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App Rot

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Re: App Rot

#51

Post by walterbell »

mnem wrote: post #44
walterbell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Steam ecosystem provide any support for marketing and discovery of new games, or are users relying on word of mouth networking? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(software) mentioned Steam Greenlight for estimating demand for new games, but it is apparently being phased out. Is it limiting when a platform (Apple, Valve, Amazon, etc) owns the customer relationship? Seems like it would be difficult to apply…

An interesting recent article about publishing on Steam: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/BurakTezateser/20140717/220624/Dy... Generally, you still have to do your own marketing. There's no great meritocratic system out there for discovering games (and pretty unlikely one can arise IMO - it's impossible to objectively class a game as good or bad).

Found a comment on an article linked from the one above: http://kotaku.com/i-think-gabe-has-mentioned-this-before-man...

"I think Gabe has mentioned this before many times, he'd like to get rid of Greenlight to leave developers open to place their game on steam.

Then, users would curate the titles through their own customized storefront. This would drive word of mouth and generate free adverting for the companies that really on the steam digital store.

So think of it as following your favorite youtube channel/ store front because it has niche titles that are in line with what you like. You wouldn't have to dig for titles if that's not your thing.

This way, the devs of said niche title appears directly to its audience and yet still leaves the choice to the end user if they want to dig into the onslaught of new releases.

I really hope Gabe follows through on this idea because it keeps options open and doesn't give you a force fed walled garden that Sony, EA or MS is so dead set on controlling and manipulating end-users/devs with."

Re: App Rot

#52

Post by rokhayakebe »

There is a lot of trash on paper(magazines, USWeekly, Celebrities,...), on tv (Jerry Springer, TMZ, etc...) online (websites, web apps), on desktop (software), why did we think mobile was going to be different?

Re: App Rot

#53

Post by baddox »

x0x0 wrote: post #21
baddox wrote: post #6

I use my iPad at least an hour a day before falling asleep, and I am pretty happy with the apps. The YouTube app seems to be under heavy development, and while they often break little things, they also fix and add stuff quickly. I really enjoy YouTube on the iPad and I spend a lot of time there. Likewise, the Google Maps app is great on the iPad. Most of what I said for YouTube applies to Google Maps. Twitter and Twe…

do you have an iphone? In my (sample size me, so 1) survey (=P), tablet usage plummeted after I got a nexus 5 and my phone screen wasn't so damn tiny

Yeah, I've got an iPhone. I use it much more "passively" if that makes sense. Mostly just for listening to music while walking or driving, and for general boredom-thwarting while on the bus or waiting in lines.

But I really like the small screen, or rather, the small form factor. I don't want anything bigger in my daily carry. I'm not too keen on the (well-established) rumors of a larger iPhone. I wasn't even keen on the larger screen on the iPhone 5, but it made up for it by being much thinner and lighter than the 4.

Re: App Rot

#54

Post by thaumasiotes »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #31
thaumasiotes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3) Not all hundrends of thousands or millions of app programmers competing with each other can live by their app income alone. In fact, few can. (DUH!) This doesn't deserve your "DUH!". It reflects the fact that making these apps is easy. If it were so difficult or time-consuming that hobbyists starved trying to get an app done, everyone in the app store would be living on their app income.

And yet not a single person proficient in Brainfuck lives off that knowledge.

You're missing the point. Doing something hard doesn't automatically bring you income. But if making apps required so much that you couldn't support yourself on the side, everyone who wasn't supporting themselves in the app store would leave.

Re: App Rot

#55

Post by snowwrestler »

bruceboughton wrote: post #37
tolmasky wrote: post #15

Its interesting that it seems Apple has really shied away from doing the bare minimum to improve things on the app store (until recently with videos and bundles). Not having the store be significant revenue is a double edged sword. I think there are some really interesting hacks that would have been better for consumers AND developers. In another comment (years ago I think...) I mentioned how I wish the top charts wo…

What would your list look like with apps you owned removed? 8. FartApp 10. Flashlight or 8. FartApp 9. Flashlight In the first, with 9. Angry Birds removed, it looks like the data hasn't loaded properly. In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking. You could solve this by leaving a gap or indicator where 9. Angry Birds should have been but then the user's wond…

> In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking.

