For the record, I (at least) am not opposed to adding more space. I just see from your primary argument that you're not looking at the situation from a consumer's standpoint.
>> I wouldn't be surprised to find that most of that demographic react better to short bursts of information and taglines (e.g. effective marketing), rather than 100% accurate app descriptions. > I wouldn't either, but what is the harm in giving people the option? Most consumers aren't as detail-oriented as developers are; they don't respond well to "too much" information. Look at how many people buy iPads. They don't _care_ what it's full potential is. They don't _care_ what all the features are. Frankly, when you try to explain all the features, their eyes glass over and they retreat... They walk away because you're explaining too much for them. (I've worked retail in the past, and I've seen this exact situation in my extended family even recently.) You say "Yes, and the majority of people that you referred to that don't have the attention span to read more text won't bother, won't see the full potential of your app, and will just move on. " Whereas, if (in your descritpion) you tell them _why_ they should care and what 1-2 killer things your app does, that may convince them to try it out if they don't have to read a treatise dealing with all the features you packed into your app. I'm just saying that information overload is a bad thing for non-technical people, (likely) the vast majority of the app consumers. (Locale) "And do you suppose their description would be that short if it didn't need to be?" Yes, I believe their description is best served by being short. As much as Locale does, their market description is short, succinct and includes links to further information. It clearly states what the purpose of the app is and doesn't get overly verbose. It's just about the perfect amount of information to pique someone's interest. > As a user, it would be nice to have the OPTION to read as much as I wanted to determine if an app was worth my time without having to navigate to a website or download the app and try it out to find out if it does what I want. Yes, but _you_ "as a user" aren't a typical user. If you want to target the group that matches _your_ methods of finding apps, you're going to be targeting a minority of the market's user-base. That's really the point I'm trying to get across. The poster who was comparing prices of boxes of cereal to the text on them is looking at it from a marketing prospective. And even if you don't agree (or think it's stupid, base-less, hare-brained...etc) the fact is: effective marketing sells products. There are a lot of stupid products on the market that people buy because the Marketing is good. And there are awesome products on the market that die a quick death because their marketing is bad, mistargeted, or ineffective. I'm just saying that Locale did a good job of using that limited amount of space in promoting their product. So, if we (as developers) are creative and succinct, we should be able to live with that space constraint until/unless Google decides to give us more. But I'd dearly love a "changelog" section.... Who couldn't use one of those? =) --Phill W -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
