This is part of an interesting trend that's potentially going to be very lucrative for developers.
Apple store, Chrome web store, Android market, etc. are all solving the marketing and distribution problem for developers all over the world. Furthermore with rankings and reviews the good apps will rise to the top while the bad ones will be lost in obscurity. It's increasingly a game of creating compelling products and not compelling marketing to win.
We're not quite there yet, there's still lots of work to be done with rankings, etc. but the trend is quite clear. I wonder when Mozilla will announce their app store.
Stores do very litte for marketing (the popular apps are popular due to being good and having been excellently marketed both in and out of stores, put an app on store with no marketing and see how well it does).
Mobile appstore made sense since there wasn't an existing distribution or discovery infrastructure. For web apps the Internet has already solved distribution and discovery..
I see appstores as a plague and counter to the open and free Internet. A few companies are getting (for practical purposes) "monopolies". Altering the level playing field into one in which developers are beholden to appstores.
I'd have to mention an exception to the "stores do very litte for marketing". The parts of the Apple App Store that are edited / curated by employees do have a significant affect on sales and can be seen as app store marketing. Also, the commercials from Apple that show apps boost sales also.
How is an app store for web apps a "plague"? The Chrome store is another choice, not the defacto (like the Apple store). In my eye as a small time developer it gives me another avenue to get noticed, I don't see how it harms me.
Except that currently these stores do very little to create that meritocracy. I'm not sure they ever truly can.
Until then marketing is a huge part of success in these stores. Be it working with the press (blogs, traditional press, and everything in between) to good old fashioned advertising. Very few app-store developers have had sustained success without the normal marketing and sales efforts that you need with any other product (at least the ones I have insight into).
Apple store, Chrome web store, Android market, etc. are all solving the marketing and distribution problem for developers all over the world. Furthermore with rankings and reviews the good apps will rise to the top while the bad ones will be lost in obscurity. It's increasingly a game of creating compelling products and not compelling marketing to win.
We're not quite there yet, there's still lots of work to be done with rankings, etc. but the trend is quite clear. I wonder when Mozilla will announce their app store.