A Sneak Peek: iCaption Mobile Pre-Release Screenshots

comment_exclamation iCaption Mobile is a little project I’ve been working on for the last – oh, 3 or 4 months. I haven’t told anyone except my business partner at LOLer Apps about it, but I finally got the Beta Version today and would like to share it with you and give you a little preview of what’s to come.

iCaption is an iPhone application that combines the best of F My Life, and Twitter’s trending topics, which are both really popular user-generated type entertainment streams right now. There are still some bugs and design issues to work out, but so far I’m extremely pleased with the results. I’m hoping this one does even better than our last app, Babymaker, which has officially grossed over $6000 in sales within the first month.

The idea behind iCaption is that each day a new photo or topic is uploaded to the application. Users will be able to create their own captions and vote on other people’s captions for each. There are a lot of witty and creative people out there who I think would love this kind of thing.

So one day, it may be a picture (like this one) that could spark a lot of funny captions and comments. Another day, it just might be me holding a sign that says something like, “The REAL show title for Jon & Kate Plus 8″, or “Things you should never say while drunk.” Random stuff like that. I think people would get a kick out of it – by creating their own captions and reading hundreds of others for the same photo or topic.

Here are some screenshots of the user interface. Remember, this is a beta version, which still has some design issues and bugs to work out before it’s ready to launch. Check it out:

iCaption - 1

iCaption - 2

iCaption - 3

iCaption - 4

Both the designer and the developer did a wonderful job. The nice thing is that I can put upload pictures and topics in advance, so I won’t have to work too hard after one long upload session. As far as pricing and monetizing, that is still in the works. I may have it become a free app with ads, or maybe just sell it at a $0.99 price point. The more users, the better so I definitely don’t want to overcharge for it. I hoping with enough people to start, it will gain momentum and I may be able to charge people to submit their own pictures and topics, or even have sponsors for each day…we’ll see.

So, if I can have 3 iPhone apps launched, 2 eBooks published, an online class, a 6 figure income website, an affiliate review website, a potential book deal, the Smart Passive Income blog, and a baby on the way – all within a year, why should you ever say that you don’t have the time or energy to do just one thing to possibly earn an extra income for you? If you want it bad enough, and I mean truly want it to happen – it will.

Posted on : July 26th, 2009

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17 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply Brandon@SocialRockstar on July 26th, 2009 at 6:33 am

Wow, that’s actually a really novel idea. I would seriously consider purchasing that if I came across it in the App store.

Reply Jennifer on July 26th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Great Idea! I love it! I think it will be a huge hit! Can’t wait to see the numbers!
Reply Erica Douglass on July 26th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Hi Pat,

You make me look like a total slacker — LOL! This looks interesting and could become very viral.

-Erica
Reply DDFD at Defensive-Entrepreneurship.com on July 27th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Another neat idea Pat! You are a fireball!

Reply The Happy Rock on July 27th, 2009 at 6:46 am

It is good you are putting in the work now, because children change things A LOT. Especially if you are really trying to be a great dad and husband at the same time. Children want and deserve out full engaged attention.

I know that is the point of the passive thing, so I am interested to see how it all plays out. I wish you the best Pat.

Reply MattjDrake on July 27th, 2009 at 8:49 am

This app looks like a winner – will be interesting to see how it plays out.

In terms of pricing: I was just listening to that new audiobook, “Free” (that is also offered for free btw) that seems to speak directly to your concerns about pricing. Only because when your product depends so much on the size of your audience it seems like a good idea to do whatever you need to to attract the audience.

At any rate – the essential point that I was referring to in the book is that “free” is a special price. They point out that you can gradually increase your audience if you gradually reduce your price like:

$100 – 1000 users
$50 – 500 users
$25 – 250 users, and so on.

But, they argue that the difference in price even between 1 cent and free in terms of how it affects your audience is huge.

I guess what I’m saying that if you want to reach a large audience the app should be free. 99 cents may be counter-productive. Just my two cents and interpretation of this audio book though!

Reply Pat on July 27th, 2009 at 11:46 am

Matt, I did hear about that book actually. Thanks for your input. What about a free version with ads, and then a “pro” version without ads. I think this is what the FmyLife app actually did, and it wouldn’t be hard to do, obviously.

Reply MattjDrake on July 27th, 2009 at 8:50 am

Oppps – I messed that up:

The linear price vs audience would look more like this according to the book:

$100 – 250 users
$50 – 500 users
$25 – 1000 users, and so on.

Reply Paul on July 27th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Mir gefällt die Firma Apple sehr gut. Ich unterstütze deren Firmenpolitik.

Reply Tom on July 27th, 2009 at 11:37 am

Pat,

I think you’re going to seriously need to reconsider the one post per day. The thing about “F My Life,” “Lamebook,” and “Fail Blog,” is that that update multiple times per day. If it was just once per day, why wouldn’t I just visit once per week and see the 5 images and associated comments? Is one visit per week all you want?

Reply Pat on July 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am

Tom, that is a good point. I think it does help that the associated comments, or captions are constantly updating, and THAT is the entertainment – not the picture or thing to be captioned itself – if that makes sense.

However, i think that you’re right, maybe once a day isn’t enough. It wouldn’t be too hard to do maybe 2 or 3 times a day. That’s on 1000 a year, which isn’t that bad on the backend, actually. Plus, it would give people a better chance to have their ideas and pictures they upload to be actually be shown.

Thanks Tom for your input!

Reply Tom on July 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm

No problem! You might need to start slow in order to build traction with comments, but eventually you’ll need to increase the number of posts to make the app sticky.

Not sure if it’s technologically possible, but it would be great if users were taken straight to new comments whenever they launched the app. That way they don’t have to wade through all the comments they’ve already seen.

Comments can get bogged down by the internet crazies which is why I prefer primary content versus secondary. However, the crazies can make you money too!

Pat on July 27th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

Already ahead of you. When you look at the various topics or pictures, the captions will automatically be sorted by “latest caption” first. You can, however, change it so it shows the “best captions”, which are the highest voted; the “worst captions”, which are the ones with the worst votes; and “random”.

I’m really happy people think there is some really good potential with this one. Thanks again Tom!

Reply Kevin on July 30th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

I would be interested to see how a free ad support app would do for you. There have been reports coming out recently about how well app developers are doing with free/ad support apps and with an app as social as yours where you really depend on getting a lot of exposure, any price tag could limit that. I would consider not even offering a paid version at all, and just go the ad supported route. I am sure some of that would take some trial and error though to determine what is the best ad placement, but it sounds like the click through rate is pretty good.

Reply Deneil Merritt on July 31st, 2009 at 1:37 pm

The new app seems awesome. I am sure this one will be big. I happy for you. You just keep coming up with more and more stuff. Keep up the great work.

Reply My Monthly Report - July 2009 | The Smart Passive Income Blog on August 7th, 2009 at 12:42 am
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