MADE IN DETROIT

AAPL is now worth >$200B, along with only (I think) XOM, MSFT, BRK, and WMT. So those are the biggest companies, but how do they stack up on a per employee basis?

AAPL: $202b / 34,300 = $5.9M/e

WMT: $207b / 2,100,000 = $98,600/e

MSFT: $252b / 93,000 = $2.7M/e

XOM: $315b / 80,700 = $3.9M/e

AMZN: $57b / 24,300 = $2.3M/e

BRK.A: $203b / 222,000 =  $914,000/e

Facebook (reported): $10b / 1,200 = $8.3M/e

Interesting.

rafer:

iseffcom:

continuations:

Over the last few days, Apple has removed a number of apps from the app store that have, as the New York Times’s Jenna Wortham put it “sexually suggestive” material.  There is plenty of speculation on the motives, such as VentureBeat’s idea that this is about winning over educators to the iPad.  I think the actual explanation is likely to be simpler.

Browsing and discovery are broken in the app store.  If these were working well, then there would be no need to remove apps like this (for any reason).  Instead, they would be visible only to those specifically searching for them.  Imagine coming to the Google home page and finding a list of the most popular web pages in various categories.  Unfiltered I am pretty sure that would include a bunch of porn.  This could be one source of complaints but I suspect that access by children is more important.

Theoretically parental controls are supposed to help keep this content away from children, but that of course requires some non-trivial configuration, as this tutorial shows.  I believe that most people buy iPod Touches or even iPhones for their kids and simply hand them over without ever going through these steps (we didn’t — but that’s because we don’t believe in filtering for kids — more on that in a separate blog post).  Without these controls “questionable” apps are just 1-click away for kids.

Phil Schiller cites “customer complaints from women” in his NYT interview as the reason for the app removal.  Based on the above, I suspect many if not most of them are mothers who discover that their children have actually purchased “inappropriate” apps (as opposed to just browsed the web).  There were a huge number of iPod Touches given as Christmas presents this year and the timing of this removal could be the result of that.

I am surprised that Apple did not solve this problem by defaulting to a “safe mode” (and fixing app store browsing/discovery), but instead resorted to removing the apps.  This suggests that there are technology issues behind the scenes that prevent them from making sufficiently rapid changes to the App Store.

This dovetails very nicely with my post from yesterday about brainstorming a sane app review process. Like I said there, now that AppStoreHQ is in the app submission and review business, the two biggest things we have to deal with will be: (a) coming up with appropriate guidelines for developers, and (b) providing mechanisms for sectioning off the site to only the apps you find appropriate (for yourself, your children, others, etc).

Rafer sez:
@iseff There can never be a sane app review process. There can only be a sane developer reputation and trust system.

@rafer True. We’re all about using market-based approaches like this (and we want to allow any app and any type of app into our service), but we’re not there yet. I think it’s necessary to have the technology in place to allow users to control what they’re seeing first. In the meantime, we need to provide developers a way to understand what to expect from us (we really don’t want to screw them (like Apple repeatedly has)).

continuations:

Over the last few days, Apple has removed a number of apps from the app store that have, as the New York Times’s Jenna Wortham put it “sexually suggestive” material.  There is plenty of speculation on the motives, such as VentureBeat’s idea that this is about winning over educators to the iPad.  I think the actual explanation is likely to be simpler.

Browsing and discovery are broken in the app store.  If these were working well, then there would be no need to remove apps like this (for any reason).  Instead, they would be visible only to those specifically searching for them.  Imagine coming to the Google home page and finding a list of the most popular web pages in various categories.  Unfiltered I am pretty sure that would include a bunch of porn.  This could be one source of complaints but I suspect that access by children is more important.

Theoretically parental controls are supposed to help keep this content away from children, but that of course requires some non-trivial configuration, as this tutorial shows.  I believe that most people buy iPod Touches or even iPhones for their kids and simply hand them over without ever going through these steps (we didn’t — but that’s because we don’t believe in filtering for kids — more on that in a separate blog post).  Without these controls “questionable” apps are just 1-click away for kids.

Phil Schiller cites “customer complaints from women” in his NYT interview as the reason for the app removal.  Based on the above, I suspect many if not most of them are mothers who discover that their children have actually purchased “inappropriate” apps (as opposed to just browsed the web).  There were a huge number of iPod Touches given as Christmas presents this year and the timing of this removal could be the result of that.

I am surprised that Apple did not solve this problem by defaulting to a “safe mode” (and fixing app store browsing/discovery), but instead resorted to removing the apps.  This suggests that there are technology issues behind the scenes that prevent them from making sufficiently rapid changes to the App Store.

This dovetails very nicely with my post from yesterday about brainstorming a sane app review process. Like I said there, now that AppStoreHQ is in the app submission and review business, the two biggest things we have to deal with will be: (a) coming up with appropriate guidelines for developers, and (b) providing mechanisms for sectioning off the site to only the apps you find appropriate (for yourself, your children, others, etc).

