iPhone app discovery: how it is approached today, online. Full map and observations
We like to map the complex iPhone ecosystem (we did it for analytics and app creation), because it is important for us to understand where we move. One of the key issues of the iPhone world is app discovery: finding the right apps for you.
It is an issue for both developers and users.
iTunes is doing a decent job at organizing the app catalog but, let's face it, the browsing experience, the absence of internal marketing channel to the App Store and the explosion of the number of apps (will reach 300/500k by year end) is making the discovery and relevancy of the process painful.
This is then, no surprise that lots of services and companies are trying to solve that issue. We wanted to map those players and although Appsfire has not really started implementing what we are planning (this is called a teaser - more on that later), we also find ourselves in that map.
There it is (click to zoom). Note we put aside the App store/Google and the blogosphere/TwitterSphere that plays an important part too. We focused here only on services that specifically aim at solving the discovery of mobile apps for the iPhone
What we can learn from this map is that the attention of iPhone users is split between many sorts of discovery opportunities from the most traditional (app catalogs like AppStore HQ) to the most complex (Flurry is an example), from personal initiatives (like appstore-appstot.com) to funded startups (a bunch in our map). And none has really taken the lead to mainstream although some have reached a decent size already (like AppstoreHQ)
App discovery is far from being solved. All those players, Apple included and soon many more players like Google/Android, Mobile operators, probably some publishers, will try to bring their own solution. This is a very hard problem to solve correctly. We tried ourselves with a few discovery mechanisms from which we learned a lot and gave us the vision for our next steps.
One more thing to mention is that the discovery of Apps for many users does not take place online. It takes place offline, while discussing and comparing apps with friends. Apps are the new playlists and the new mobile glue. People like to talk about them in real life. If you have an iPhone you know what we mean. And this part cannot be underestimated
This is definitely a hot space and one that requires monitoring.
