Google goes to 'Android Market' in App Store challenge

by Stephen Withers

Friday, 29 August 2008

Page 3 of 4 One issue with aggregated software distribution, whether it is the App Store or the Android Market, is that it largely mirrors physical distribution in one key respect: you only get prime shelf space if you're a top seller. The problem is that this is self-reinforcing. Software that attracts initial interest gets on the 'most popular' list for that category, and so those items are the ones people see first when browsing. So they get downloaded more, which keeps them at the top of the list. A similar effect occurs with web search (pages at the top of Google search results are more likely to be read and consequently linked to, which boosts their pagerank, cementing high placement in search results), blogging (early bloggers that managed to gain a good reputation were linked to more often by their peers, further increasing their readership, which boosted inbound links, and so on), and podcasting (to attract listeners, you need to get established podcasters to run your promos - but you'll probably have to run theirs in return, further boosting their status). That's not to say quality won't win through eventually, just that despite early hopes, the Internet hasn't really made it any easier to overcome the 'first mover' advantage of a halfway decent competitor that beat you to the punch. So if you dream of making a fortune from an Android application, consider that it will take a lot of effort to break through the background hubbub coming from all the other developers. There's another challenge for would-be Android software moguls. Read about that, and tell us what you think about the Android Market on the final page. << First page <   1 2 3 4 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

< Next story in category		Previous story in the category >

Visitors last 30 days Suscribers

904,266 13,751