Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Building Its Own Android App Market?
Thinkcloud writes "Speculation abounds that Amazon is planning their own storefront for selling Android apps, one in which they, not the developers, will set the price and decide which apps to feature (and which apps to exclude from the store all together). It's a shrewd move and smart strategy for Amazon, though its impact on app sellers is less certain."
The issue here is not just that Amazon might want its own app store, a reasonable desire. The issue is that the current Android market really sucks. Google does not have good expertise in the curation methods that an appstore needs; right now, you have two options browsing the appstore: you can look at top, all-time sales. Games that have been out for two years top these charts, not surprisingly.
Or, you can look at the raw feed of 'newest'. In games, that would be 64 underwear puzzle games, three things in Japanese, and a tech demo of rotating lines, controlled by some sensor or other.
Google's traditional approach to this sort of problem is search, but search does not work well here, and there's significant market opportunity. Hence, Amazon.
Just what Android needs, more fragmentation.
Yea its terrible ... like having more than one shop in a mall or something
Yes, because when more stores open up in your town, it's not economic growth and development, it's "fragmentation."
The funniest part of this comment is that Amazon is only going to be likely to gain much relevance for their own app store in their dreams. They're going to have reach, of course, but a job of convincing developers to accept their terms and come into their marketplace when they are already in _the_ marketplace used by tens of millions (soon to be hundreds of millions) of Android users. They will have to spend big to get out of the zone of irrelevancy. It sounds like a miscalculation born of arrogance to me.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
In the phone world you rarely have "choice" and as the parent mentioned, most carriers will lock you into something you don't want. For example, Verizon/Samsung have decided that Bing should be the search engine of choice on their smart phones. Not exactly a big deal, except there is absolutely NO way to change it over to Google, if you so desire. I can see the same thing here. Amazon/Verizon ink a deal, and all VZ phones now ship with the default Amazon market, and Google Market is no where to be found. If you actually had a choice, then I don't have a big problem for allowing multiple markets, search engines, etc. Sure, it brings confusion, but in this case, the "choice" isn't yours...it's the handset and service provider making that choice for you.
Wait a minute ... Amazon gets to set the price? So you want to sell at $3 and they can decide you can only sell at $0.49? Or at $10? WTF am I missing here
It's a shop. You must use shops some times. The shop owner typically decides the selling price. The price you are willing to see at to Amazon is up to you. The price Amazon is willing to pay you is up to Amazon. The price Amazon is willing to sell to the public at is decided by Amazon. The price the public is willing to pay is decided by the public. Amazon can have loss leaders or 200% mark ups. It's a shop.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Yeah. That's what Frys, Best Buy, CompUSA, Tiger Direct, MicroCenter, NewEgg, Target and Walmart mean.... "fragmentation".
Yes, they do mean fragmentation. In fact, fragmentation is exactly what it is. Fragmentation of electronics sales into separate and competing entities. The mistake is believing fragmentation is automatically bad instead of a driving force to present the best, safest and cheapest option.
I don't know. Are they? You tell us...
How about we post the news article if they announce one? I really hate these speculative 'question' posts.
New Android phone to have six buttons?
Display manufacturers to use synthetic sapphire glass?
Tommy Lee Jones to star in new motion picture?