After the controversy with Apple and Steve Jobs over its analytics offerings, Flurry is making further moves towards the Android platform, launching its app recommendation engine AppCircle for Android phones. Flurry launched AppCircle for the iPhone last month and has attracted over 600 participating applications with a combined publisher reach of 22 million iOS device owners.
Flurry’s AppCircle attempts to match up app developers who want to gain more users with those who want to make money from promoting other apps. The service leverages Flurry’s recommendation engine in combination with Flurry Analytics to recommend the appropriate app to the right user at the right time from within participating Flurry network of applications.
AppCircle is built on top of Flurry Analytics, a service used by 45,000 applications on iPhone, Android,
BlackBerry and J2ME platforms. It’s unclear how many of the applications in Flurry’s network are Android apps, so the reach of the app circle is questionable.
For App publishers who want to earn money, they can integrate Flurry into their applications, which allows Flurry to serve targeted application recommendations to their consumers. Publishers earn 60% of the price for each app download. For promoters, application developers create campaigns and set bids on how much they are willing to pay for a new user. Flurry’s recommendation engine will match relevant promoter apps to display within publisher apps, and then use bidding to rank the order in which impressions are shown. Publishers can also use their own virtual currency to encourage downloads.
After the crackdown on Flurry from Apple for violating privacy policies, it is not surprising that the startup is broadening its horizons to other smartphone platforms. But Android may not be a save haven for long. In theory, it seems like a good idea to help developers who want more users be able to connect with publishers who want to make money; but I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before Google starts doing this with AdMob.
Flurry helps companies build, measure, advertise and monetize mobile applications in the new app economy. The company’s comprehensive measurement and advertising platform reaches over 700 million monthly unique smartphone and tablet devices across iOS, Android and other platforms. Flurry has offices in San Francisco, New York and London. The company is venture-backed by Crosslink Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, InterWest Partners, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, First Round Capital and Draper Richards.
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