手机应用的大量涌现，伴生了应用筛选、排名和推荐等各种需求，也带动了iTunes App Store和Android应用商店之外的独立应用推荐网站和服务力量的成长。

目前iTunes已有22万5千款活跃应用，Android应用也达到10万款，要从如此之众的应用中顺利淘宝，用户从这些官方应用商店转向其他应用搜索工具寻求帮助也就成为必然选择。对终端用户而言，这类第三方应用推荐网站非常管用，有时甚至是很有必要。

但对开发商而言，这些网站究竟有无益处，作用又有多大呢？

为此，我们专门向这类网站的一些高管了解了相关情况。这些网站都有各自的功能设置和排名算法，比如说有些网站给应用排名时，不但会考虑应用的知名度，媒体曝光率也会统计入列。还有一些则使用综合统计方法，会根据开发商的应用数量和用户评论进行排名。

以下是我们搜集到的一些应用推荐网站或应用搜索服务工具：

AppStore HQ

AppStore HQ

该网站可用于搜索Android、iPhone、iPad，甚至是基于网页HTML的应用。在这里用户可以找到在新闻或博客上最热门、Twitter上最走红的应用，而且还提供用户评论。目前该网站每月有83万6000次的访问量。

网站CEO及联合创始人克里斯·德沃尔（Chris DeVore）为我们提供了一些有关应用下载情况的数据，从中可以看出，在该网购买广告支持的应用所收获的下载量是一般应用的28倍。这也表明，如果要吸引用户关注，拉动下载量，在该网买个广告位和登上该网所评选的“前100名最热门应用”排行榜一样有效。

该网站还有其他的一些统计方法：

以100为基数，根据关键词排序，相关数据如下：

·获得用户关注的应用平均每周浏览次数：100

·“前100名最热门应用”的平均每周浏览次数：579

·购买广告支持的应用平均每周浏览次数：631

·曾获下载的应用平均每周下载次数：100

·“前100名最热门应用”平均每周下载次数：250

·购买广告支持的应用平均每周下载次数：2867

Appolicious

Appolicious

该网站与雅虎是合作伙伴，主要推荐iPhone、iPad、Android和Yahoo应用程序，使用的统计算法包括用户评论、“喜爱”（该网站自己的功能，不与Facebook上的同名功能混淆）和好友推荐等要素。用户可以追踪查看好友在该网站所下载安装的应用。然后当用户登陆时，该网站会根据用户喜好、用户已安装应用等其他提示性信息，推荐新款应用。

网站CEO艾伦·沃姆斯（Alan Warms）表示，该网站每天10%的用户访问量，都会促进一款应用下载。该网站的编辑推荐版块所提到的应用最受欢迎，但该版块并不发表用户评论，而是编辑对该应用的特色描述。在该版块中的应用及其他像《愤怒鸟》这类声名远扬的应用，下载量总比网站上其他产品要多5倍。另外，新款应用刚刚在该网站露脸时，也很容易的获得10到15倍的下载量。

Chomp

Chomp是一款以个性化推荐方式搜索iPhone应用的引擎工具，发布于今年1月份。在应用发行到一定数量时，开发商可通过Chomp迅速获知用户对相关应用产品的评价。

该网站所推荐的应用都有各自页面，内容包括视频截图、功能描述和iTunes用户评价。Chomp会对这些评价进行整理，积极评价用红心表示，负面评价用破碎的心表示，然后再统计出该应用的总体得分情况，由此判断该产品总体上是积极面明显，还是消极面更占上风。

Chomp和Appolicious都曾经上过《华尔街日报》的版面，但不幸的是，Chomp并不愿意透露相关数据。

AppsFire

AppsFire

AppsFire与其他网站并不太一样，它不但是一个网站，同时也是一款iPhone应用，支持用户搜索和分享强大的应用。该网联合创始人Ouriel Ohayon表示，AppsFire的应用开发商页面每月点击量为150万次（他们称这是促成应用下载意向的主要动力），“这是关系到应用下载量的唯一要素。”

