Is this the new corporate vanity web site?

July 28, 2009 12:55 PM

How would I figure out how big the market is for iPhone apps that are basically collections of videos?

I've noticed a few iPhone apps that are basically bundles of videos (locally stored with the app on the iPhone) with menus for navigation. They tend to be instructional in nature. Here's a few examples.

I'm speculating about a side gig making this kind of app, but I really have no idea how many other companies would want an app like this made for them. How can I find out?

posted by ignignokt to Work & Money (2 answers total)

Get a Google Adwords account and play around with the keyword tool. If you can figure out the set of keywords that cover the majority of your market (e.g. "iphone app _yourtopic_", "iphone videos _yourtopic_", etc.), how much people are playing per click, the number of expected click throughs, and the total number of people advertising by doing those actual searches, you can get a rough estimate of the total market size.

Adjust up for the profit margin in your sector and adjust down for optimistic advertisers. The people paying for spots lower than 3 probably aren't making money off of it. The more specific your topic area is keyword-wise and the more established the online market, the better this will work.

A complementary approach would be to look at the app rankings for similar video collection apps and search for "iphone app rankings sales". You'll find a number of blog posts that correlate app ranking with the number of downloads or sales. Depending on your app category these will be more or less useful. There is a lot of info on games, less in other areas.
posted by stp123 at 7:56 PM on July 28, 2009

Response by poster: Hey, thanks for the response! So if there are no searches for the keywords, then I guess that means there's no one currently looking for the service described by that keyword. I don't know if it is a conclusive estimate of the market, but it is better than what I had before: Nothing.
posted by ignignokt at 1:42 PM on September 3, 2009