When AppStoreHQ launched the ability to submit new Mobile Web Apps a couple weeks ago we thrust ourselves into the app submission and review business. Because we’re still formulating how the Web App App Store should look and work, we haven’t put much effort into formalizing rules for app submissions.

However, Apple’s review process has always been problematic and the latest news about removing 5,000 previously approved apps for “adult-ness” (even just a silhouette of a woman’s body) reminded me that we absolutely need to think about guidelines sooner rather than later.

Before we can create actual guidelines, I think there are three things we need to think about: (1) Why censor apps at all? What are the benefits and drawbacks to users and developers? (2) What are my general beliefs about censorship and how does that affect our guidelines? and (3) How can we productively include all the stakeholders to create a consensus on guidelines (us, users, and developers should all have some say, I think)?

WHY REVIEW APPS AT ALL?

There are some clear benefits to reviewing apps:

1. Allowing only family-oriented apps means that parents and families don’t have to worry about kids using the store.
2. A key to the success of an app store is discovery. Limiting the number of apps — even through censorship — does help to make discovery easier.
3. Censoring apps certainly helps keep spam out of the store. Developers of non-spam apps then don’t have to compete with spam apps trying to invade their turf.

MY GENERAL THOUGHTS ON CENSORSHIP

In an ideal world, I’d censor virtually nothing. The more, the better, in my opinion. But, I also realize that keeping certain apps out of our store increases the overall value of the store and helps users find the best apps — the ultimate goal for us, users, and developers. Still, in general, I don’t think things like simple nudity or aesthetics are reasons for censorship.

I do think there are opportunities to slice our store into multiple mini-stores, keeping adult or otherwise more questionable apps sectioned off without “contaminating” the rest of the store. For that matter, you probably didn’t know Amazon sells porn, vibrators, and adult handcuffs. Amazon does a good job of providing these products, but keeping them in their own section where they wouldn’t normally be found.

A STARTING POINT FOR OUR APP REVIEW GUIDELINES

Given my beliefs and why I think app censorship makes sense, here’s a rough draft for app guidelines. This list means nothing, isn’t official or ratified, and can be changed at any time. In fact, I’d encourage you to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts (include whether you’re a user or developer). I also think less is more when thinking about these rules; we’re not trying to write the US tax code, just some guidelines about what sorts of apps should be accepted.

1. Until we can build an “adult store” hardcore porn should probably be off limits. As for what constitutes hardcore, “you know it when you see it.” I do think we should allow these at some point, but only when we can effectively separate adult apps from non-adult apps. I would also like to first institute some age guidelines (like movies or video games) and allow sane parental control.
2. Spam apps shouldn’t be allowed. I’ll define spam as “shallow” apps built specifically for trying to get more results in search and browse, or apps that simply don’t provide any value to users.
3. (Mostly) Innocent until proven guilty (part A). This one has a double meaning. First, I think there should be a max approval time (say, 2 days). If we can’t get it done in that time, we shouldn’t stop the vast majority of good developers from publishing, marketing, and making money. So, assume the best, publish, and then review as soon as our resources allow.
4. (Mostly) Innocent until proven guilty (part B). Second, since we’re a web app store, we can’t (and frankly don’t want to) control each and every update to an app. Shady developers, therefore, have the ability to pull a bait-and-switch on us, submitting one app, getting published, and then changing the app for the worse. We can’t do much about that, but we can allow our users to flag apps and then re-review those apps at that point.

FEEDBACK

So, what do you think? This is an important, unsolved topic for us and mobile apps in general. We know we won’t get this right immediately, but we want to include as many people as possible to make a good first attempt. Comment here, or if you’d rather comment privately, email me.

soupsoup:

While NBC was airing “Ice Dancing,” their sister network MSNBC was airing one of the most exciting hockey games in recent history. It didn’t take a genius to figure the matching of the home host Canadian team taking on a surging USA team would be a compelling matchup. NBC realized the error of their ways in the final moments of the match, cutting off the two-man bobsled, but they already missed a golden opportunity.

Throughout the game, twitter was flooded with viewers buzzing about the match, so much so that “NBC” and MSNBC were trending topics, mainly based around people calling out the network for not airing the event on their main network, along with “Ryan Miller,” the USA goalie and “Team USA.”

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the network who decked Conan O’Brien in favor of putting a well past his prime Jay Leno back in his old time slot would make such a colossal programming blunder. The network has enjoyed record ratings thus far, but the lack of live events have frustrated viewers. In the age of the internet, you would virtually need to shut off your digital life in order to prevent yourself from finding out the results of what NBC decides to air hours later, in prime time. Twitter becomes a spoiler landmine and many found out too late to turn off their New York Times breaking news email alerts.

Here NBC had an a chance to capture an audience that would follow this USA hockey team to the medal rounds, and all in real-time. Instead, it they committed a crime of poor programming, enough to throw them in same MSNBC Lockup that normally airs weekend evenings and preempted in favor of men’s hockey.

