Google Play Gets a Free App of the Week Section

Back in 2012, Apple started ‘free app of the week’ as a means of promoting some of the best titles in App stores. Google decided to follow Apple’s footsteps and has recently launched their own ‘free app of the week’ section. This new and exciting section is available on Google Play and has been launched, but not yet in India. However, this mega-tech pioneer has not yet committed to making this free application section, a full time feature. Google Play is currently testing their new approach to marketing apps only in the US, and will keep the format going for a time period of four weeks.

Free apps available 

One of the attractive features they had added on Google Play prior to this recent update was a unique feature that was greatly liked. This innovation allowed developers to display sales of their apps and other free offers on Google Play. While the recent ‘free app section also features a free download version of Card Wars by Cartoon Network for free which normally costs around $2.99. This is available on both mobile and desktop version.

This move is a wonderfully innovative approach that not only allows popularity of Google Play but gives an innovative platform to new developers. This program by Google is called the pilot program. Cartoon Network was approached by Google for offering the proposal of joining this latest venture by Google Play. Even though, CN was not thinking of running a sale, they agreed to participate in it.
Editorial selection process

An editorial selection process is being held by Google for deciding which apps will be featured in their new ‘free app of the week’ section. This editorial process is far better than some algorithm which will lead to the display of popular apps that have already been up for sale. For this program CN is giving some its popular apps for free but Google recompensing the publisher of the apps, for these downloads.

Tried and tested method 

Although, Google has decided to take up this new venture, it is not exactly ‘new’ for the company. As, back in 2015 Google had already tested the model by offering free apps in the family section. However, the format was a tad different, and Google Play was only offering free applications from PBS kids.

Well, this is also not something new for the Android users as they’ve already had the experience of downloading paid content for free. Amazon Underground was a program launched by Amazon in 2015 where Android users were able to download premium apps for free from the Amazon Appstore. App publishers in an effort to increase their Google Play ranking and for boosting downloads also sometimes offers exciting sales.

Google, however, has decided to not make comments on this business model surrounding the ‘free app of the week’ venture. A spokesperson has however stated that it is Google Play’s constant endeavor to offer their customers with the best services on Google Play. Considering the shining success of Google’s earlier efforts to boost app rankings, this new venture will be quite successful.