The nightmare of marketing on the App Store
The numbers are really impressive, at least from the point of view of the user, because the same numbers are scary from the point of view of the application developer. The flood of new titles has created fierce competition among developers. Most of the applications pass through the App Store unnoticed by users, and those who does, force their developers to upgrade them constantly if they do not want to loose their position in the ranking quickly (nearly half of the top 100 games are less than three months old).
Definitely, Apple has changed the rules of the game, but I think they went halfway. It is true that you do not need a publisher for your application anymore (don't you need one? Sure?), and you do not need a distributor thanks to the on-line downloads, but at the end the App Store is like any other real game store, they have the 25 featured applications, and the user never know about the rest.
Social networks like Facebook or Myspace, that have a similar problem with applications, are doing much better: they encourage the viral marketing of the applications. So any good application has a chance to become well know among users. It is a pity that Apple has not used a similar approach for their App Store.
So, if you are a independent software developer, and if you want to develop a new application for the iPhone, please, go ahead, but mind that the marketing machines for the large companies (EA and others) are there, and they are very big machines ...
Comment
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Comment by Ivedone on July 30, 2009 at 5:01am - "One small step for the Apple, one giant leap for Usability" :) good news so far
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Comment by RGL on July 30, 2009 at 1:39am - Now developers can use keywords describing their applications. It is a small step, but it's in the right direction.
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Comment by alex grant on July 28, 2009 at 5:41am - I agree absolutely with this. The app store is very much one dimensional. There is talk about Apple developing a separate Genius tool like exists for itunes. This could make it much easier for small developers to get noticed but the Genius tool may take as much as 12 months to develop so in the mean time viral marketing is the only way. As a friend of mine who works for i play who develop iphone games told me, trying to market apps is the wild west of marketing. I the mean time we need sites like this one and our own to fill the gap. I hope we both pull it off.
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Comment by LuXo on July 24, 2009 at 3:02am - I prefer to use the AppStore in the iPhone than in computer, its easier for me to find things :S Although i agree, the AppStore needs a huge update!
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Comment by Carl Fried on July 22, 2009 at 1:45am - Apple revealed during their quarterly earnings conference call that they are working on different systems for ranking apps in the App Store.
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Comment by Peter van Dike on July 22, 2009 at 1:23am - Currently the iTunes store rates apps by the number of downloads, regardless of price. That's crazy. If all cars were ranked by the number sold, the BMWs would have to lower their prices or become invisible through lack of exposure.
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Comment by RGL on July 15, 2009 at 1:21am
- Latest numbers are: 1.5 billion applications downloads, 100,000 developers and 65,000 apps.
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