How T-Mobile Tries to Aid App Discoverability
Summary
The glut of titles has given birth to a subset of applications that deliver personalized mobile apps or recommend offerings to friends. Apple (s aapl), meanwhile, has gone so far as to encourage developers to use keywords when submitting their offerings in order to help users find them more easily. The new collaborations sometimes require more sophisticated business models than the simple revenue splits that are the foundation of most app stores — Venetia Espinoza, T-Mobile’s director of mobile applications and partner programs, estimated about 20 percent of its developer deals are individually negotiated — and often require substantial investment. There’s still plenty of distrust from developers who have long suffered at the hands of carriers that insisted on controlling every aspect of mobile content. But with app stores quickly becoming overstocked warehouses, the developer/carrier model could evolve as a key way for both sides to better leverage the exploding space.