Open the application Sinks website appchina.com, the most intimate Android App store slogan is very eye-catching

Open the application Sinks website appchina.com, the "most intimate Android App Store" slogan is very eye-catching.

"The positioning of the application is based on the Android localization software distribution platform, dedicated to creating a full range of mobile application service providers." Recently, Shangcong, co-founder and vice president of operations, said in an interview with C114.

According to Shangcong, since May 2011, the application of the network based on the Android platform mobile applications in the number of more than 15,000, the total download volume of more than 160 million, daily active users have 300,000 independent IP, the sun load near 1.5 million.

So far, the application has been with the three major domestic operators, domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers and 360, Sina and other Internet companies have established cooperation, such as in the mobile phone built-in applications, operators of the application store in the form of shop in store to add "application sinks" brand stores and other cooperation has been launched.

Push Web side and mobile client

The application was created in April 2010 and officially launched in August, with web-side and mobile-phone clients.

Since 2008, when Apple opened the App Store, the new application store model has begun to spread around the world. Application sinks are one of them, now starting to lead the domestic application store.

The application is one of the first mobile Internet projects in the early incubation of the innovation Workshop, which is the same period as the 5 items, such as pea pod cell phone elf, Alliance statistics, Dim sum mobile operating System, magic Chart Wizard. It is reported that, as of November 2011, Innovation Workshop Investment has hatched more than 30 projects, of which 10 have entered a round, with financing scales ranging from 5 million to 10 million dollars.

"At the beginning of the creation of the application sinks, the Android Market was a long way off, but the outlook was broad, and the innovation Workshop considered its eruption to be imminent." "At the same time, when Google withdrew from China, its services in the Chinese market left a blank, and there were few apps stores that were really good at home," Shangcong said. These are great opportunities for creative workshops to create their own app stores. ”

Application sinks smoothly created, can not be separated from Kai-fu Lee (micro-bo) and his innovation workshop to help. Early team building, financial operations, the medium-term capital investment by the innovation workshop, even the initial operation of the choice of direction also played a role.

At the beginning of the creation, the team was undecided. The first step in running a business is to start accumulating users, to work with developers, or both. Workshop to consider the team are engineers from the background, did not do market operations, and developers talk about the advantages of cooperation. Therefore, it is recommended to concentrate on product accumulation users, until the end of 2010 to start contacting developers.

Challenge mobile Application "long tail effect"

As a third-party Android App Store, the app has been dedicated to helping users discover and download Android apps, mainly by editing, ranking, and searching three ways to discover applications.

It is reported that the application of the current types of applications to games, systems, reading category, more than 10,000 developers, each day to more than 10 million users detailed recommendation 10-12 popular applications, the recommended new applications daily download volume reached more than 5,000 times.

However, the above three ways still can not meet the user more personalized needs. In this respect, the application of the recent launch of new products-ball search. Relative to the application of a new version every three weeks, ball search weekly send a new version, updated more frequently.

"This will help users search for better applications, including personalized recommendations based on scenarios, locations, and social application sharing, to make the best use of application discovery." Shangcong said, "For example, we judge users to travel frequently for business people, will give users to push travel related mobile applications, if it is a student, will recommend some fun, can help learn mobile applications, if in Beijing, it is recommended that Beijing relevant applications." ”

In Shangcong's view, application sinks In addition to doing the application download, there is another value, is to challenge mobile applications "long tail effect", that is, to be neglected buried in the application of the end of the excellent application of mining out, such as cocoa private dishes, wormholes, tomb beauty are found.

According to the AIDS advisory statistics, the current number of Chinese mobile phone application developers about 1 million people, including Apple iOS platform 140,000, Google's Android more than 700,000.

To this end, application sinks have been supporting small and medium-sized developers or teams. The first is to help them reduce the development, marketing costs, help them build brands, let more users understand and download, the second is to help them profit by embedded ads, and third, to help them to introduce investment.

In addition, the application sinks regularly organize offline activities, in the gradual gathering of developers, so far throughout the country has held 5 "Mobile developer Salon", in 2012 will also host the "Application Show" activities, so that more excellent applications to show their own opportunities for the entire mobile application of the eco-industrial chain construction also has great benefits.

Lead application developer for winter

However, even if the application of the tree, how to achieve profitability, but also need to explore further.

For now, users of application sinks are free to download applications, its main task is to help application developers to obtain revenue, the channel mainly through the following two implementation: first, embedded in the application of advertising, by click into; the second is the application of free, the application of fees, such as by prop fees, application has launched a micro-payment solution, Users can pay by SMS, credit card, third party payment, etc.

Still, a lot of mobile developers can't make money. According to the AIDS advisory statistics, 2011 China Mobile Phone application developers to achieve a profit of only 13.7%, mainly to rely on the enterprise itself (such as Tencent's developers) or personal research and development applications products are mainly profit by advertising, the loss accounted for 64.5%, flat 20.8%.

In fact, one side is the application store's massive application, on the other side is the user opens daily the core application is not many.

According to a survey by Nielsen in the United States on Android applications, the top ten applications accounted for almost half of the use (43%), and the top 50 used 61% of the total. That is to say, the hundreds of thousands of apps that come after this are either dormant in the App Store or forgotten by the user downloading and installing to the phone for one or two times.

However, in Shangcong's view, developers now prefer to use sinks to bring promotions and users, rather than revenue.

He says the app will be confident about the future, with Android apps still in the Blue sea, Android handsets to grow and mobile apps based on Android on the rise. "In 2012, the smartphone terminals in China are expected to reach 80 million to 100 million, and the Android app market will have a larger user base, and the app will continue to lead the mobile developers to break through." "he said.