14 DAY TRIAL // The Google Chrome Web Store was launched to much fanfare late last year, but, while it managed to draw quite a lot of attention from users and developers alike, it was limited to the US, or rather to the English version of Chrome as long as you were only looking for free apps.
Now though, Google is making the first steps towards a global Web Store, it's enabling developers everywhere to upload apps for local markets and enable payments for them, in some cases.
"When we recently announced the availability of the Chrome Web Store to Chrome users in the US, we mentioned that we were hard at work making the store available globally," Qian Huang, Software Engineer at Google, wrote.
"Today we’re excited to announce a preview release of the upload flow for several international markets as a step towards that goal," he announced.
Now, whenever you upload an app you'll see the option to have it targeted to any combination of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.
Developers will also be able to price their apps according to the location of the user, however, developers outside the US can't sign up to receive payments just yet.
"Note that these apps will not yet be published to countries outside the United States. This will happen when the Chrome Web Store opens to consumers in these countries later this year," Huang explained.
It's perhaps too early to tell whether the Web Store has been a success, though there are plenty of apps that have proven very popular. With 120 million Chrome users, the potential is big.
Regardless of how the Web Store is doing now, it's a long term project, one that needs to be expanded internationally for it to succeed. Of course, as long as you're using Chrome in English you will be able to access the Web Store regardless of your actual location.