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Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

marco.org

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Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#91

Post by SimianLogic2 »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #63
SimianLogic2 wrote: post #8

I think when people say they dislike the "Top" lists, what they're really saying is "I'm already fairly well known and could easily get editorial featuring if we moved to an editorial-only model." This type of system would actually be much worse for indie developers, I think, as they would have to have a connection somewhere to have any hope of getting featured (much like you need to know someone to get onto Steam).…

No, I'm pretty sure that when people say they dislike the "Top" lists, what they're really saying is pretty much what Marco wrote here. Editors' picks are always a wild card because you don't know on what basis the picks are happening. But your assertion that they're always about the "connections" you have strikes me as, well, very anecdotal. I have some experience on both the submitting and receiving side of magazin…

While it may be a problem that top ten rankings can be bought (I haven't seen any evidence that it is a problem), without those organic downloads from the top of the charts it would be much much harder to build a growth business out of the app store. Turning off the top rankings seems like it would prevent there from ever being another Angry Birds or Instagram... discovery is too hard otherwise.

Even an editor ranking is ephemeral. Say you're right and the cream rises to the top--how long would a feature last? A week? Two weeks? Maybe a couple hundred thousand free downloads?

I don't know what the organic/non ratio is at most companies relying on paid installs, but my gut would say it's somewhere on the order of 1:1 or better. If you remove the organic installs, CPIs would essentially double overnight and most of these businesses would no longer be able to sustain themselves.

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#92

Post by dquail »

orky56 wrote: post #88
tolmasky wrote: post #44

Here's an idea: show me the top lists without the apps I already own! Why do I need to see Mountain Lion at the top of the App Store constantly in the #1 position? Just so I can know how little Mac Software gets sold and completely dissuade me from ever considering writing Mac software again? EIGHT of the top 10 apps are Apple apps. Most of which people probably already own (I happen to own all of them). Is this the…

The great thing is that Google has replaced their old Featuring concept with 2 sections of slots based on a recommendation algorithm. It recommends you a particular game/app based on what you have already installed on your device and other data. Despite this, it still recommends you games/apps you already have installed. Very surprising indeed!

From what I understand, google is even going further. They're ranking based on the usage of installed apps. ie. an app installed and never used is ranked much lower than one that's installed and used daily.

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#93

Post by orky56 »

As long as revenue is still getting to Apple, Apple should encourage an environment where users are maximizing their utility from playing games they enjoy and using apps they like. This can only be done by understanding who the person is and/or marketing relevant products. PR & media should take advantage of the nascent nature of this industry and focus squarely on this through bundles, their own curated content, etc. and legitimize mobile despite the small screen and price. App Gratis is an innovative (?) example of this but I'm sure there are many more to be created. If done properly, Apple will begin to realize that the overall market can be maximized by easing their restraints.

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#94

Post by Aqua_Geek »

wwwong wrote: post #67

At the end of the day, Apple's goal isn't to get rich off the App Store. It's to do what they can with the App Store to continue driving sales of iPhones and iPads. At the moment, what they believe is that by promoting apps (via these lists) that promote and show off the iPhone/iPads in the best light is the way to do it.

Getting rich may not be the goal, but they're doing pretty well for themselves: they've paid out $10B to devs[1], so they've made ~$4.2B.

1. http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/10/tim-cook-talks-numbers-at-appl...

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#95

Post by weavie »

spaghetti wrote: post #41

I have a few thoughts on this in no particular order: - It would be interesting if the top list gaming mentioned in the article was eliminated by replacing download or install count with something more meaningful like "frequency of app open" or "average time spent in the app per day". These can still be gamed but it's harder than just gaming a metric that relies only on download or install count. - There should still…

That would involve sending a message to apple every time you opened and closed an app. How would you feel if Apple was storing details about how often you used your various apps on their servers? I'm sure a lot of people would be outraged

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#96

Post by kybernetyk »

> exclusively showing editorially selected apps

With the top list system I at least have some chance to get there. With 'editorially selected apps' I wouldn't because I have neither contacts to Apple nor to A-list bloggers.

Apple doesn't select apps for features solemnly on quality. There are other factors that sometimes have the stink of corruption to them. (Like the angry birds story: Only a success after Rovio got a publisher who could call up Apple and talk about a feature.)

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#97

Post by kybernetyk »

ihuman wrote: post #17
supercoder wrote: post #12

Thats fine for someone to say with no apps in the app store. His previous app kept around 7 - 8 in his category chart and so he definitely benefited from the top charts. Giving total exposure control to Apple would be an absolute nightmare for most developers that didnt have the exposure Marco does. There are plenty of good apps, that Apple arent sometimes interested in, that users are, that do well by climbing the c…

In the past, when he had apps in the App Store, he still said that there should be no "Top" list.

Yes, because he's a pretty well known and pretty well connected blogger/dev in the Apple community. He would have gotten 'editorially selected' in his scenario on the first day.

Re: Get Rid of the App Store’s “Top” Lists

#100

Post by gadders »

po wrote: post #16

I had the exact same observation but for another Apple app ecosystem: Game Center. I could not care less how I rank in the global rankings for an iPhone app. Do I care that some 10 kids or idiot savants have scored 100x higher than me? Not really. Maybe if I had actually joined a league or something I would like to know how I ranked globally but otherwise, that's not what you want to show people by default. There is…

Candy Crush handles this well, I think, via facebook integration. Amongst other things, it shows you the top three scorers on a level out of your facebook friends.
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