Farting isn't clever, but it's lucrative
Posted by Rhodri Marsden
Friday, 2 January 2009 at 02:41 pm
Most of us devote at least some subconscious time to dreaming up money-making schemes that might see us through the recession and allow us to be freed from the tyranny of mortgage payments and the questionable man-management skills of our bosses. Trouble is, few of us have any kind of entrepreneurial flair.
Around the corner from my flat, a Sri Lankan chap recently opened a shop selling party accessories – hats, streamers, baubles and so on – and, according to the blackboard outside, he specialises in "puberty ceremonies". Now, I wish him well, but I have a horrible feeling that the demand for, uh, puberty-related bunting in this part of London is on the low side. I certainly don't recall any fanfare or fireworks when I passed into something resembling manhood. I just recall spending a lot of time listening to The Cure and crying for no reason, although that might have been because I was listening to The Cure.
Anyway, while we make half-hearted stabs at getting rich quick, or more likely don't bother at all, other people effortlessly tap into the zeitgeist and emerge some $40,000 richer. That's what happened to one Mr Joel Comm over Christmas; by utilising the oldest joke known to mankind – flatulence, bottom burps, call them what you will – he produced an app for the iPhone called iFart. Unsurprisingly, it produces fart noises. It only costs 99 cents, but it quickly rose to #1 in the App Store, and the 58,000 people that downloaded it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day netted both Comm, and Apple, a small fortune.
There's been a general surge in the numbers of apps sold by Apple over Christmas as people unpack their iPhone or iPod Touch and start spending the cash on their iTunes Store gift cards – but it takes a special kind of business brain to figure out that what they really want is not productivity software, but a hi-tech whoopee cushion that lets them stab the screen with their finger and hear the digitally enhanced sound of someone blowing off.
I was all ready to applaud Mr Comm's efforts, but then I saw his website and realised that this was no lucky break, that this wasn't some bored bloke accidentally striking it rich. Comm devotes himself to the study of getting rich online, and presents a depressing internet entrepreneur reality show in which the contestants will probably fail to come up with something that resonates as deeply with the online community as a fart gag.
Oh – and if you are seeking to emulate Mr Conn's success, don't push the boundaries of taste too far. Apple are watching you, and if you stray into the same realms of indecency as iBoobs, you'll be banned from the store forthwith. :shock:
http://rhodrimarsden.independentminds.l ... /6536.html
I was interested in the use of 'bottom-burps' here - I remember in the early or mid 1970s a friend of mine being very amused when his young daughter invented the same phrase - it was certainly the first time I'd ever heard it!