By Everyone has their gripes with the Android market: “it’s too cluttered”, “there’s no way to filter anything”, “I don’t like the dark-on-light color scheme, change it to pink on black instead”. We’ve seen Google prove that they are willing and able to bring about a better market experience in the past, and we could be headed for another major curve.
AndroidPolice.com is reporting that Google chose 16 participants through a mult-stage focus group to give their thoughts on several market features that Google’s throwing up in the air. Questions ranged from your usual filter and weight-based searching algorithms to other exciting prospects such as social networking integration from services like Facebook and Twitter.
- 7 day journal of app use habits including what we installed/uninstalled, how many times we went to the market, what categories we looked at, whatapps we used and where we learned about apps (market, websites, etc) this was done every day for 7 days.
- After 7 days, roughly 16 people were chosen for interviews at Google.
- Asked about future features and how interested we would be in them. Spent a lot of time on social integration such as twitter, facebook.
- Asked/talked about Guru/expert ranks for some developers on the market
- Asked about Following/favoriting developers on the market
- Asked about developer bios on the market which would include links to their site, twitter, whatever
- Asked about app recommending such as a feature to recommend apps you like to friends via the market
- A whole lot about social networking/integration
- Asked about filters for searching within the market including searching using variable like a certain rank or higher
- Asked/talked about developer responding to comments
- No time line mentioned. Could be this market update could be after it.
A focus study doesn’t necessarily guarantee any or all of what’s discussed is going to be implemented, but it does give a pretty good idea of the direction Google wants to head in. If AndroidPolice’s tipster is to be believed, then I think we may have an interesting update to look forward to once talks about Gingerbread start floating around.
[Note]: Image is not of the focus group in question.
I hope that’s not the actual focus group in the picture :-)
I hope that IS the actual focus group. If so, I think we can expect to see a long overdue focus on crocheting and needle point.
.
So long crummy android market interface, hello knitted ascots!
I really really hope that’s not the focus group. Otherwise our market will turn into Hello Kitty featured apps that help with our crosswords, knitting, and remembering when to take our many, many meds..
Welcome to the Geriatric Age of market!
The focus group in the pic above looks like a home economics class. Please God don’t let these people influence the direction of the Market!
I hope something good comes out of this. The Market in 2.1 is a slight improvement over 1.5, but not much has really changed, other than a new skin (and for me, a dedicated tab for Verizon apps, whoop dee doo). The market has matured to the point that it desperately needs an overhaul. There’s PLENTY of apps available now, but it’s just so dang hard to find them sometimes. And yes, I know there are catalog websites, but to me, that defeats the purpose. I want to find an app on the device when I need it, wherever I am, without having to go hunting through catalogs on websites. Having only two categories (Apps and Games) is a bit of a joke. At least Games has some subcategories, but even that’s not very effective, because I’ve found that some games show up in multiple subcategories. While you may argue that there are reasons for that, I say it shows lack of proper organization. If the categories are laid out well, apps should only need to be listed in one category at a time.
Well the new android market looks amazing.