marketplace

If you recall, once a developer had submitted a "Mango" 7.1 app to the Marketplace, it essentially cut them off from access to the non-Mango 7.0 version. That meant that the pre-Mango version was frozen, basically forever, with no chance for bug fixes. And although the goal is to get Mango on 100% of the devices and basically all the updates are rolling out now, developers were still a little unhappy about that limitation.

Microsoft of course listened and figured out a way to let devs have access to both 7.0 and 7.1 versions of their apps. They announced this awhile ago but it has just officially been instantiated in the developer AppHub, meaning devs can update their old pre-Mango apps just like before.

As you can see from the image above, thanks to our developer Jay Bennett, devs will have the option via a drop down menu to choose which app to modify. Seems like a good solution to us and hopefully devs will take advantage of it.

Remember the apps above? They were in the spotlight when the Marketplace came under attack from a number of clone/spam apps that either had limited functionality or were mere copies that could all be combined. Microsoft published some new guidelines and changed a few things here and there to combat the spam, but we later questioned more apps making their way into the platform catalogue.

Fast forward a few months to this exact date in time and we have a new article published by Todd Brix on the Windows Phone Developer blog. The post outlines that the team plan to introduce a lower cap on the number of apps that can be submitted in 24 hours, from 20 to 10 - effective tomorrow (Friday, 30th). Mr Brix also took a minute to remind developers:

• Unique apps can only be published in a single category. Any duplicate apps showing up in other categories may be unpublished, per the Windows Phone Marketplace FAQ’s
• When applying similar templates to multiple types of apps, we recommend differentiating apps through unique iconography, titles and other metadata to help potential customers make informed decisions about downloading apps.
• As mentioned in application certification requirement 2.10, apps must have distinct, substantial and legitimate content and purpose. Differentiation between your apps can help meet this requirement.
• There are several ways for your apps to be featured in Marketplace on the phone and now on the Web. Apps are featured by category based primarily on their number of downloads and customer reviews. The same is true for the cumulative top and free sections. The New panorama that makes up the background is algorithmic based on timing.

At least Microsoft is continuing to look at ways to limit the number of spam on the Marketplace, but is lowering the limit all that's needed to fight back? Should it be lower than the proposed 10? Sound off your views in the comments. On a closing note, should Microsoft be making $444 million from patent licensing on Android, could Google not indirectly fund a new Windows Phone review team to be on the hunt for the crap in the above image?

Source: Windows Phone Developer blog, thanks WeeBearUK for the heads up!

We're getting reports that the much anticipated web version of the Marketplace, which will allow you to try and buy apps and have them sent directly to your Mango phone, is going live.

The site can be accessed through the newly redesign portal both in Germany and here in the US. Going to the Marketplace, you can browser, search and try out any of the 30,000+ apps that are available, however if you try to buy an app or use the trial, an error will come back--meaning that Microsoft is still loading up this thing as we speak.

The Windows Phone Web Marketplace, first announced months ago, is an extension of the Zune Desktop and Marketplace on the phone and will give consumers even more flexibility for finding and purchasing new apps. From our earlier coverage:

"There will be more placements for featured apps that will bring more noticeability and reach, ensuring developers receive more potential conversions while their app is in the spotlight. Users who browse the web version will be able to share apps and games via social media and email to contacts and friends."

"Bing visual search will be re-configured too. Any end-user searching for apps and games will now be linked straight to the web Marketplace on their PC, ready to download and install. Your Live ID will be integrated so you wont have to activate a separate payment gateway in order to make a purchase. Simply click and go using card details on your account.

Indeed you can now Tweet and Facebook "Like" any app you find, which should go a long way to spreading apps and helping devs out.

Source: Windows Phone Web Marketplace; Thanks, Jan, for the tip!

As you may have noticed, the Windows Phone Marketplace didn’t update last night. Most weeks, the new Xbox Live release and  Deal of the Week go live around 2 AM Pacific Standard Time. This week it has not, which means Collapse! still isn’t available, nor can Zombie Attack! 2 be purchased at a discounted price yet.

The last time the Marketplace failed to update on time, things finally straightened out that Wednesday evening. Hopefully things get fixed a little sooner this time, but the waiting probably won’t kill us. Except for our reader Dark Mirage – he was so excited for Collapse!, I hesitate to imagine how this news will affect him. At any rate, we’ve contacted Microsoft to ask about the delay and will update when they respond or the Marketplace refreshes.

A while ago Alan Mendelevich, Founder of AdDuplex, published an interesting article about apps in the Marketplace. Much like a previous Marketplace analysis by Justin Angel we take a look at a sample of available apps, but instead of looking at a Marketplace specific breakdown, Alan walks us through app capabilities.

In the image above (click the enlarge) you can see we have nine app capabilities illustrated by percentage of the 50 top apps taken in the Marketplace (July '11). To give a quick run-through, we have owner identity, location-based services, media library, web browser, phone identity, data connection, microphone, sensors and push notifications. As is to be expected, data connectivity is the most used capability within apps, but it's interesting to see owner identity and phone identity on 24% and 26% respectively.

