
Cutting Through the Noise on Apple iOS, Android
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With more than 300,000 apps on Apple's (AAPL) - Get Report iOS and about 100,000 available on Google's (GOOG) - Get Report Android devices, how do mobile developers get their work to stand out in the various marketplaces?
There's an app for that, of course.
With most major app marketplaces lacking a streamlined process to find new and innovative apps, a host of startups including
AppStoreHQ
,
Appolicious
and
Chomp
are attempting to answer the call, helping developers solve the problem of ensuring that customers find their apps -- and then, hopefully, download them.
"For new developers, app discovery is becoming exponentially more challenging," said Nancy Ramamurthi, vice president of marketing at
TripIt
, a travel planning company in San Francisco that has developed apps for the iPhone, Android and
Research In Motion's
(RIMM)
BlackBerry OS. "And I do worry that with the proliferation of apps and the increasingly competitive nature of the marketplaces, one must compete with deep-pocketed companies who can literally buy their way into the top rankings -- making discovery even more difficult."
Without a fix, the problem is likely to get worse as the number of smartphone users downloading apps grows. Of the 60.7 million people in the U.S. that own smartphones, 33.7% of them use downloaded applications, said
Comscore
. In addition, the number of users accessing mobile stores will top 100 million by 2013, according to
InStat
. That's a lot of potential exposure and revenue for developers -- if their wares can be found.
"The barrier to entry for creating apps is so low that there is a lot of junk out there," said Chris DeVore, a Seattle-based seed investor and a co-founder of AppStoreHQ, which makes app recommendations for iPhone and Android users. "As for developers looking for demand, organic discovery is fundamentally broken."
Apple, which deploys an editorial team that hand-selects mobile content to feature in its App Store, helps users find new apps via its Genius feature. Genius recommends apps based on customers' previous downloads, but some developers say that even with the service, their programs stay buried.
AppStoreHQ is just one of many firms helping with app discovery. Some companies like Chicago-based Appolicious, run by former
Yahoo!
(YHOO)
exec Alan Warms, operates both as a web site with a directory of apps, featuring news and reviews written by users, as well as a smartphone app that scans the titles of already downloaded apps and suggests similar content.
StumbleUpon
, a popular search engine that finds Web pages for users based on recommendations from people with similar interests, has seen the number of downloads for its Android application double after adding an app discovery feature to the program.
"With apps, there is a lot of noise out there, and not much signal," said Jeff Eddings, StumbleUpon's senior product manager. "Our job is to kill the noise."
Flurry
and
Tapjoy
, both based in San Francisco, also play in the app discovery space, but focus on helping developers distribute relevant content to consumers and make money off their applications. Flurry's AppCircle taps into what's already installed on users' smartphones to recommend relevant apps to consumers. Developers that partner with AppCircle see recommendations for their apps appear on banner ads or in other forms.
Flurry has worked with companies like Yahoo! and
Barnes and Noble
(BKS) - Get Report
, although most of its clients are small developers.
"Companies work with PR agencies in the physical world, and they need to do it here too," said Peter Farago, vice president of marketing for Flurry. "Just because you're making a little application doesn't mean you're not running a business and you're not fighting for shelf space."
TapJoy has been successful with helping small developers gain exposure, said co-founder Ben Lewis. "Some of our biggest publishers started out as three-man shops and we've worked with them from the beginning," he said. "It's not uncommon for some of our publishers to earn more than $5,000 a day just on one title."
Too Much Help
Of course, with the proliferation of app-discovery help comes lots of choices for content creators, which some say is a mixed blessing. "Although these sites are very helpful, there's just so many of them," said Justin Maples, CEO of
BrokenThumbsApps
. "From a developer standpoint, it becomes a resource issue -- how much time should I spend trying to create a community for each of my apps?"
That said, Maples has found success for his games by using a combination of app review sites and discovery engines to market them. Recently, his
Zombie Duck Hunt
game reached the No. 1 spot among free apps on the App Store.
"I don't think that any one monolithic software solution can address the breadth and diversity of apps that exist," said AppStoreHQ's DeVore.
Users will always need more niche and specialization."
--Written by Olivia Oran in New York.
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