I’ll sell you a tile on my iPhone homescreen

Who wants it?

As I flipped through the apps on my iPhone the other day, I wondered “Why am I uninspired by my Apps? I’ve got the same ones on the homescreen for the past 6 months.”

Now I’m not really a guy that goes to the AppStore to browse for new apps — mostly I discover through friends or through social media or a blog article. We all can admit discovery sucks for Apps and advertising sucks for App makers.But as an app users, I’d love a reason to try apps and explore new ones. However, I believe I/we need urgency to make it work.

So, here’s what I would love for someone to do:

I want someone to pay me to secure an App spot on the home screen of my phone. Right up front. Each week, they get to update that App to a new app. I don’t care what it is, but when I update my Apps, I’d love to see a new one replace the one from last week.

• Urgency. If I liked the one for that week, I am forced to add it — because it goes away the next time I update.
• Discovery. It helps with the challenge of hunting and learning about new apps — I am getting a new app each week.
• Advertising. I’m giving someone a slot on my phone in exchange for the ability to ‘advertise’ it directly to me. It’s personal, and right in front of my face.
• Feedback. One of the challenging things about most advertising channels on mobile is its hard to test and learn. With this, you can tell *exactly* who kept it, who opened it, etc.
• Customization. If this worked, you could select that you want a game of the week, or only sports themed, or social or whatever.

You may have questions like ‘what if you don’t update’ or ‘what if you delete it?’ Totally fair, but that’s minutia. I’m curious how many other folks would sell a slot and check out the new app weekly?

I’m not sure if this is possible given the rules of Apple or Google/Android. Sounds like a perfect Startup Weekend project. Any mobile developers want to come to a Startup Weekend with me and build this — I’ve got a decent track record at these things?

My homescreen is for sale. Who wants a spot?