作者：Ryan Kim

据Google所述，Android应用下载量目前已达45亿次，但有时用户在Android Market的体验并不好。5月11日，Google向Android Market推出新改善措施以突出更多应用和开发商，将消费者导向相关内容。

这对那些试图在拥有20万应用的Android Market上获取曝光度的开发商来说确实是个好消息。该商店应用数量预计于今年年末超过苹果App Store，因而Android开发商需要更多方法来获取消费者的注意。应用排名法则变更好，至少新应用有更多机会出现在排行榜上，而不是那些为人所熟知的流行应用。这对消费者来说也有好处，他们有更多方法来找到合适的应用。目前改进措施已在商店的网页版上实行，不久将运用到手机上。

此次改进包括新设立的过去30天内新免费游戏、新付费游戏和增长最快排行榜。列表更新更为频繁，关注更多国家的数据情况。Google还增加Editor’s Choice列表对专业人士推荐产品进行排行。这种做法类似苹果App Store的Staff Picks列表，但Google的列表中包含所有类别的游戏。这两项改进措施是为了改善Android Market体验，加快其追赶App Store的步伐。Android还为日安装量急速飞升的应用增添Trending版块。这对那些想通过早期下载量上取得的成功来获得用户关注的应用制作者有所帮助，尽管其他排行忽视纯粹将下载量作为排名因素的做法。

Android Market

Android不仅强调某些应用，还突出成功的发行商。曾经制作过高质量应用的顶级开发商现在可以在他们的名称旁边添加些许小图标（游戏邦注：目前有近150个开发商获得这项荣誉）。但是如果不清晰制定奖励的原则，会产生偏爱和主观性的问题。如果获得荣耀的开发商数量过多，那么这些徽章和图标便失去其原本的意义。但是作者挺希望这种想法，让消费者可以轻松识别顶级应用开发商。

Google也想让应用推荐更具个性化。现在当用户决定安装某款应用时，他们还会得到其他人对同款应用的评论信息，也会看到其他人想要安装的其他应用。在开发商会议上，Android执行人员分享一条信息，称开发商可出售应用的国家数增加至131个（游戏邦注：之前只有32个国家）。这是个解燃眉之急的更新，意味着开发商可以向更多的用户出售应用，也有可能更倾向于通过付费下载而不是广告和应用内购买来盈利。6月份，开发商将可以把应用的大小从2GB提升至4GB。而且，他们还可以在同个列表中上传应用在不同硬件设备上的优化版本。

这些便是Android正在开展的项目，公司还会做更多努力来改善Android Market。很显然，平台正大步前进，力图成为人们搜寻和下载应用的地方。让用户花钱购买应用和在应用中付费还需要做很多工作。但现在考虑这些还为时过早，Google正采取必要的步骤构建正逐渐变得有吸引力和用途的商店。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Android Market Cleans Up With More Charts, Curation

Ryan Kim

Android is seeing a load of app downloads to the tune of 4.5 billion so far, according to Google, but it’s sometimes been in spite of the Android Market experience not because of it. Today, Google announced a set of new improvements to Android Market meant to highlight more apps and developers and help guide consumers to relevent content.

This is a good bit of news for developers who are fighting for attention in an Android Market stocked with 200,000 apps. With the store set to pass the Apple App Store later this year, Android developers need more ways to get notice from consumers. And it shows that with changes to algorithms in the app rankings, which seem to factor in more engagement, there are at least more opportunities for new apps to surface to the top, rather than familiar and popular apps. This is also a win for consumers, who also need more tools to discover apps too. The improvements are on the web version of the store but will come soon to the mobile clients.

The improvements include a new set of charts for top new free, top new paid, and top grossing lists, which highlight recent apps in the last 30 days. The lists are more freshly updated and more country specific. Google is also curating its own list of top staff picks on an Editor’s Choice list. This is akin to Apple’s App Store Staff Picks list and spans all the categories. These two improvements are sort of catch-up moves and help fill out the Android Market experience, bringing it more up to speed with the App Store. Android is also adding a Trending section with apps that are seeing a lot of quick growth in daily installs. That should help app makers who are still geared toward trying to get notice through early download success, even if the other chart rankings downplay pure downloads as a ranking factor.

Android isn’t just picking out specific apps, it’s also highlighting successful and consistent publishers. Top developers who have a history of creating quality apps can now be awarded a little icon by their name. About 150 developers are getting that badge. This could create some questions about favoritism and subjectivity if it’s not clear cut why someone is being awarded. Or it could be meaningless if a lot of developers get the honor. But I like the thinking here in giving consumers something like a seal of approval for top app makers.

Google is also trying to get more personal with app recommendations. Now when users decide to install an app, they’ll also get information about apps frequently browsed by people who viewed the same app, and they’ll also see apps that other people tend to install alongside a particular app. During a developer session, Android executives shared that it is expanding the number of countries where developers can sell apps to 131, up from 32 countries. This is a much needed update that means developers should be able to sell their apps more widely and potentially lean more on paid downloads than advertising and in-app purchases. Developers in June will also be able to bump up the size of their apps to 4 GB from 2 GB. And they’ll also be able to upload multiple versions of an app optimized for different hardware all under one listing.

This is an ongoing project for Android and there’s still more to be done to improve things for Android Market. But clearly, the platform is making strides in becoming a place for people to find and download apps. There’s still work to be done in getting people to spend money in buying apps and paying for things inside the apps. But this is still early yet and Google’s taking the necessary steps in building an increasingly attractive and useful store. (Source: Gigaom)