Comments on: App Stores are so ‘1980s’

By: digital tv pci card

digital tv pci card — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:03:04 +0000

That was the best article I have read in a long time!

By: Andy Lockwood

Andy Lockwood — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:58:19 +0000

I agree that app stores are a little like multi channel TV, you start browsing with enthusiasm, but unless you find something of interest quickly (usually the case) the enthusiasm rapidly fades, and thats the end of it. Online retailing of other goods and services is much more sophisticated, gathering indicators from purchase history and patterns to push relevant offers towards interested consumers. In that sense the app store approach is very archaic. My Company http://www.retalika.com takes a different approach bundling best of breed apps into themed packages.

By: What’s the deal about app stores?

What’s the deal about app stores? — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:13:07 +0000

[...] of the overall premium content market, when you exclude messaging). Mark Jaffe disses app stores because they are too clunky and hard to navigate. He feels that specialized stores need to pop-up, or it will never really hit mass [...]

By: Michael M

Michael M — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:22:06 +0000

I do not agree with your premise. It is not a question of how big the store is or how specialized it is, but how easily someone can navigate in it and find something they want. On a social level it is about navigators, having reviewers and peers who you trust to serve as the point people to filter through what others have discovered and what they have tried out themselves and make recommendations. Ultimately the difference between a real store and a virtual store is that in a real store you have to physically walk to where your product is – this is not a direct route, but in the virtual world a link can take you right there. For me all of this means that the online store as a distribution outlet is all about convenience and price. It’s why I like Amazon and the Apple itunes store, check out is quick and it is easy to track my purchases on my bank statements. In short, it’s not about where you buy the app, it’s about how you find out about it. I think Google already figured out that the main issue of the information age is not the distribution of content, but searching and finding it.

By: Peter K

Peter K — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:50:53 +0000

I think a lot of people are aware of the limitations of the centralized app store approach (both for users and developers). What you are calling “specialized app stores with vibrant social communities” I prefer to call personalized and customized “content spaces.” However, I disagree with your assertion of “niche” vs. big box. Niche applies only to the long tail of content, but that fact of the matter is that most individuals (while they will have certain specialized interests) will also have many interests of a broader appeal (like your comment about going to Target for socks).

There’s no reason why a content space has to be limited to only your niche interests. Rather it should be equally capable of allowing you to interact with your community that is also interested in broader content topics.

So, for example, while I certainly would be interested in sharing my passion for sailing with other sailing afficianado’s, the fact that I know those people in the context of a niche passion/community, also makes me more likely to be interested/willing to pay attention to other interests that they might have.

In a personal content space, I can interact with others that not only share that niche interest (mountaineering, in your example), but I can also see what other topics they are interested in, and I’d be more likely to explore something new to me if I know that someone I already know/respect in one context is interested in some other subject. So, if I see in my mountaineering content space that one of the climbing folks I respect is also interested in some band or who knows what, I’d probably be more willing to check that thing out, too.

Keep your eyes peeled for announcements in the coming months that address these issues.

By: JT Klepp

JT Klepp — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:28:10 +0000

I agree with Dean. AppStores work if you provide a good experience for discovering content, like Amazon does.

But the article points to a fundamental problem which exists in mobile: discovery. This is more easily solved on the web, but when you get down to tiny screen sizes, it is that much harder. In my previous company, we ran a games portal where we took mobile game sales from 250k/year to 10m in a 12 month period – by using a range of retailing techniques to make it easier for users to find and recommend games.

Building good AppStores is not easy, evidenced by many companies failure in this space: http://mobione.com.au/wordpress/?p=278. But it is possible to sell apps well on the tiny screen. Feel free to read my research on this called “Sharing on a small screen”, which covers really only one aspect – which is the viral component: http://mobione.com.au/wordpress/?page_id=6

By: Matt Law

Matt Law — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:27:49 +0000

Interesting thesis, although potentially the era of apps as a whole has a limited shelf life. Isn’t it a bit like downloading a single use version of the internet just for one specific purpose? I wrote a piece about this before Christmas, if I may humbly direct that way: http://bit.ly/appsforidiots

By: wilsonllkerr

wilsonllkerr — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:01:39 +0000

The question I have is how do ALL the brands possibly hope to distribute their own “discovery apps”? I only have about a 8 apps that I actually use on my iphone and I am not about to download 20 or 30 to try to cover all my favorite brands (each with it’s own map and features).

I agree that the application store model is very limited. I assume Apple is scrambling for this reason. Buying Quattro Wireless signals that they know that the Google/Admob play will be hard to beat. Free with unobtrusive/useful/welcomed ads trumps paid all day long.

By: Dean Collins

Dean Collins — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:39:33 +0000

hmmm as the owner of http://www.MobileAppStore.com I have to disagree with you.

The reason i go to Amazon is because they have everything i need to find online.

If i wanted specialty stores i need to search to find them. I would much prefer Amazon built the same tools into their DVD ‘area’ rather than joes DVD building a community and sharing the expenses of development over far fewer sales.