Analysis of trends reveals the dynamics of how and why iPhone applications sell, claims Pinch Media. Greg Yardley, co-founder and CEO of mobile analytics firm Pinch Media, recently gave a presentation at the New York iPhone Developers Meetup highlighting data gathered from over 30 million App Store downloads of applications utilizing Pinch Media's analytics libraries. The presentation, entitled 'AppStore Secrets', reveals a number of interesting of statistics and conclusions.

The advertising firm notes for instance that popularity feeds popularity, as appearing in a top 100 list increases new users by 2.3 times, on average. The jump is said to be even more dramatic once in the top 10 or 25 apps of a particular category, though Pinch warns that the App Store is structured for rapid turnover.

Pinch Media's analytics tools have been added to "a few hundred" applications that have a combined total of over 30 million downloads. The first part of the slideshow deals with lists and price cuts, and reveals that the Top 100 list can more than double an application's downloads. We also learn that the average price cut increases demand by 130 percent, and that it's getting substantially harder to get on the Top 25 and Top 100 lists. For example, a free application now needs more than 20,000 downloads in a 24-hour window to reach the Top 25 list, and still needs 5,000 downloads to make the Top 100 list, both of which are much higher than the early Fall requirements.

Pinch Media also performed analysis on ad-supported and paid applications to determine which model is likely to perform better. Based on their data and estimates of ad pricing, they concluded that in general an ad-supported application would have to "bombard" users with ads in order to generate as much revenue as a paid version.