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Google's Android Market is crippling small development teams

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

#51

Post by tensor »

dpcan wrote: post #41
tensor wrote: post #29

A brief look at the market shows that you have competitors. At the least, OI Shopping list appears to have a lot of downloads as well. Your app does show up in the side bar, and in the top free category. This doesn't sound like a market problem so much as a business model issue. If one of the free apps does what people need, they won't pay for a $5.00 version, even if it's slightly prettier. Hell, a quick look at the…

Off topic? You completely missed the point. He's not complaining about his business model, free competitors, or price. He's venting his frustration with dealing with the Android Market as a developer: 1) Stats seem to keep breaking which seem to affect visibility and rank of his app. 2) Search is a problem. He went from top 10 to 200+ and with no understanding as to why that would happen - and so abruptly. 3) The com…

I understood those complaints and I'm not disagreeing with them. However, I don't necessarily agree that these issues are solely responsible for his lack of profits as he seems to be implying.

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

#52

Post by tensor »

notyourwork wrote: post #45
tensor wrote: post #29

A brief look at the market shows that you have competitors. At the least, OI Shopping list appears to have a lot of downloads as well. Your app does show up in the side bar, and in the top free category. This doesn't sound like a market problem so much as a business model issue. If one of the free apps does what people need, they won't pay for a $5.00 version, even if it's slightly prettier. Hell, a quick look at the…

I won't pay for an application with Ads period.

You mean to say you won't pay for an ad-free version of an application for which the free version contains ads? That seems rather strange.

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

#53

Post by pagekalisedown »

andylei wrote: post #31

it seems like none of the things you mention are unique to "small development teams"

Not only that, the whole thing reads like "hey, would-be-Android developers, please stay away from Android as I can't take the competition".

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

#54

Post by CCapigami »

Hisoka wrote: post #50

I think you need to seriously reconsider your business model. If you're trying to earn revenue thru 1-time app sales, then I'm afraid you're in a losing game if you're content with building just 1 app. When it comes to to-do lists, no matter how great it is, the market is flooded with those, and a lot of them are cheap. "Google is the guy driving this bus" Maybe it's time to branch out. Explore other money making opp…

I don't know if your post is directed at me or not, but to you and all the other people in this thread assuming Out of Milk on the Google Android Market is the only source of advertising and revenue that we have and will explore...well all of you are making a giant assumption.

Everyone, please understand the following:

We understand that putting all of your eggs in one basket is dumb. There is no success there. But when the largest portion of your market all of a sudden starts screwing with you in ways you can't figure out, that is a problem and it is something worth discussing.

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

#55

Post by mey »

cageface wrote: post #49
mbrubeck wrote: post #48

I'm on the Firefox for Android team, and we've had our share of problems with the Market too - mostly outright bugs, like apps appearing on devices they aren't compatible with. While any service has bugs, the Android Market is especially frustrating thanks to the duration of serious problems and complete lack of transparency and communication.

I think this is going to become a bigger problem for Google in the long run. I understand why they don't want to pay people to do customer or developer support but sometimes you run into a wall with their automated support systems and there's nothing you can do.

In theory this is the benefit of 3rd party stores, but the only viable one is the Amazon Appstore, but that has it's own massive issues. (To be part of the free day promo you give up that revenue, absolutely no concept of what is actually compatible with the target phone, web experience is better then the handset experience)

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

#56

Post by there »

juliano_q wrote: post #18
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.

it's ridiculous that the SEO crap has been brought to these app markets and that developers have to worry about this, especially in system that is completely controlled by google. "shopping list" is in the app's description and it's a highly reviewed application with lots of downloads.

google has access to more valuable data here than they do with web searches. if the majority of users search for "shopping list" and end up installing 5 different apps, which do they usually keep installed? rank that one higher for future searches. you can't fake the number of app installs like spammers can gain junk inbound links for pagerank.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

tensor wrote: post #51
dpcan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic? You completely missed the point. He's not complaining about his business model, free competitors, or price. He's venting his frustration with dealing with the Android Market as a developer: 1) Stats seem to keep breaking which seem to affect visibility and rank of his app. 2) Search is a problem. He went from top 10 to 200+ and with no understanding as to why that would happen - and so abruptly. 3) The com…

I understood those complaints and I'm not disagreeing with them. However, I don't necessarily agree that these issues are solely responsible for his lack of profits as he seems to be implying.

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by _debug_ »

thijser wrote: post #46

There are alternative frontends to the Google market, such as AppBrain, of which I'm one of the co-founders. Exactly due to the problems you describe, we have been able to get a loyal following of both users and developers, for whom we develop better tools to browse through the Android market. Your app is actually listed #10 in our all-time popular shopping charts: http://www.appbrain.com/apps/popular/shopping/ You m…

> There are alternative frontends to the Google market, such as AppBrain, of which I'm one of the co-founders.

FYI, I have a new Android phone (Galaxy S2) and I would have never realized this had I not been on HN! I wonder how you can get yourself more publicity? Maybe advertise more?

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

#59

Post by bond »

Google made significant changes to the search algorithm around July 1st. They have fixed most of the complaints from developers a day ago, still some things need to get fixed but it's near the level it was before. Check this thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Android+Market/thread?...

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

#60

Post by bond »

angryasian wrote: post #44
Gobiner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly did not read the posting you're commenting on. Nowhere does he say he made a game. Nowhere does he say he's never tried to find his own solutions. Nowhere does he say he hasn't done well. In fact he stated the opposite. He is no longer doing well because Google broke their own shit and don't seem to be in any particular hurry to address it. In case you missed it: Out of Milk went from doing extremely well…

"Google's market problems aren't app developers responsibility to overcome just because they are 'sort of known'." Ummm yes they are. When apple changes their policy for subscription, you either quit or adjust.. When twitter says no in stream ads to an ad company like ad.ly, they either quit or adjust, when facebook says no to an app that notifies users of changing relationship , you either quite or adjust... etc, et…

Seems you don't develop for Android or you'll know google messed up the search algorithm and after a lot of complaints from developers and users who couldn't find apps, google started fixing things...
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