NBC’s coverage of the Olympics has been absolutely abysmal, but tonight’s programming of the game took the cake. As someone without cable, I was stranded thinking I’d be able to stream it online easily.

Turns out you needed to have service with a cable/satellite operator in order to watch live events. In a scramble, knowing my Dad has DirecTV, I called him, asked for his account number, created an online account on DirecTV.com for him, and logged in using that account to get access to the stream.

Annoying, backwards, and dumb.

Oh, and let’s not even talk about the fact that the online stream went to commercial DURING THE GAME on multiple occasions. WTF is up with that?

(P.S. The Michigan connections made me very proud tonight, especially my Red Wing Brian Rafalski.)

It’s no secret that I think mobile web apps will be huge. They might never supplant native apps (games are one place I see native apps winning for quite some time), but they’ll be a valuable part of the mobile app ecosystem. I’ve been linking to articles and writing about this trend for a couple weeks now on MobileHTML5.com. I also wrote about how iPad caused a surge of interest in HTML5 and then about how the killer feature of Apple’s iPhone/mobile platform is the App Store’s ability to pay developers.

The fact that I believe mobile web apps will be huge — but that the actual platform isn’t the biggest reason iPhone succeeds (it’s the developer’s ability to easily monetize via the App Store) — led me to think of ways to help developers promote their mobile web apps. This is why last week we launched the ability to Add a Web App to AppStoreHQ. As of today, we already have over 4,000 mobile web apps listed, including some truly great apps like Google Voice, Google Buzz, Reader, and more.

This ability to help users discover (and developers promote) the best mobile apps, regardless of platform, is unbelievably valuable. Not to mention the fact that all our standard blog and Twitter tracking and recommendations also work.

As Apple’s App Store showed, it’s also about removing the muck. That’s why we’ll be helping developers make money by allowing users to pay for mobile web apps through our site. To that end, I’ve already created a very rough outline of what this would look like with a test app I created. Check out the pipeline and let me know what you think (but be warned, the app is absolutely not worth 1 cent, let alone the 99 cents I’m selling it for so I wouldn’t actually spend the money unless you understand you’re not getting ANYTHING of real value and are willing to waste 99 cents). If you’re interested in learning about this feature (it’s a dead-simple API), how to monetize your mobile web app, or even test drive this feature, shoot me an email. We want to help you and need your input to do so.

I’m very excited to have a mobile web app app store on AppStoreHQ and I think it’ll be a great addition for users looking for mobile apps and for developers looking to promote their apps.

Helping out a fellow FC company with an experiment here: Cardone 30-2895

A couple months ago I had an idea. One of those, “I wonder if this would work” ideas. I talked it over with Chris and we both decided it was probably a good idea, but we weren’t quite sure (we needed feedback from potential users and customers), and we didn’t want to invest much time into it if it wasn’t what developers wanted. At the same time, we didn’t want to reveal too many hints about the idea.

I ended up creating a simple poll about Apple’s App Store and posting it to Hacker News. I wanted to learn what makes Apple’s App Store tick. Why do developers really love it? The results (I received 75 submissions) weren’t earth shattering, but they were interesting. Here’s a rough overview followed by a synopsis:

• A majority of developers would rather write native apps over web apps in an ideal world. This actually surprised me, and I believe this sentiment is quickly changing.
• Of those who would rather write native apps, a majority do so because of the App Store over any other reason (including available APIs, performance, language). This is super interesting to me as it means that the platform itself isn’t the killer feature of the iPhone for developers, it’s the App Store.
• When we first started AppStoreHQ, discoverability was the killer idea of the App Store, but now only 25% of the developers said that discoverability was what made the App Store tick. In fact, discoverability might be hurting the App Store at this point. (Note: This is where we, AppStoreHQ, come in.)
• Over 70% of the developers say the killer idea of the App Store is payments. Developers want to get paid for their work as easily as possible. This is huge, fascinating, and (to me) surprising.
• For the developers who chose web apps over native apps, over 50% said it was because of cross-platform (write-once, run-anywhere) issues, but a full 25% said it was due to not having to deal with Apple.

Synopsis:

The thing that popped out the most to me is that the App Store is the killer feature of the Apple platform, rather than anything dealing with the device itself. When you start to boil it down, it sounds a lot like Jeff Bezos’ reasoning for Amazon Web Services. Jeff likes to talk about how when you’re starting a brick and mortar store, for instance, you don’t have to worry about setting up your own electricity; you simply call the electric company. In the same way, with AWS you no longer have to set up a data center, buy servers, etc; you just call up AWS. Jeff calls this “the muck.”

I think this is exactly what developers see in the App Store. The App Store removes a ton of muck. Most importantly (from this survey at least), dealing with credit cards and payments is one of the biggest pains for developers, and the App Store completely shields developers from it.

The iPhone platform succeeds because the App Store “removes the muck.”