iFart and a Look At Creating Apps For Today's App Industry
Posted July 23, 2009 @ 4:08pm by Phil
While reading Tyler Cruz, one of the blogs I follow, I came across an article about Joel Comm's recent appearance on The Daily Show. Joel Comm is a New York Times bestselling author, internet-made millionaire, and social media expert. He is the same guy who created The Next Internet Millionaire, an online reality show that I watched a year ago where contestants compete to team up with Joel on his next internet project. The Daily Show does it again, and the four minute mock interview segment with Joel Comm is just hilarious! It is a look at Pull My Finger and iFart, two fart applications competing to top the charts in the iPhone App Store. I have embedded the segment below:
It reminds me of a conversation my friend and I had a few months ago about Facebook/iPhone apps and the emerging application industry. My friend is the CEO of Frozen North Productions, a game studio here in Waterloo. We were discussing the practicality of professionally creating games on the iPhone or Facebook, and our ideas for such games. I think he said it best when he said "I can't see spending 20 thousand dollars developing a game for the iPhone that will get it's ass kicked by the latest fart app." Now don't get my wrong, there are professionally made applications out there making big money. But when a person can throw together a novelty app and make the same returns, why bother spending big money to make something great?
A large part of the problem is the demand for novelty applications, and the fact that most of the apps are created by people like me — hobbyist programmers who build these apps for the thrill of it and consider making any money as an afterthought. Big risks can be taken. Whereas a big company wanting to make an entertaining game with an in-depth story just can't take the same risk — especially with the "ladies in bikinis" and fart applications topping the charts. How are our games going to compete?
Stay tuned for my fart app for the iPhone.
Update: Joel Comm has posted a behind the scenes look at the making of this segment. Very interesting to see how it is done.
