On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 1:13 AM, Chister Nordvik <cnord...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The alternative market approach is "hopeless" in my eyes. Currently we > have at least: > SlideMe, AndAppStore, AndroidPit, SE PlayNow, Motorola, Lenovo, > Handango, Mobihand, OnlyAndroid, GetJar ++ > The space has gotten saturated and it will be tough for smaller players to survive unless they find a strong niche. Handango, mobihand, getjar and the like have content across multiple operating systems so adding Android is not much of a cost to them. They can remain in the market indefinitely. Smaller players like SlideME and AndAppStore are positioned directly against Google. Currently, they have an important niche in the international market, but each time Google moves into a new country, they lose. And eventually Google will be global in its Android Market reach. So they will have to position themselves differently to make it in the long run. When I did the first launch of ZappMarket, with a traditional focus + analytics, it didn't pick up well. I got invaluable feedback from developers and it became clear there was not enough of a differentiating factor between Zapp and other offerings like AndAppStore. It also required a lot of users for aggregate information to have any value. So I was deep in the chicken-and-egg problem of users driving content and content driving users. For the launch last week, I tried a different approach, one that didn't require a lot of users in the beginning to provide value. ZappMarket is now a social site, where users hook into facebook, sell their apps and interact with users. Even a few dedicated users of your apps commenting and providing feedback can make a huge difference in the direction and quality of your app (and also drive more sales on Android Market). And there is also the potential of going viral through friends-of-friends network. A possibility traditional app stores don't have. The developer interest in this latest approach is much, much better than the initial approach, showing that there is a need for social integration into app stores. I have a personal goal of 1 app a day on average being uploaded to ZappMarket and so far so good. With the right niche, I don't think developers mind uploading their apps, it's primarily a problem of uploading multiple times to hit the same market that doesn't make sense. > > You will not get me submitting screenshotsAPK and descriptions for all > of those. And I guess there are lots more not in that list. > > If an alternative appstore had collected screenshots, apk and > description from the Android Market and only needed an "OK" from the > developer, then maybe it would get more people to submit. But I guess > the APK collection is a bit on the gray side of what is legal? :-) > > But back to the point of the discussion, is there any hope in getting > answers from Google regarding the various approaches to selling > premium content inside a free app? There seems to be nowhere to get > support for these kinds of question and Android Market related issues > are never commented by Google in these newsgroups :-( > > -Christer > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<android-developers%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en > -- Shane Isbell (Founder of ZappMarket) http://apps.facebook.com/zappmarket/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
