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How many apps do you have on your device? Go ahead, check first, ok, now how many of those apps are paid apps? More than likely you have at least one paid app on your device. Now where did you get that app? More than likely it was downloaded from the Google Play Store, it is however possible that you downloaded and paid for it from Facebook’s own app store. If Mark Zuckerberg has anything to say about it, we will all be using his app store to buy our apps.
That’s right people, Facebook may be trying to flank an unguarded side of Google’s front in the mobile app market. We know that many people are using Android devices, in fact they make up 80% of the mobile market currently. The part that Zuckerberg sees as an opportunity, is the paid app market from Google, and it’s lack of marketing.
The Google Play Store, at any given time, has many apps to choose from, some paid and some unpaid, but one thing you won’t see a lot of, is promoting of these paid apps. It is mainly up to developers to promote their own product, even if Google is taking a cut from each paid download. Though Google is not the only company leaving their guard down. Apple is as well, with the numbers being over one million apps and only 200 apps displayed on App Store charts. Though it is possible to search for apps on Apple’s App Store, but this may be one of many reasons we switched to the great Android OS. Searching for an app in the App Store may not give you exactly what you are searching for, in fact, only 0.02% of apps are displayed in the Apple App Store at one time. Of course, you could spend an hour scrolling through to find what you want, but is any app really worth searching for an hour? This is where Google learned a lesson.
When you search an app on the Play Store, you will be presented with 500 apps in reach. Still, with a better search option, which Google, a search engine company better be good at, those 500 apps only amount to 0.04% of the total number of apps available on the Play Store. With this weakness from both Google and Apple, Facebook is aiming to show of their own app store, which has existed for some time now, just not really given attention.
So in an attempt to get that attention from developers, Facebook is hosting a conference called “F8” on April 30th. At this conference, an argument will be made by Facebook’s chief app developer, Ilya Sukhar. The argument will be that Facebook can give your app the attention, you as a developer, want to achieve. Reports point out some interesting points that Sukhar may be planning to make. Firstly, the biggest attraction, is that Facebook has over 1.2 billion users on Facebook, and for the most part, they are accessing the site on their mobile device. Talk about mobile advertising opportunities.
Next your attention may be moved to how Facebook knows your struggles as a developer. Look at the many apps Facebook has tried to make a thing, and just didn’t succeed. This means Facebook knows your pain, and wants to help cure that pain, though, have they done a great job healing their own wounds in the past? You be the judge on that one. Facebook also knows what it is like to own apps, like Whatsapp and Instagram. Back to how Facebook plans to make money where Google and Apple both are falling behind.
Facebook feels the way to make money, is to sell ads on Facebook, and any other apps Facebook decides to purchase, that link back to the Play Store. Since Facebook is slightly similar to Google in the fact that 53% of their income is from ads, this option will mend in nicely with Facebook’s structure. How will this affect Google?
Well technically it wont. In fact, it may help Google make money without spending money. To compare, we will be using a recent Discovery Channel segment that is fresh in our minds. There are fish that have bacteria on them, and without a way to clean themselves off, these fish could die due to that bacteria. Luckily for them, there is fish that are smaller, and feed on that bacteria. So, the smaller fish, attach themselves to the bigger fish, eating the bacteria and helping the big fish survive. Google makes money on each paid app sale, and if their product is getting advertised at no cost to them, well then that’s just money coming in, and none going out. Google is the big fish, and Mark Zuckerberg, (imagine how hard it was not to type suckerberg), is the little fish.