“Apple will not accept money for driving a download, so developers pay Facebook instead,” Winterspeak blogs. “Facebook is the best, scale driver of downloads for mobile apps, so the money developers want to pay to market their app on the Apple app store is instead going to Facebook because there is nowhere else for it to go.”
Winterspeak writes, “Maybe that will change. ‘Apple Inc. has constructed a secret team to explore changes to the App Store, including a new strategy for charging developers to have their apps more prominently displayed, according to people familiar with the plans.'”
“The app store isn’t broken, but app discovery is. There is no reason why the best way to get your app [in front] of the right potential customer is to pay Facebook to market it based on look-alike’s amongst cat pictures,” Winterspeak writes. “If Apple cracks this but, it will be a huge business, potentially AdWords huge, and most of that money will come from Menlo Park.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Winterspeak is correct about most people thinking that Apple’s free editor picks are paid placements when they’re not. Might as well make them paid anyway (and take the money away from the dreadful, privacy-destroying Facebook in the process).
SEE ALSO:
Secret Apple team preps major App Store changes, new features including paid search – April 15, 2016
Apple improves App Store discovery with related search suggestions – March 25, 2014
Apple rolls out updated App Store with Chomp-inspired design in iOS 6 beta – August 31, 2012
After Chomp acquisition, Apple creates new ‘Food & Drink’ category in App Store – July 3, 2012
Apple’s Chomp sheds Android compatibility – April 27, 2012
How Apple’s acquisition of Chomp could improve the App Store – February 25, 2012
Apple buys app search startup Chomp for $50 million – February 24, 2012