Pay for promotion? How a new app is "paying" users to promote their app.

Smug Messenger, the latest app from AppRedeem. Check out the article on TechCrunch! 

Imagine sending a link to your friends to download an app, and then earning points from it to turn into things with real value like Amazon gift cards, or bitcoins. It sounds like a way to make  quick buck, right? Well, it may be, but is this really the best way to get people to download an app? Shouldn't people download it because it offers them a great experience and it's worth downloading? 

This tactic of luring people into downloading something is what the company AppRedeem was built on. Their first app was an app called AppTrailers and let people watch videos trailers of upcoming apps to boost downloads. This worked for the company for a while, but this act of watching app trailers was not something people did on a regular basis, and the app stagnated. 

So will this new app work? The mobile messaging app market is already cluttered with too many apps like Snapchat, Whatsapp?, Kik Messenger, among many others. I personally think that this new app will not last long. When was the last time that you were thrilled to get yet another Candy Crush request? I don't think pushing people to download an app, especially one they may have lots of the same kind of is not the answer. The pay factor may be good motivation for people to send out requests, but it will not turn into more use.