Ohayon还称该网站的长处之一在于，可以在数小时内改变应用在iTunes App Store中的排名，该网与“Say it & Mail it Recorder”的合作就是其中一例，他们将该应用的价格在短时间内调整为零，使应用下载量迅速膨胀。另外一例是该网与“Beautiful Panoramas”联手，使应用在不到3小时内即跻身前50名应用排行榜，并在iTunes的摄影应用列表中一举夺得亚军。除此之外，AppsFire的广告服务也非常出色。

Smokin Apps

Smokin Apps主要推荐iPhone、Android、Blackberry、Nokia、Palm和Windows Mobile平台的顶级手机应用。该网站刚刚卖给新东家，目前正处于转型时期。尽管该网站不像Appolicious那样与雅虎有品牌连襟的优势，但在该网露脸的应用所斩获的下载量也很惊人。

该网站的应用搜索引擎，会根据用户已下载的应用，找到用户可能会喜欢的类似产品，然后结合其他用户的对该产品的评价，为用户进行个性化推荐。该网站高管阿什·康威（Ash Conway）提供了今年以来综合浏览量最多的10款应用（详见下表），依次是应用名称、综合浏览量（PV）、下载量（DL）及付费或免费状态。

·Words with Friends：PV30620次/DL252次/付费

·Chase Mobile: PV16578次/DL3061次/免费

·Police Scanner: PV15351次/DL499次/付费

·Scrabble: PV13023次/DL1776次/付费

·Talking Carl: PV12712次/DL456次/付费

·Hipstamatic: PV10550次/DL209次/付费

·Red Laser PV5553次DL176次/付费

·Zynga出品的Live Poker: PV3485次/DL476次/付费

·Ootunes: PV3430次/DL59次/付费

·Text Plus: PV3200次/DL741次/免费

虽然本文所列举的仅是一些应用推荐网站典型，但你至少可以从中了解到向这些网站投放应用，比单纯向主流手机应用商店发售产品更有助于增加下载量。如果通过Smokin Apps这样的小型网站也可以收获成千上万的浏览量，那么更大规模的应用推荐网站就更不在话下了。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）

Mobile App Recommendation Sites Drive Downloads for Developers

Mobile application recommendation websites and services have sprung out of a growing need to filter, rank and recommend the best apps from the hundreds of thousands now available for download onto mobile phones. These sites operate outside of the official app marketplaces like the iTunes App Store and the Android Market, for example.

With iTunes now carrying 225,000 apps in its “curated” collection and Android up to 100,000, it’s no wonder users have turned to other resources beyond the search box and category listings found in the official vendor-specific app stores. For the end users, recommendation sites like these prove useful, even necessary at times.

But are these sites helping developers? And if so, how much?

To determine the usefulness of these sites, we spoke to the execs behind several of the leading recommendation services. Each site offers its own feature set and ranking algorithm. Some, for example, not only take into account an app’s popularity, but also its media coverage when ranking the apps. Others use a combination of signals including apps you own and members’ reviews in their algorithms.

Here are our findings, broken down by site or service.

AppStore HQ

AppStoreHQ is a site featuring apps for Android, iPhone, iPad and even Web-based HTML apps. Here, you can find what apps are hottest on the Web (mentioned by press or blogs), what are hottest on Twitter and it offers app reviews. AppStoreHQ currently gets 836,000 visits per month.

Chris DeVore, the site’s CEO and co-founder, pulled some data for us about the app downloads. According to the data, the apps in the sponsored results (basically, ads for apps), receive more than 28 times the downloads of the average app. That means that buying a sponsored result on their site is as effective as being in the site’s “Top 100 Hottest” list when it comes to driving views and downloads.

