Using Chrome Web Store for App Distribution (by the numbers) | Hacker News Reader

Using Chrome Web Store for App Distribution (by the numbers)

tech.dayzipping.com

22 pointswebb14 comments

We've had pretty mixed results so far. There's some real problems with the Chrome Web Store, most notably that it's really hard to find new apps - in our industry (games) all of our users are very late to the party so the only way to find their stuff is if it's featured or in a search result.

But Google's been really receptive to our feedback so hopefully it'll improve in time for ChromeOS.

YES! You cannot BROWSE GAMES! This is a massive oversight in the Google Chrome Web Store.

I go there a couple times a week - NOT to download something new (because that would be a waste of time give the way the store works right now) but to see if it's possible yet to browse through games, game categories, or sub-categories.

I just want to look around, find something good.

I don't know WHAT to search for when I want a game. The featured games are usually nothing I would be interested in either. When I want to find a game, I look by category, see if something appeals to me, check out screen shots, download.

It's super sad. Really really really sad that I cannot browse game categories.

This is ALSO the reason I have not ventured into porting any of my games to Chrome Web Store. What's the point? If they can't find me browsing, the likelihood of my games being found by search is next to none.

P.S. This is also what is VERY wrong with the Android Market. There are just a few game categories. I've exhausted my browsing in these categories now and it's frustrating. There must be more categories in the Android Market for games as well.

I have had mixed results as well. The problem I see is that Google is allergic to building platforms that help developers make money. There is no top paid section in the Chrome webstore, so it is relegated to being nothing more than link directory rather than an actual store as the name implies.

It seems like you don't have to write any extra code to become a Chrome Web Store app. "Installing" the DayZipping app just puts an icon on your home page that is a link to dayzipping.com.

This seems like a good way to get some free traffic to your web app.

And by 'app distribution' they mean 'a link to a website'. -sigh-

Google asked for this, so I can't blame the companies that take advantage of it, but I really wish Chrome apps were just apps that installed in the browser instead. Offline-able preferred.

But offline is kind of what Google is pushing against with Chrome OS, so seems that would be contrary to their goals.

Except that, given that offline support will be reintroduced into Google Docs sometime this summer and that Chrome Web Apps actually do have offline support, they're doing a pretty bad job of that.

What do you mean by "apps that installed in the browser instead"? Instead of what? Instead of being web-apps?

Apps using browser as runtime environment, they may or may not be web-apps itself. See XULRunner. And http://pencil.evolus.vn for example.

I don't think a XULRunner-like environment has ever been on the Chrome roadmap though. Chrome's been pretty consistent in its intention to expose only v8 + webkit as its extension and app environment, although things like native client are blurring this somewhat.

There are 2 ways to publish on the chrome web store.

1) A link to a website, with the link hidden. Going to the actual website provides the exact same experience.

2) A packaged app that is downloaded and contained within the browser. (It may or may not use a web API for some functionality.)

#1 is basically just a bookmark. There's nothing special about it.

Right, but since Chrome's app environment is really just the browser's javascript and rendering environment (perhaps with access to a few special javascript apis) there isn't really anything special about #2 either. In fact, apps that fit into your #1 and #2 bins are the same thing modulo caching.

In my mind, there isn't much difference technically the big question is whether users want a different experience. A certain percentage want a more fluid user flow similar to a native / desktop app. This web app seems to accomplish that using Google web toolkit and decent page load times.

The fact that "linked" apps have access to unlimited caching is a huge win for user experience.

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