{"id":336878,"date":"2017-03-28T02:21:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T18:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1469311"},"modified":"2017-03-28T02:21:33","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T18:21:33","slug":"google-play-pilot-test-in-u-s-introduces-a-free-app-of-the-week-section","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/google-play-pilot-test-in-u-s-introduces-a-free-app-of-the-week-section\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Play pilot test in U.S. introduces a \u201cfree app of the week\u201d section"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Apple began offering a \u201cfree app of the week\u201d back in 2012<\/a> as a means of highlighting some of the App Store\u2019s best titles, and encourage users to start downloading. Google, belatedly, is following in Apple\u2019s footsteps with its own newly launched \u201cfree app of the week\u201d section on Google Play. However, we\u00a0understand that Google has\u00a0not yet committed to make this a full-time feature.<\/p>\n

Instead, Google Play\u2019s\u00a0\u201cfree app of the week\u201d is something the company is testing only in the U.S. for a four-week time period. Internally, it\u2019s being considered a pilot program.<\/p>\n

The feature was initially spotted by Android Police<\/a>, which noticed the section had begun appearing on the Play Store on both desktop and mobile, featuring a free download of the normally $2.99 game, Card Wars \u2013 Adventure Time from Cartoon Network.<\/p>\n

VentureBeat<\/a> reports the section was introduced last week, but Cartoon Network says that it\u2019s not aware of any app being promoted befor its app. The current\u00a0promotion runs from Thursday to Thursday, ending on\u00a0March 30, 2017.<\/p>\n

We also understand that Google Play approached Cartoon Network to ask if it wanted to participate in the pilot program. The company was not planning on running a sale at the time, but agreed.<\/p>\n

This also means there is more of an editorial selection process for those apps that are showing up as the \u201cfree app of the week,\u201d\u00a0rather than some algorithm that\u2019s parsing Google Play for popular apps that were already on sale.<\/p>\n

Though Cartoon Network is now giving its app away for free as part of this program, Google is not compensating the publisher for the downloads.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Google has offered a free app of the week. Google\u00a0had previously tested the model back in 2015, when it rolled out a \u201cfree app of the week\u201d in the family section<\/a> of Google Play. At the time, it was offering a free app from PBS Kids.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not the first time that Android users have been able to download paid content for free \u2013 Amazon in 2015<\/a> launched Amazon Underground, a section on its own Amazon Appstore where premium\u00a0apps are offered for free. Its model compensates\u00a0developers based on how long these apps are used, the company said.<\/p>\n

And, of course, app publishers also\u00a0often run their own sales in an effort to boost downloads and their Google Play ranking.<\/p>\n

Google declined to comment on\u00a0the business model around its \u201cfree app of the week,\u201d however.<\/p>\n

A company spokesperson\u00a0instead offered the following statement, \u201cWe are always making improvements to Google Play to offer to the best service possible to our consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Apple began offering a “free app of the week” back in 2012 as a means of highlighting some of the App Store’s best titles, and encourage users to start downloading. Google, belatedly, is following in Apple’s footsteps with its own newly launched “free app of the week” section on Google Play. However, we\u00a0understand that Google has\u00a0not yet committed to make… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-336878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}