Tapjoy is best known as a monetization service for mobile games, but the company is working to expand into other industries. Case in point — a just-announced partnership with movie-streaming site Popcornflix.
Owned by Screen Media Ventures, Popcornflix allows its website visitors to watch movies (mostly independent titles that I haven’t heard of) for free. With the planned launch of an Android app called Popxornflix Gold, Popcornflix viewers will be able to watch movies on their phones, but they’ll have to spend Popcornflix Points to access the content. And to earn those points, they’ll have to interact with advertising.
This will be the first movie-watching app to use virtual rewards, according to Tapjoy CMO Peter Dille. He’s pitching Tapjoy’s combination of ads and virtual rewards as a smart way for mobile app developers to make money — not just in games, but in entertainment and other industries.
“The world is trying to come to grips to what makes sense in mobile,” Dille says. “Pop-ups and pre-roll don’t seem to make sense.”
Other non-gaming apps that have partnered with Tapjoy include TextFree, Appzilla, and AppDog. Dille says that for the most part, Tapjoy is doing the recruiting, but with “the huge trend towards the gamification of content, it’s not a huge leap for folks” to sign on.
Popcornflix plans to release the Android app in early August, with other platforms to follow.