Mark Bridge writes:
Today’s best-known stores mobile application stores are the Apple App Store and the Android Market, although independent app stores including GetJar and Handango have been with us for much longer.
And now there’s another independent application store preparing to launch. The company behind it is called BloomWorlds – and I spoke to co-founder Todd R Levy for this week’s podcast feature.
“BloomWorlds is developing Android’s family-friendly app store to help Android users - mostly parents - discover safe, secure and appropriate apps”, he explained. “There’s three things that we look for. The first is the content. The apps must be in the ‘family friendly’ niche; we’re not going to have the sexy girl wallpaper, the fart apps, the spam, the smut. The next thing is security. We test the apps, we scan them to make sure there’s no malware, spyware or viruses before it goes on the store. Plus we’re going to have the human element, which is an advisory board of users, parents that are actually going to play with the apps and download them before they even go on the market. We have about three dozen parents and users who are really big Android enthusiasts. Instead of ‘reviews’ we really want to give testimonials where people are vouching for these apps and developers.”
The BloomWorlds app store will be available online and as an Android application, with apps available to buy via credit/debit card, PayPal and possibly gift cards. A launch date is expected to be confirmed in the next six weeks.
| Our conversation went on to cover the stability of app pricing, the future of large application stores and the question of whether or not the app store model is broken. Click here to listen to the full interview by using the built-in audio player on our website - or download all our podcasts automatically via iTunes or from our RSS feed. |