Freemium
Freemium Games
If you have any type of phone such as an iPhone, Android or Windows phone, I will guarantee you have used either a freemium game or an application. I can also guess they have up-sold you for a better gaming experience.
One of the most popular freemium games is the Bejeweled Blitz Facebook application. You get to play Bejeweled for free while the company who owns it, hopes to have you buy their premium game application which has better levels and you can play it at longer intervals.
If you take a look at the iPhone and iTouch, one-third of the top one hundred games downloaded from the iStore are freemium games. The top five Freemium Games for Apple products are
- Commodore 64
- Zombie Farm
- Tap Tap Revenge 3
- Mafia Wars (also a top on Facebook!)
- Pocket Legends
For the Android Phone Operating System the top 3 games are
- Angry Birds
- Bebbled
- The Red Stone
For the Windows
- Rise of Glory
- Tetris
- More to come
Many freemium business model experts believe freemium games are the wave of the future for phone operating systems for the iPhone, Android and Windows.
What is Freemium
For a more detailed look into what freemium is please take a look at our What is Freemium page.
Overall, freemium is a business model that is promoting a product or service by offering it free at first but charging a premium for more services or features.
Other Examples of Freemium
For Services
My favorite example of a freemium service is when I was at college. No matter what bar I went to, they were offering free food such as burgers, hot dogs, peanuts or fried chicken in hopes they would have us pay for something premium, that being a beer or a mixed drink. Did this work on us? Every time!
Another famous freemium is that of a the Kirby Vacuum. Have you ever had someone come to your door and ask you if they could setup an appointment for them to do a cleaning of a room for free? You either knew what was going to happen or you said to yourself, heck yes!
Well if you made the appointment, you knew a salesman would come in and clean a room in your house with an outstanding vacuum cleaner. After they cleaned your room, you hoped they would do more with this great product but instead, they wanted you to buy it. You either said yes, no, or have them call you back because you are thinking about it (which is a no).
How is this a freemium service? It is a freemium service because they are giving you something free, that being a clean room, and they are trying to sell you something at a premium, which is the vacuum.
Freemium for Web 2.0
If you take a look at the ever popular Flickr website, they use freemium too. Flickr lets their fre costumers upload their photos and other items for the world to see. The unfortunate thing is that people can only upload an limited amount. If you want the premium service, that being unlimited storage space, you can buy it for an extra 24.95 a year.
There are a lot of freemium Web 2.0 properties on the web today. It is a business model that is not going away!
Freemium For Software
My favorite software program is a nifty program that I use to add Twitter followers to one of my Twitter accounts. It works. To get more features though such as automatic posting and schedule times of adding followers, I need to buy the program at a whole.
There are more and more freemium software programs coming out each day. One of the most popular ones is well, any anti-virus program. They let you use it with great protection. Take for example AVG Free Anti-Virus. You get a great program if you download it but if you want added protection, you must pay 49.95 per year.
Does Freemium Work?
It does. You can tell it works because more and more companies are using it especially in the phone and software world.