Source: AdDuplex

Justin Angel, former Microsoft Silverlight Program Manager, has downloaded all Windows Phone Marketplace XAPs and analysed them. He's then gone on to provide some insightful graphs for us all to see. He ended up with 108GB and analysed 24,505 apps, looking at Obfuscation, Silverlight vs. XNA, programming language, number of cloned apps and more.

We'll get stuck into cloned apps to begin with, which Justin reports as being around 925 of the 24,505 he took into account. These are the apps that share the same functionality as each other, such as the spam that we encountered, etc. He estimated that over 20% of the Marketplace is the same app published more than once. This leaves just 18,549 apps in the Marketplace that are unique. Check out the chart after the break for a visual representation.

A few weeks ago, we covered a single case study of one developer who released the same app on Android and Windows Phone: 'Mortal Kombat Tactics' by Neuralnet found here in the Marketplace.

The conclusion at the time was that Windows Phone was a better platform for developers to make money on (via ads) due to the fact that visibility is much higher than the Android Market. As a result, the developer brought in just $1.27 form Android in five days versus the $14.77 for the same time--that's a huge difference obviously.

But, would that advantage last? Luckily, Alex updated his post to show what thirty days in August would look like instead of just five:

• Android revenue is $3.44 with an eCPM of $0.30 and a total of 11,606 Impressions
• Windows Phone 7 revenue is $108.55 with an eCPM of $0.94 and a total of 114,920 Impressions.

We don't really need to point out how $3 is slightly less than $108 for Windows Phone, do we? Alex summarizes:

"The 30,000+ apps in the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and 300,000+ apps in the Android Market are good numbers, but discovery is everything. Which gives a clear advantage to Windows Phone 7.

Once your app is on the "New" or "Just in" category is the best chance that your application can be seen by a lot of people, on Windows Phone 7 your app can be under the "New" category for a full day or two, three if you are lucky, but on Android is another subject all together because you can have 40 plus apps published at the same time yours is and that's your big chance to be seen by a lot of people."

Certainly food for thought for developers looking to pick a platform to work on. Like all things though, as Windows Phone's Marketplace grows, this advantage may dwindle, but as of right now it's looking pretty good.

Source: WP7DesignCorner

Update: Microsoft's Karl Stricker has chimed in to let us know that these three games were removed by the develoeprs because the game's licenses had expired. So the good news is the games are pefectly fine for playing, the bad news is you can no longer play them if you haven't previously bought/downloaded them.

Bad news folks, looks like we have another case of missing Xbox LIVE games for Windows Phone again. This time three titles have disappeared:

• Fast & Furious: Adrenaline (review)
• Start Wars: Battle for Hoth (tag)
• Star Wars Cantina

Once again, we are left without reason as to their disappearance or whether they will return or not. Usually, the case has been they return at some point with an update or bug fix that was sorely needed, but we all know about the Crackdown 2: Project Sunburst fiasco.

Regardless of the reasons, duration of them missing or circumstances, we find the frequency of which Xbox LIVE games being pulled alarming. For one, these are the "A-list" titles and therefore shouldn't be having any such problems and if they do, they should have their updates fast-tracked. Number two, we find the lack of communication disturbing, to paraphrase our favorite Darklord of the Sith. Once again, we're all adults here and while we may not like games being yanked if we're told why and how the situation is being resolved, well, it goes a long way in ameliorating our concerns.

As usual, we'll work on getting answers. Until then, we're left with just questions. And frustration. And disappointment. Thanks, Tom S. & Mike J., for the heads up!

Reports are surfacing out of China that the Marketplace has not been fully functional for the past few days.  According to users, WP7 devices are able to able to browse the Marketplace, receive update notifications, and make purchases, but as soon as they attempt to download, they fail with an "connection" error.  It is not certain, but likely culprit is what has come to be known as the Great Firewall of China, a netwok blockade that the Chinese government uses to control the flow of information and prevent its citizens from accessing websites/services that are thought to be unsuitable for one reason or another.  Past censorship has included Google, Twitter, Facebook, news sites and the Android marketplace.

Another possible explanation for the cutoff could be Microsoft themselves, who have not officially released their OS in China and may be denying access to countries that fall outside the Marketplace's current group of 16 supported nations.  WP7 devices have made their way into the country and have gained a loyal following who have found ways of using the Marketplace and downloading content.  It seems, however, that if MS were the source of the outage, they would block all Marketplace activity and not just downloads.  We would also expect to be hearing reports out of other countries where users have manged to get their hands on WP7 devices.

There's no telling whether or not access to the Marketplace will be restored, or who is responsible, but for the time being, it is being reported that download access is still available for those who use a VPN service to mask there source IP address.

We'll keep you posted if we get more info on this.

Source: Penn-Olson, WPSauce