There are literally hundreds of thousands of mobile apps around today, so it's hardly surprising that there are numerous gems that are lost in the masses. Finding relevant, useful apps is restrained by the effectiveness of store search capabilities, which tend to be influenced by the apps ranking. If an app is selling well, it'll be exposed to many more eyeballs. If it falls below the radar, it's destined to stay there forever. This is particularly the case with games, where top games app publishers claim the revenue whilst niche publishers find it difficult to gain exposure.
This issue of app discovery has been well documented. A survey in the UK by independent app store GetJar found that only 25 percent of users actually found apps by looking through an app store. Most came from browsing online, which stands to reason – Google has done a good job of helping us find anything online, helped today by personal recommendations through social networking.
Most people discovering an app online will still be redirected from a web page to an Apple or Android store to download the app onto their devices. But that might be changing.
HTML5 creates rich functionality that can provide app accessibility from a regular browser. It's already used to good effect by newspaper publishers, such as Fairfax's apps for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The more that these apps exist outside the closed walls of apps stores, the more discoverable they will be by conventional search techniques. How long, I wonder, before Google adds 'apps' alongside its videos, news and images search criteria?
The shift could be rapid and, like anything in this space, provides opportunities and challenges. It is likely to reduce the reliance on Apple and Android as the only stores in town. Publishers can set up their own outlets, bypassing some of the distribution margins. The Financial Times in the UK, for example, has opted out of the iTunes App Store to sell its own HTML5 app direct from the web page. It's clear that they did it to improve margins and cutting Apple's 30 percent take on sales might help other providers develop business models that might have failed otherwise.
HTML5 isn't the answer to all of the app developers’ prayers though. It's just as easy to get lost in the broader Internet. Distribution will become more of a science, involving the conventional search engine optimisation techniques and leveraging the power of social media platforms. It also needs to involve the crucial element of location identity. Whilst the iTunes store filters content for each country, it does little beyond that.
We keep hearing about the challenges of bricks and mortar stores who are losing business to online. The same could be true of app stores. Their business is likely to move out of the closed garden and into the broader internet, unless app stores can quickly catch the search functionality of Google and find ways to integrate with our most popular social media platforms.
Jon Mooney
Chief Operating Officer
MIA International
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