The market experience from a dev perspective is downright insulting. Devs (and their livelihood) are held hostage to a market that offers no control and no mitigation. Who would really want to base a real- life business on something that provides basically no mechanism for risk mitigation? Devs need:
- ability to RESPOND to comments - ability to see/read comments in all languages - RSS feed of comments - a change log, for God's sake - ability to engage users anonymously (similar to how Google checkout handles this) - meaningful metrics - a friggin API already - so many, many more things It's amazing how much ill-will Google has simmering in the Android dev community for something as obvious and simple-to-fix as the developer interface to the market. I wish Al or someone could create an alternative market that had some real viability so that a) devs could jump ship, or b) Google would pay attention and fix the damn problems. On Feb 1, 12:04 pm, Justin Giles <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree that the developers hands are tied when it comes to either positive > or negative comments. Those comments like "force closes, please fix!" with > no user emails to you are really annoying. I've resorted to using those > coveted 325 characters to respond to some of the negative comments to try to > solve user problems that they should be emailing me about. Very > frustrating, but it is what we have to work with at this time. > > It would be nice to have 50-100 character area where the developer can do a > general response to problems without having to take up any of the 325 > description characters. Either that or a way to send the user an email who > commented, but that has its own privacy concerns. > > Justin > > On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 10:20 AM, matt smith > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > So you are an Android dev, you've worked hard and you want to > > distribute your app as widely as possible. > > > So realistically you have one distribution channel called the Android > > market. (Yes I know there are alternate markets but they account for > > less than 1% of my downloads and I would like to hear someone with a > > different experience, but this is not the point of this thread). > > > So you publish your app on the Android market. And the user finds your > > app. > > > But at the point of sale, you are at the mercy of market comments. > > > Don't get me wrong comments and rating system has its place. And spam > > comments can generally be ignored. > > > But comments are harmful in all of the following cases : > > > 1. negative comments from rival devs (check the major apps comments > > boards for some very troll like comments) > > 2. comments from users who haven't taken the time to learn how to use > > the app or contact you for help > > 3. comments from users who have a handset where your app crashes but > > this handset only makes up for 2% of installed userbase > > 4. comments from users who have an old version of your app where the > > bug they experience has already been fixed > > > I've seen my app selling well and as soon as a negative comment comes > > in, sales more or less stop in their tracks. > > > Is it really fair to rely on this flawed comment system? > > > Couldn't Google give more emphasis on a rating and less on comments > > (maybe an additional button click needed to get them)? Or a way for > > devs to respond to comments? > > > Or how about having the market display comments in a random order so > > we get a more balanced view and don't always have to see the latest > > comment. > > > Or I like the idea of Amazon where you see : % of 5* reviews, % of 4* > > reviews, etc. > > > What do other people think? > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Android Discuss" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<android-discuss%[email protected]> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" 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-discuss?hl=en.
