Ask HN: We are looking to “adopt” Android apps

16 points by kiberstranier 12 years ago | 12 comments

Hi HN Community!

We are currently working on a mobile analytics project focused on the Android platform.

In the spirit of the lean startup philosophy, we want to be able to run live tests of our assumptions with real users, and iterate really fast.

Given that a lot of applications that were developed are now abandoned for a lot of reasons (did not grow big enough, developers moved on to other projects), we thought this might be a good opportunity for us to "adopt" one or more of these apps for us to play with.

The applications that would be the most relevant for us are apps that are already developed and have a considerable, organically attracted, number of daily active users (over 1000). These apps are general purpose and keep the user engaged for a longer than average period of time (for instance a news reader app is better for us than a one time use BMI Calculator).

If anyone is interested in receiving a small financial compensation for a project that would otherwise be abandoned please let us know by sending an email at: kiberstranier@gmail.com

Thanks!

huhtenberg 12 years ago |

So you are looking to purchase users so that you could debug your tracking software on them? Excellent plan.

kiberstranier 12 years ago | |

As I said earlier, we don't sell or give any information to anyone, nor we collect data that can uniquely identify any user. All data (time on screen, geo, time, locale) is used internally as part of our analytics app.

resoluteteeth 12 years ago |

You may be a legitimate company with the best of intentions, but after recent stories about people purchasing chrome extensions to abuse the update process by silently changing them to inject ads into pages it would be only natural for people to view requests of this nature with suspicion. You should probably provide more information than a gmail address.

nols 12 years ago |

Here are two app marketplaces:

https://flippa.com/

https://www.sideprojectors.com/project/home

kiberstranier 12 years ago | |

We tried some other marketplaces, but the quality of apps there is not very high. We would prefer an app that solves a real problem.

nols 12 years ago | | |

So you're looking for high quality abandoned apps? I think you're looking for a needle in a haystack.

dochtman 12 years ago |

Why not work with apps/projects that are still active?

I was thinking of NewsBlur, whose app is open source, I think.

MatthewWilkes 12 years ago |

It might be a good idea to post your privacy policy here, otherwise people will assume you're up to no good.

kiberstranier 12 years ago | |

We don't sell any information to anyone, nor we collect data that can uniquely identify any user. We are interested in users' actions, time on screens and so on. This is why we wouldn't prefer games. But as I said, games would be ok as well if we cannot find other apps.

gabrielaradu 12 years ago |

Are you interested in Android games?

kiberstranier 12 years ago | |

We are mainly interested in general purpose apps, but games would be ok as well.

gabrielaradu 12 years ago | | |

Thanks