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In my experience, the early apps rank well and it's much harder to launch a new app and get downloads.

vampirechicken 12y ago
So in business parlance, you're saying that it's easier to make money in a 'blue ocean', with little or no competition, than in a 'red ocean', with lots of competition.
- nine_k 12y ago
  The problem is that you often have to start in a puddle, in a hope (but without a guarantee) that it will grow to a size of an ocean.
  - vampirechicken 12y ago
    The Blue/Red Ocean concept isn't about the size of the market, it's about the lack of competition in the market either by being first in a clearly new market, or by differentiating your offering from others to the extent that you're not competing for the same consumers. There's a book "Blue Ocean Strategy." It's worth a read for the explanation, and the case studies. There's worksheets and process too, but that didn't lend itself well to listening in the car.
- programminggeek 12y ago
  Blue oceans are amazing if you can find them.
  - vampirechicken 12y ago
    "Blue Ocean Strategy" was an interesting, if repetitive, book. I enjoyed the examples/case studies.
poopsintub 12y ago
I think the key is finding a unique niche with only a few competitors in the store. If not, you will get lost among a few hundred similar apps., even if yours is better. Marketing $$ might help overcome, though. I haven't tested trying to push up a bottom dweller.
zackmorris 12y ago
I think about this all of the time. My old partner and I released an app a few years back that made substantially more when it was spotlighted by Apple. Other apps that never made it "above the fold" so to speak, never made much more than $1 a day. A single app store can’t keep up with exponential growth in the number of apps. It really needs to work more like Netflix, where there is no single top sellers list, but instead recommendations are made per user. Apple appears to be hesitant to innovate here and it’s understandable, since I imagine it takes a lot of resources to keep up with new apps and their updates. But the way they do it now is unsustainable, and was showing its limitations within a few months of the app store opening. I’m thinking that the future of the app store is probably to act as a point of sale system. But the real action is going to take place outside of it on a site like Amazon, that better organizes and finds the sort of semantic relationships between software that people are interested in. Apple will probably make it as far as using their iTunes Radio algorithm in the app store, but I don’t expect them to really “get it” and build something revolutionary. Ironically this helps early apps rank well, which creates a feedback loop because Apple makes a cut of their sales and doesn’t want to disrupt that. I would so love to be wrong about this though.

So in business parlance, you're saying that it's easier to make money in a 'blue ocean', with little or no competition, than in a 'red ocean', with lots of competition.

nine_k 12y ago
The problem is that you often have to start in a puddle, in a hope (but without a guarantee) that it will grow to a size of an ocean.
- vampirechicken 12y ago
  The Blue/Red Ocean concept isn't about the size of the market, it's about the lack of competition in the market either by being first in a clearly new market, or by differentiating your offering from others to the extent that you're not competing for the same consumers. There's a book "Blue Ocean Strategy." It's worth a read for the explanation, and the case studies. There's worksheets and process too, but that didn't lend itself well to listening in the car.
programminggeek 12y ago
Blue oceans are amazing if you can find them.
- vampirechicken 12y ago
  "Blue Ocean Strategy" was an interesting, if repetitive, book. I enjoyed the examples/case studies.

poopsintub 12y ago

I think the key is finding a unique niche with only a few competitors in the store. If not, you will get lost among a few hundred similar apps., even if yours is better. Marketing $$ might help overcome, though. I haven't tested trying to push up a bottom dweller.

zackmorris 12y ago

I think about this all of the time. My old partner and I released an app a few years back that made substantially more when it was spotlighted by Apple. Other apps that never made it "above the fold" so to speak, never made much more than $1 a day. A single app store can’t keep up with exponential growth in the number of apps. It really needs to work more like Netflix, where there is no single top sellers list, but instead recommendations are made per user. Apple appears to be hesitant to innovate here and it’s understandable, since I imagine it takes a lot of resources to keep up with new apps and their updates. But the way they do it now is unsustainable, and was showing its limitations within a few months of the app store opening. I’m thinking that the future of the app store is probably to act as a point of sale system. But the real action is going to take place outside of it on a site like Amazon, that better organizes and finds the sort of semantic relationships between software that people are interested in. Apple will probably make it as far as using their iTunes Radio algorithm in the app store, but I don’t expect them to really “get it” and build something revolutionary. Ironically this helps early apps rank well, which creates a feedback loop because Apple makes a cut of their sales and doesn’t want to disrupt that. I would so love to be wrong about this though.