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Joel Liu's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
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Clicking “all” under featured shows me a handful of web apps. And once you click this option, there’s no way to get back to the Utilities category! The breadcrumbs aren’t linked and the left menu is also unlinked. So I need to go back to the main web store and start over again.
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Alright so I found the CC app, let’s install it. Since the app is free, it’s just one click and the app is added to your “apps”. Now where is the app installed — how do I find it? Apparently the only place to find the apps you installed is to open a new tab. This means when you open the Chrome web browser, it will still default to the home page you have set. Yet again, another piece of poor usability. I doubt the average web user will understand how to find the apps after they are installed. If you compare to the iPhone or iPod Touch app store experience, you install an app and bingo it’s on your screen – easy to find and easy to load.
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Now, it’s possible that sales slowed a bit over the holidays, but the impact couldn’t have been that huge. There is, however, one more significant explanation for this: Google hasn’t done much to expose the Web Store to users. In fact, the current stable release of Chrome still doesn’t actually feature the Chrome Web Store anywhere — it only shows up if you go to the Web Store directly and install an application. That said, Google has placed banner ads for the Store on some sites (including TechCrunch), and the store got loads of publicity at launch, so it’s not like it’s a secret.
There are some free applications that are getting far more attention, like Quick Note, which has 8,000 installs this week. Obviously it’s common for free applications to get more installations than premium apps, but the discrepancy — 65 paid installs versus 8,000 free — seems pretty steep.
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One thing is clear: Google has a long way to go with the Web Store. It’s still impossible to distinguish applications that are basically just bookmarks from those that are full-fledged web apps. And while the purchase flow itself is pretty simple (you can buy something in a couple clicks, assuming you already have a Google Checkout account), I think Google will have to put some work into educating people on what exactly they’re paying for.
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The slide also indicates that the store will launch with support for free trials, subscriptions, and other in-app payment platforms. At launch you’ll be able to purchase apps from anywhere in the world using Google Checkout, but only with US dollars (multiple currencies and in-app transactions are slated for the first half of 2011).
After the intro about Chrome and why developers would want to create content for the app store, the two spoke about all of the technologies that will aid developers in making browser-based games and the features of the app store itself.
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I feel about this like I felt about the Java app store: there is an obvious win for customers in the iP* App Store, because it is the only way to get apps on your device, but I doubt Sun/Google will be able to attract a large audience to their own app stores. What is the value proposition for users? A newer, marginally more convenient way to spend your money, with a large learning curve before you can actually consummate transactions?
Without the large built-in distribution there is nothing to recommend me using this instead of just putting my app on the public Internet.
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