I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned: Mob games where users can buy point "apps". Most of these Mob games artificially increase their visibility by having 5 or more apps for the same thing ($1, $2, $5, $20, etc).
These kinds of "point" apps should be restricted to in-app purchases. On May 19, 9:06 am, Shane Isbell <[email protected]> wrote: > You guys have provided excellent feedback and it has gotten me to thinking. > Many years ago, I was a quant doing portfolio benchmarking and time-series > forecasting and this problem of ranking applications is very similar to > portfolio benchmarking (for some inexplicable reason this didn't occur to me > before). > > With some basic factors like Eric mentioned, I can create a model that will > rank applications and that takes into account factors such as spam. Also > rankings can have some type of exponential smoothing factors (weighting > recent events more). > > For sure, I'll put a spam button on site initially and then after getting > more than a handful of apps start implementing some basic models. > > Keep the ideas coming! It is helping a lot. > > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Eric F <[email protected]> wrote: > > Limiting developers to 5 apps isn't going to reduce the number of bad > > apps at all. It is also not going to reduce the number of spam apps. > > It is simply going to make the task of putting up spam apps more > > tedious. The real spam solution is to mark apps as spam and have a > > good algorithm to detect quality user spam reports and prevent > > malicious use of the spam button (somebody marks the official eBay > > client as spam for example). > > > Just use a sensible system and it will work out. I feel like because > > Android market doesn't even make an attempt to solve these problems > > you think these problems are gigantic. They are not. Clearly identify > > the problem of the Android market. You either have to know the name of > > the app you want and search (this does not support discovery). Or you > > get to look at Top (Paid/Free) and see a list of the most widely known > > apps you've looked at 100 times before (also does not help discovery > > much. we all know there's a twitter client). Or you can look at "Just > > in" (overwhelmed by an uncontrolled spam problem, and hence does not > > help discovery). > > > Simply solve the spam problem and "Just in" becomes helpful. Add a > > view that allows an app that is two weeks old has an average of 4.5 > > stars and 300 ratings to be listed alongside an older established app > > with ~4-5stars with 70,000 ratings and you are almost there. > > > Go one step forward and say users who rated X and Y also at 5 stars > > like you did also installed app Z which you don't have yet, take a > > look! > > > All of these suggestions improve the situation without making honest > > developers your adversary. > > > -E > > > On May 19, 8:21 am, Shane Isbell <[email protected]> wrote: > > > My intention is to allow additional apps on a case-by-case basis. > > > > When thinking about any new app store one of the most critical issues is > > > discovery: how are people going to find an app they want? What I'm trying > > to > > > do here is to reduce the resistance between a user finding an app they > > want > > > and actually purchasing that application. Having lots of apps that people > > > don't want means lower sales for top apps. > > > > So you can put your five top apps in front of users without having to > > worry > > > about being flooded by dictionary apps, free apps, spam apps or apps that > > > have little potential of generating sales (dead space). Every bad app > > loses > > > your top app sales. > > > > Does this make sense? > > > > On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 7:34 AM, westmeadboy <[email protected] > > >wrote: > > > > > I agree with plusminus. A limitation of 5 apps doesn't make any sense. > > > > > 1. Over time, any given dev will release more and more apps. Also, as > > > > the dev (house) grows it has the capability to release more apps in > > > > any given time frame. Both of these indicate that a hard app limit > > > > does not make sense. > > > > > 2. If there is no support for add-ons then you need to provide a way > > > > for devs to make their various "flavours" of an app visible - see what > > > > I wrote about bilingual dictionaries. > > > > > 3. Provide a way for users to mark apps or devs or both as spam and > > > > then use that spam information to decrease app/dev visibility/ranking > > > > in search results. > > > > > On May 19, 4:06 pm, plusminus <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Huh 5 Apps... I have 29 in there while I'm writing this. More in the > > > > > pipe =D > > > > > > On 18 Mai, 18:33, Shane Isbell <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Everyone, thanks for the feedback. To reduce spam. I've decided to > > > > limit the > > > > > > number of apps to 5 for zappmarket. > > > > > > > Based on developer feedback (which was great), I've also decided to > > > > scrap > > > > > > version 1 of zapp. Either I couldn't address specific needs of > > > > developers > > > > > > (like piracy) or many core needs were being addressed elsewhere. > > > > Developers > > > > > > did provide a few key pain points in regards to selling apps