The term “app economy” became popular in 2008 and 2009, with the development of mobile applications (“apps”). “The 3 U’s: A Model for ‘Advertising’ in the App Economy” by David Armano was published in February 2008.
 
“The App Economy Is Now ‘Bigger Than Hollywood’” was a story in The Atlantic in 2015.
 
   
Technopedia
Definition - What does App Economy mean?
App economy refers to the range of economic activity surrounding mobile applications. Mobile apps created new fortunes for entrepreneurs and changed the way business is done. The app economy encompasses the sale of apps, ad revenue or public relations generated by free apps, and the hardware devices on which apps are designed to run.
 
In 2007, virtually no mobile apps existed. As of 2011, more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded.
   
Logic + Emotion (David Armano)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2008
The 3 U’s: A Model for “Advertising” in the App Economy
Usefulness
Utility
Unity
 
The Guardian
The app economy
iPhone apps could soon be bigger than YouTube. But who is making all the money here? Apple, the developers,or no one at all?
Stuart Jeffries
Tuesday 28 July 2009 19.05 EDT
 
Gigaom Research
How Big Is the Apple iPhone App Economy? The Answer Might Surprise You
Om Malik Aug. 27, 2009 - 5:00 AM PDT
If I were to tell you that Apple’s app economy was worth more than $2.5 $2.4 billion a year, you would laugh hysterically, shake your head and walk out of the room, yes? Surf on over to some other web site? But here I am telling you exactly that! According to mobile advertising startup AdMob, there are some $200 million worth of applications sold in Apple’s iPhone store every month, or about $2.4 billion a year.
 
Technologizer
The iPhone App Economy: What Price Quality?
By Harry McCracken |  Friday, October 16, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Gizmodo’s John Herrman has a long, smart post up about the economics of the iPhone App Store, the seemingly endless price pressure that makes most apps really cheap, and what it all means for iPhone developers and iPhone owners
 
TechCrunch
Mark Pincus: Web 3 Is The App Economy
Posted Oct 20, 2009 by MG Siegler (@parislemon)
Today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus took the stage to talk about social gaming.
(...)
Pincus believes that Web 3.0 is the App Economy. That is to say, it will be a web in which people use various apps to share things. And there will be money behind this thanks to direct payments, and social goods.
 
Bloomberg Businessweek
Cover Story
Inside the App Economy
By Douglas MacMillan, Peter Burrows, and Spencer E. Ante
October 22, 2009
It’s easy to shrug off the kooky world of apps. The bite-size software programs people load onto their mobile phones or tap into on the Web seem mostly to be silly games and pointless novelties. But look past the beer-drinking apps and flatulence programs and you’ll see something significant taking shape: a bustling app economy that’s creating new fortunes for entrepreneurs and changing the way business gets done.
 
It’s happening with dizzying speed. Just two years ago, almost none of this existed. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, the most popular destination for mobile-phone programs, was launched last summer.
     
The Atlantic
The App Economy Is Now ‘Bigger Than Hollywood’
The web might be the most important medium in American culture.
ROBINSON MEYER JAN 27, 2015
What is the major cultural force in America right now? It might just be apps and the web.
 
While reading a self-laudatory Apple press release, the technology business analyst Horace Dediu found something remarkable: The iOS App Store distributed $10 billion to developers in 2014, which, Dediu points out, is just about as much as Hollywood earned off U.S. box office revenues the same year.
 
Financial Express (India)
Getting set for the app economy
By Express News Service on July 24, 2015
G Krishna Kumar and V Sridhar
With increased adoption of smartphones and deployment of 3G/4G networks, the country is poised for the take-off of an app economy, a new term coined to describe the economic aspects of mobile applications and content.