where to start.For example, a Link Building Tool for sure will attract a lot of advertising. However, how should I attract advertisers? In web advertising , it is easier searching for the site stats on many of the services out there such as seomoz, compete, etc. But in a desktop application is not possible showing these stats. I can create a log in my server but people would not trust it.
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    • Profile picture of the author onSubie
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