This is a concern that goes away in a user-centered design process. The "ranking" does not matter to anyone but app developers or journalists keeping score. The only reason a user looks at those lists is to find new apps to download.

Consider Google SERPs, which are now highly customized. Who obsesses over whether an item is at #7 or #9? No one but the people who own those links. Everyone else just wants an answer to their question.

Re: App Rot

#56

Post by JetSpiegel »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #54
JetSpiegel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet not a single person proficient in Brainfuck lives off that knowledge.

You're missing the point. Doing something hard doesn't automatically bring you income. But if making apps required so much that you couldn't support yourself on the side, everyone who wasn't supporting themselves in the app store would leave.

I was only half-making a joke, but I agree with with you, in a way.

The model you are proposing is the J2ME that Nokia had, and the result was an utter flop.

Re: App Rot

#57

Post by josefresco »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #28

I really wish there would be a section in all app stores which shows a randomized list of "good" apps. I am not sure about exact criteria, but thede should be a good way to discover good and often downloaded apps which are not in the top 10.

What you're describing are "featured" apps, plucked out of the pile from Apple editors. I do wish there was more of this editorial work, and less reliance on "top lists" for app discovery.

Re: App Rot

#58

Post by bruceboughton »

snowwrestler wrote: post #55
bruceboughton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would your list look like with apps you owned removed? 8. FartApp 10. Flashlight or 8. FartApp 9. Flashlight In the first, with 9. Angry Birds removed, it looks like the data hasn't loaded properly. In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking. You could solve this by leaving a gap or indicator where 9. Angry Birds should have been but then the user's wond…

> In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking. This is a concern that goes away in a user-centered design process. The "ranking" does not matter to anyone but app developers or journalists keeping score. The only reason a user looks at those lists is to find new apps to download. Consider Google SERPs, which are now highly customized. Who obsesses over whether…

The App Store has search results pages too. Top Charts are not search results pages--they are rankings of apps.

Top Charts is a popularity-based browse mechanism. Search is an answer to "what can i play podcasts on?".

You could argue Top Charts should be removed from the store or demoted. But you need some kind of browse functionality because people are often not aware that a certain type of app exists to search for.

Re: App Rot

#59

Post by josefresco »

This blog post, and those referenced are mostly about (the lack of) marketing. You can't expect to hole up in your apartment for 12 months, build an app and then have it take off or even sustain you. Replace the word "app" with business and it all makes more sense.

Everyone wants to be a "founder" or "start-up ceo" but besides writing code, there's a whole ton of good old business stuff that contributes to a successful, profitable business.

It's not Apple's job to promote your app, they simply run the marketplace.

Re: App Rot

#60

Post by snowwrestler »

bruceboughton wrote: post #58
snowwrestler wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the second, Flashlight has been promoted from number 10 to number 9, falsely inflating its ranking. This is a concern that goes away in a user-centered design process. The "ranking" does not matter to anyone but app developers or journalists keeping score. The only reason a user looks at those lists is to find new apps to download. Consider Google SERPs, which are now highly customized. Who obsesses over whether…

The App Store has search results pages too. Top Charts are not search results pages--they are rankings of apps. Top Charts is a popularity-based browse mechanism. Search is an answer to "what can i play podcasts on?". You could argue Top Charts should be removed from the store or demoted. But you need some kind of browse functionality because people are often not aware that a certain type of app exists to search for.

My point was not that the lists are the exact same thing as search results, my point is that users don't care about the tiny details of whether a particular app is #7 or #8.

If you conducted a survey of App Store users and asked them to give you the numerical rank of a given app ("was it 8 or 9?"), I would surprised if many could remember, and shocked if any cared.

Why do users view those lists? As you point out, to browse for new apps. The precise numerical ranking does not help them very much to do that; therefore a user-centered design process should not care very much about how precisely accurate the displayed rankings are.

Edit to add: Users have no way to independently verify rankings anyway, so the concept of a "false" shift from 9 to 8 has no meaning to them. They don't know what's false, only what's useful.

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