Clearing up some questions about POWfolio estimated downloads - maybe!
My previous post was really just for conversation and should NOT be considered what I think IS the actual download numbers.
A couple problems with trying to make it so is that the research first focuses on paid apps versus free apps. They looked at the top paid apps in the app store and didn't touch the free stuff. Another problem is (as duke pointed out) its based on the top-paid apps overall. They don't categorize. The research included some talk about the other categories only because they were trying to figure out a cross-correlation between the phone and ipads in terms of ranking. Obviously POWfolio is not a top overall app. To be fair, there is NOT a single comic reader app in the top 500 for Paid or Free. Marvel is the highest grossing comic reader app at #410 and DC is 2nd at #474. Now they do have comic based game apps that are up there but that is no comparison. And NO comixology was not in the top 500 according to appannie for either area - (free or grossing), which I was surprised it wasn't at least top 500 for grossing revenues.
Now, the last part is why I went ahead with the numbers for conversation: from the research paper I linked to earlier
"6.3 FREE APPS
Our approach so far has focused on the demand estimation for the paid apps that are placed on the top 200 bestselling list and overlap with the top grossing app list. Another extension of this work is to
estimate the demand for free apps, where the overlap with top grossing list is purely because of the inapp purchases. Since free apps attract over 10 times more the volume of downloads,it is even more lucrative for app developers to infer the extent of revenue generated using in-app purchases for free apps."
The fact free apps can attract over 10 times more volume makes this at least interesting even though in actuality POWfolio's rank should fit into the formula due to it's a free app and not in the main all app heading.
If any others feel the estimating is a bit too controversial I'll just delete them and move on. I'm actually working trying to get access to actual download data via appannie so we'll how that works out. Also trying to see if I can get it via other app analytic tools.
enjoy, time for some POWfolio reading in the meantime! thedocg.
