The Windows Phone Marketplace was demoed for the first time at Mix 2010. The Marketplace is of great interest to developers as Apple’s App Store has proved a great distribution model for small application developers. However the App Store has shown signs of a growing pains of late and the Windows Phone Marketplace looks to address those weaknesses, specifically discoverability. Developers have complained that it is almost impossible to get an app noticed in the App Store amongst 100,000 other apps.
To help with discoverability, the Marketplace provides a most visual experience with larger and higher resolution images of the app instead of smaller tiles on the App Store. In addition, the Marketplace has a recommendation engine which suggests suitable apps based on previous apps the suer has installed.
Application search is also more powerful than the App Store and crucially rankings are done by both quantity of downloads and ratings, instead of just recent downloads as on the App store.
Monetization
A key innovation in the Windows Phone Marketplace is the trial app system, where a user can download an app and receive a time limited free trial which will then expire and the user will be prompted to upgrade to a paid app. This contrasts with the Apple App Store where the model is a relatively clunky with users being able to download a free app and then download a separate paid app if they want additional features.
In addition billing can be done through the mobile carriers (ie users will pay via their phone bill).
Connecting With Users
Application vendors are better able to connect with users via live notifications – vendors can easily push messages to the app. Updates are meant to be more visible and users can download and install multiple updates at once.