So what does being a Featured App on the Canadian WP7 marketplace mean?

As a casual WP7 developer, I am always interested in seeing what happens when an app is "featured" in the Canadian WP7 marketplace.

I am also confused about how an app is "featured" but since my normal job keeps me pretty busy, I never had the chance to look.

That is until this morning when I woke up to check out the new applications and and the featured apps.  And man was I surprised to find that something I wrote was front and center on the featured apps list.

Canada Border Wait Times was listed in the featured app section and man was I surprised.  I released this app around the beginning of February and it constantly sits in the top 50 in the travel & navigation category within the marketplace.  Last I checked, it was again hovering between 40-45 spot within the category.

I will report back in a few days with the results of what happens to this app when it gets featured.  I have already seen an increase in the ads impressions report.

Before Being Featured:
                    impressions per day avg: 20
                    estimate revenue per day avg: 1.5 cents
                    downloads per day avg: 5
                    downloads per month: 64
                    spot in travel & navigation free category: 40-45

After Being Featured (also coincide with Easter Weekend so I am pretty sure it is skewed):
                    impressions per day avg: 150
                    estimate revenue per day (it's only been 2 days): 30 cents

I will report back in a few days' time once apphub updates with the figures

Few things you will noticed if you are using free ad-driven apps:

• Ads are annoying but still don't get indie wp7 developers like myself anything close to being significant (considering subscription to appHub is $99 + tax a year)
• Not every developer is Rovio (maker of Angry Birds) or OMGPOP (makers of Draw Something)
• Clicking on apps increases the revenue but no one actually clicks on the ads (next time you use a free, ad driven app, click on the ads once in awhile.. That's why WP7 has a "back" button")

Other tidbits:

• My wife does laugh at me for being so happy for making 30 cents a day these last couple of days - I do tell her it's 30 times better than before)
• Microsoft pay threshold is $50 for ads.. before you say MS is evil and is all about $$$, Google's pay threshold is $100 for ads - this blog since the beginning 1.5 year ago has 15K visitors which yielded a grand total of $10.18 that I can't have 
• 15K visitors to this blog also only yielded 10 ad clicks