that > > > > aren't > > > > > > being addressed but this requires a completely different approach > > to > > > > > > traditional app markets. I'm working on a new version of zappmarket > > to > > > > > > provide a solution. I'm still at least a month away (no specific > > date), > > > > but > > > > > > I'll keep you guys posted. > > > > > > > On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Maps.Huge.Info (Maps API Guru) < > > > > > > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Perhaps a limit of 5 with additional apps upon approval by > > Google. It > > > > > > > could be a simple thing like Godaddy has for requesting IP's. You > > get > > > > > > > one, you can get two more by just asking and if you want more > > than > > > > > > > that, you have to have a good reason. > > > > > > > > -John Coryat > > > > > > > > On May 4, 2:27 pm, Shane Isbell <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > So maybe put a hard limit to the number of apps a single > > developer > > > > can > > > > > > > > upload? > > > > > > > > > On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 4:49 AM, westmeadboy < > > > > [email protected]> > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > There are lots of bilingual dictionary apps out there. One > > > > company has > > > > > > > > > over 100 I think. Clearly they use the same engine for each > > and > > > > just > > > > > > > > > change the content. Not sure if this is considered spam. > > > > > > > > > > Ideally they would just have one app on the market and then > > > > through > > > > > > > > > that app users could pay for/download whatever > > > > content/dictionaries > > > > > > > > > they want. > > > > > > > > > > The problem with this is that the content/dictionaries would > > not > > > > have > > > > > > > > > the necessary visibility in the Market. Therefore, the vast > > > > majority > > > > > > > > > of users, when searching for say a Chinese-English > > dictionary, > > > > would > > > > > > > > > not realise they could use that app to fulfil their needs. > > > > > > > > > > When searching the Market, I'd like to see Google > > Search-style > > > > results > > > > > > > > > where apps from the same dev are grouped so you only see the > > > > first 3 > > > > > > > > > and a link to "more apps", just like how Google Search groups > > > > results > > > > > > > > > by website. > > > > > > > > > > When browsing a category, I would do a similar kind of > > grouping. > > > > > > > > > > I really hope Google Market brings in proper support for > > add-ons > > > > which > > > > > > > > > would make all this a little easier to manage. > > > > > > > > > > On Apr 30, 6:45 pm, Eric F <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > I would say junky apps would include Themes, Background > > > > Wallpapers > > > > > > > and > > > > > > > > > > Content as apps. > > > > > > > > > > > Themes are everywhere, for home screen replacements I don't > > > > even have > > > > > > > > > > installed. They aren't spam, I'm sure many of them are > > actually > > > > > > > > > > reasonably decent and shouldn't be removed from the market. > > But > > > > I > > > > > > > > > > think they should when uploaded to the market be required > > to > > > > put in > > > > > > > > > > some kind of "requires aHome to be installed". And the end > > > > user's > > > > > > > > > > market should have a setting for "Hide add-ons for not > > > > installed > > > > > > > > > > apps". And while apps like Locale, the big draw is the > > number > > > > of > > > > > > > > > > plugins it has for it, so if users didn't see that they > > might > > > > not > > > > > > > > > > understand how big that ecosystem is, so having that option > > be > > > > off by > > > > > > > > > > default would be ok with me (even though I think most users > > > > would > > > > > > > > > > prefer it on) > > > > > > > > > > > The Background Wallpapers and Content as apps is where > > someone > > > > > > > creates > > > > > > > > > > an app that does nothing more than say, show 1 funny image > > (as > > > > > > > opposed > > > > > > > > > > to connect to a remote site and allow users to browse > > through a > > > > whole > > > > > > > > > > content set). Or the app is just a scanned version of a > > comic > > > > book, > > > > > > > > > > etc. For one thing, it would benefit the user the most if > > > > content > > > > > > > > > > providers adopted a sub-platform for distribution that > > wasn't > > > > the > > > > > > > > > > market (but I think billing, and getting paid is something > > hard > > > > to do > > > > > > > > > > so I don't see this happening). But it would be better if > > > > people > > > > > > > > > > downloaded some e-Reader type application off the market, > > and > > > > then > > > > > > > > > > bought comic books through that application. Better user > > > > experience, > > > > > > > a > > > > > > > > > > user who wants 1000 comic books on his/her phone doesn't > > have > > > > an app > > > > > > > > > > drawer that is ungodly, etc. > > > > > > > > > > > Since it's unrealistic that the above will ever happen, I > > don't > > > > know > > > > > > > > > > how much thought went into the market categories. Did they > > do > > > > market > > > > > > > > > > research to > > ... > > read more » -- 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.
