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Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#11

Post by mmmarvin »

Gobiner wrote: post #9
athst wrote: post #3

I think this is why there is such a huge opportunity for Amazon - they are the best in the world at selling stuff, and if they can leverage that experience with apps (reviews, search, recommendations, etc), the whole interaction of buying and selling apps will be a lot better.

I think it's true that there is a huge opportunity for someone like Amazon here. However, I rather disagree that Amazon will ever provide a panacea. The Amazon market currently poses its own problems to app sellers. Once your app is on their market, you do not control it. Amazon sets the price, Amazon sets the description and classification. If Amazon hires some marketing copy-writer to write your app's description a…

You hit the nail in the head with Amazon Appstore app description issue. Our app has had (and still has) that problem. Our content has been written by Amazon, but we have no control over it. In the meantime, our app (and even our business model) has evolved but the description is still the old description. As a result we get emails from confused users.

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#12

Post by Kylekramer »

You trying to get blood from a stone here. Google cares for your problems in only the most indirect of manners, so bitching is not really going to help. It is the reality, you are going to have to deal with it. But the thing is, it is a fairly level playing field. Everyone else in the store is dealing with the same thing, more or less. So work with it, not against it. Look for conversions that come from things other than search. Throw a (Shopping List) at the end of your name since that seems to be the main factor in search.

My bigger question is how is a $5 app that #2 in its category for paid apps struggling to be profitable (especially since I believe the top paid list are counted by installs)? All of your complaints seem to be about competing with other apps, but you seem to be mostly winning that competition. Are Android app sales so low that #2 in its category app is unprofitable?

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#13

Post by dmbass »

rivvin wrote: post #10
dgrant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great news!!! You're on page 11 now: https://market.android.com/search?q=shopping+list&c=apps...

I don't see it on page 11... that just makes it even worse if people are seeing different search results!

Maybe they filter apps by devices connected to your account that can install it?

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#14

Post by sp332 »

iminay wrote: post #2

This is the problem with only having one source of apps on the android market. Sure there is amazon, but google won't allow users to install this without jumping through hoops. Even though Apple isn't much better, at least their app store treats developers fair (that is if you can get your app through the censorship board) Google needs to step up their game, or it will stop attracting quality developers. There is so…

google won't allow users to install this without jumping through hoops.

Well, one hoop. Settings -> Applications, click the "Unknown sources" box. I think this just disables signature checking on .apk's or something.

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#15

Post by Gobiner »

Kylekramer wrote: post #12

You trying to get blood from a stone here. Google cares for your problems in only the most indirect of manners, so bitching is not really going to help. It is the reality, you are going to have to deal with it. But the thing is, it is a fairly level playing field. Everyone else in the store is dealing with the same thing, more or less. So work with it, not against it. Look for conversions that come from things other…

This has caused our purchases to fall from doing very well to almost getting no purchases at all.

I think you missed this line. Presumably they were doing quite well for themselves, got nailed by some change Google made, and now are not recouping any costs due to all the lost sales.

Sadly, bryanlarsen is correct about Google's culture, especially when it comes to the code they've written: the search code is doing what we told it to and there won't be any reconsideration of decisions made about code.

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#16

Post by CCapigami »

Kylekramer wrote: post #12

You trying to get blood from a stone here. Google cares for your problems in only the most indirect of manners, so bitching is not really going to help. It is the reality, you are going to have to deal with it. But the thing is, it is a fairly level playing field. Everyone else in the store is dealing with the same thing, more or less. So work with it, not against it. Look for conversions that come from things other…

The difference is that our Unlocker is #2 in the paid category, but our main application is basically off the charts. Almost all of our sales come from the free application -> Users who use Out of Milk and then decide to go Pro.

As for the first part of your reply, trust me, I completely agree. We have done nothing for the past week except tweak our market text, change our name to various things, and so forth to figure out how to work with the new system. We are not just watching it idly and going "OH WOE IS ME!".

The problem is that it is not a level playing field. Extremely popular apps, not just ours, are appearing hundreds of results away while other extremely popular applications are staying right up in the front. It really seems kind of random. Why are some extremely popular apps in the first results, then hundreds of crappy / average apps, then more exceptional applications? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

My post is a bit of a rant, I admit, but it is also meant to be informative so that other developers can see what it means to play in the market.

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#17

Post by gte910h »

Swap to iOS. People pay for things there and there are developer support people you can talk to.

Swap to Win7Phone. You may be the only person in your category still. The developer outreach is hilariously good (Shout out to Atlanta's Glenn Gordon [Microsoft] for treating the community right).

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#18

Post by juliano_q »

Kylekramer wrote: post #12

You trying to get blood from a stone here. Google cares for your problems in only the most indirect of manners, so bitching is not really going to help. It is the reality, you are going to have to deal with it. But the thing is, it is a fairly level playing field. Everyone else in the store is dealing with the same thing, more or less. So work with it, not against it. Look for conversions that come from things other…

Yeah, it is probably only a SEO issue. Study why other apps are showing first. Adding shopping list in the end of the name and in the description of the app will probably fix it.

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#19

Post by mmmarvin »

medius wrote: post #6

Google is already trying to increase the share of paid apps in Android market place as it still does not come close to Apple's app store. If they don't concentrate on quality developers, they will find it even more difficult to do so.

One thing I've noticed is that paid apps are ranking higher than free apps in searches. That's all great, but sometimes the paid apps are really the crappiest. They really need to find a balance between paid apps, quality and the free apps. It looks bad on the Android Market when someone searches for something and what they get are crappy/ugly apps (which there's quite a lot of on the Android Market).

Re: Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

#20

Post by Steko »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

You say that #2 is the big killer for you. This also significantly hurts Google, so presumably it will be fixed. Of course, it's a higher priority for you than it is for them. But #4 is baked into the Google culture and is very unlikely to change.

Agreed on #4.

On #2 I've always found it crazy that Android market is an also ran in app search and discoverability -- Apple has not set the bar very high and that's supposed to be Google's forte anyway.

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