Palo Alto, Calif. startup Smule doesn't just develop some of the coolest iPhone applications like musical app Ocarina. Smule has also put together the best contests to promote those apps. The latest is the "I'm on a Boat" competition to promote its "I am T-Pain" iPhone app.
I am T-Pain allows you to transform your voice with Auto-Tune technology, giving your singing or rapping the distinctively mechanical tone heard in songs by hip hop musician T-Pain and others. Now Smule is trying to find the most talented app users -- and promote the app, too.
Participants record their performances of "I'm on a Boat" (a song featured in a Saturday Night Live skit guest starring T-Pain) and upload the footage onto YouTube. Then the company uses what it calls "a proprietary T-Pain induced Smulean algorithm which combines views, ratings, suggestion of some musical talent, and lyrical inspiration," to choose one finalist per week for 10 weeks, then a grand prize winner.
Each finalist wins prizes, and the top contestant gets $5,000 and a "Big Ass Chain" (weighing 10 pounds, apparently) to match T-Pain's.
Smule is also cutting the cost of the app to tie into the promotion, from $2.99 to 99 cents, starting this afternoon and ending on Saturday night. Not that sales haven't been strong already -- I am T-Pain was at the top of the App Store charts the weekend it came out, and Smule says it has sold 300,000 copies, leading to 4.1 million performances.