Some other stats they rounded up:

In indexed terms, where 100 is the baseline:

•Average number of views/week for apps that get any views: 100

•Average number of views/week for apps in the top 100 hottest list: 579

•Average number of views/week for apps listed as sponsored results: 631

•Average number of downloads/week for apps that get any downloads: 100

•Average number of downloads/week for apps in top 100 hottest: 250

•Average number of downloads/week for apps with sponsored result: 2,867

Appolicious

Yahoo partner Appolicious ranks and recommends iPhone, iPad, Android and Yahoo applications using a number of mechanisms, including reviews, likes (its own, not Facebook’s) and friend recommendations. Users can follow their friends on the site and train the recommendation engine by sharing what apps they already have installed. Then, when signed in, the site can recommend new apps to try based on your preferences, what apps you own and other signals.

CEO Alan Warms says that on any given day, 10% of the users who visit the site end up downloading an app. The apps reviewed in Appolicious’ editorial section see the best numbers. The editorial section doesn’t sell its reviews – it showcases apps based on what the writers find appealing. Apps in this section and others that are well-known, like an Angry Birds type app, see five times the number of downloads as others on the site. Meanwhile, apps that are new to the audience see an increase of 10 to 15 times the downloads when they arrive to the site.

Chomp

Chomp (disclosure: Chomp is a RWW sponsor) is an app discovery engine that combines app search with personalized recommendations. An accompanying iPhone application was released in January 2010.

Developers can use Chomp to automatically prompt app users to review the app after a set number of launches.

Each app featured on the site has its own page with screenshots, a description and its iTunes reviews. These reviews are then rated, in aggregate, by Chomp, displaying either a red heart (for positive reviews) or a broken heart (for negative reviews) to reach a combined score. It then can recommend an app as being overall more positive than negative.

Chomp and Appolicious (above) were also recently featured in the The Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, Chomp was unwilling to share any of its data with us.

AppsFire

AppsFire isn’t quite like the others. It’s not just a website, but also an iPhone application that allows users to discover and share the best apps. According to co-founder Ouriel Ohayon, the site sees 1.5 million clicks (they call that download intentions) per month to the app developers page. “This is the only metric with downloads that matters,” says Ohayon.

He also notes that the service has reached a point where it’s able to boost the position of an app in the iTunes App Store top rankings in just a few hours. One example was when “Say it & Mail it Recorder” partnered with AppsFire to boost downloads by dropping its price to zero for a short time. In another example, a partnership with “Beautiful Panoramas” made it to the top 50 lists and number two in the Photography list in iTunes in less than three hours. AppsFire’s advertising service also does well.

Smokin Apps

Smokin Apps features the top mobile apps for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Palm and Windows Mobile. Smokin Apps just sold to new owners, so it’s in a transition period right now. However,even without a brand-name affiliation like Appolicious has with Yahoo, for instance, the site has been driving large numbers of downloads to the apps it showcases.

The site’s recommendation engine matches you with apps you would like based on apps similar to those you own. It then combines that information with other members’ recommendations using an algorithm that tracks every way users rate apps on the site. The end result is personalized recommendations of new apps to try. According to Smokin Apps’ Ash Conway, the top 10 apps by page views over the past year included the following (see below). Next to each apps is the number of downloads the app saw and whether it was free or paid:

•Words with Friends: PV30,620/DL252/Paid

•Chase Mobile: PV16,578/DL3061/Free

•Police Scanner”: PV15,351/DL499/Paid

•Scrabble: PV13,023/DL1776/Paid

•Talking Carl: PV12,712/DL456/Paid

•Hipstamatic: PV10,550/DL209/Paid

•Red Laser PV5,553/DL176/Paid

•Live Poker by Zynga: PV3,485/DL476/Paid

•Ootunes: PV3,430/DL59/Paid

•Text Plus: PV3,200/DL741/Free

Although this is just a sample of the app recommendation sites out there, you can see that getting an app on these sites can often help you achieve more downloads than just submitting to a mobile app store alone. When even sites as small as Smokin Apps can deliver thousands of pageviews, then it follows that larger app sites can do even better. （source:readwriteweb）