Chrome Web Store: a solution in search of a problem?

Google launched its Chrome Web Store yesterday alongside its announcement of the Chrome OS pilot program. Google seems to think that the modern Web, which is increasingly capable of delivering desktop-like application experiences, needs an application delivery channel, even though there is nothing to actually deliver—except URLs.

The way that users consume applications in the desktop and mobile world is fundamentally different than they way that they do it on the Web—where paywalls are often reviled and there is little distinction between content and software. In such an environment, does the application store model make any sense? We are not convinced.

A lot of commercial websites use ad-based business models or take a freemium approach, offering a baseline set of functionality for free and allowing users to get more by paying recurring annual fees. Google wants to open the door for more conventional single-payment purchases, allowing Web developers and content producers to sell their material on the Web the same way that they do it on cell phones.

When you want to deliver a native mobile application to a smartphone user, there are a lot of advantages to using an application store. You have a seamless vehicle for deploying your software and subsequent updates, obviating the need for your user to download and install a package. It gives you basic analytics tools for measuring the number of users. It also makes billing painless by avoiding the need for individual users to thumb-type in their credit card number.

It's not clear, however, if having a standardized retail channel is as unambiguously advantageous in the context of a desktop browser. There is no actual software to deliver and no updates to manage and roll out. You don't need a store for analytics because you are tracking the traffic to your actual website. All the store does is handle billing and add a glorified bookmark to the user's browser. The billing problem has already been solved on the Web a hundred times over. You can use PayPal or any other similar mechanism (unless you are Wikileaks) and it won't be a significant deterrent to sales.

As the company behind the Android Market, Google has a first-hand view of the mobile application gold rush. It's not surprising that the search giant wants to try to adapt that model to work in the browser, but we're not convinced that the Chrome Web Store's support for conventional billing will somehow encourage native application developers to start porting their software to the Web. The ability to erect a simple pay wall in front of your Web application so that you can charge a few dollars for access just isn't all that novel or compelling.

If a Web app is easily accessible and offers some functionality for free, it can more easily build an audience. The way people consume software on the Web is by clicking through a link and deciding if the destination has value. There is no overhead in doing that. A user can put a query into a search engine to find Web destinations meet a certain need and then open half a dozen in browser tabs and pick the one that looks the best. It's not like a mobile environment where the overhead of having to download and install an application gives users a reason to read customer reviews and refer to top app lists.

Google's approach to enabling commercial Chrome apps might be a bit more interesting if Google were to offer really robust micro-transaction services that application developers could integrate into their actual software (Google's recent acquisition of Jambool is an interesting development in this space), but even that could be offered as part of Google Checkout and doesn't really rationalize building a whole marketplace.

The only really compelling use case of the Chrome Web Store as a commercial distribution channel is to snag some impulse purchases of Web-based games. EA appears to be enthusiastic about that opportunity and has partnered with Google to get its free "Poppit" balloon game included as part of Chrome 9 (we would make a joke about Chrome OS getting its very own crapware, but it's probably just a link like every other "installed" application).

Aside from gaming, the idea of an application store in a Web browser—where installation is little more than bookmarking—seems counterintuitive and leaves us with the impression that the entire exercise is a solution in search of a problem. The Web itself is already a great way to deliver content and services--arguably one of its greatest strengths. We see no reason to drag the conventional app store paradigm into a medium where it just doesn't fit.