14 DAY TRIAL // The Google Chrome Web Store has been live for almost a month now, but it looks like it hasn't exactly been a smash hit, at least as paid apps go. The most popular paid apps have a tens of weekly installs at best, not earning their creators much. Free apps are significantly more popular, but the Web Store as a whole needs a bit more polish some developers think.
As TechCrunch noticed, web app sales seem to be lackluster. The number one app in the Top Paid, Toddler Jukebox, only has six weekly installs.
Others in the top ten are faring better, Onslaught! Arena, an arcade game, has 1,352 weekly installs, but that's most likely because it also offers a free, trial version.
Google doesn't rank apps in Top Paid by sales so there is no way to know how well some apps are selling, but it doesn't look like any developer is doing great.
Granted, the Web Store is not yet included in the stable version of Chrome, the one most people run.
You can install web apps in Google Chrome 8, but there's no link to the store in the browser by default, if you haven't already installed something.
This will change with the release of Google Chrome 9, which should be coming in the next couple of weeks.
And Google hasn't really been promoting or advertising the Web Store to the wider audience. Early adopters have known about the store for months now, but that's a small minority.
But the numbers for the paid apps still seem underwhelming, since some of the free apps have thousands of weekly installs.
The reason why paid apps aren't so popular may not have to do with the Web Store itself but more to do with the fact that people are not accustomed to paying for stuff on the web, even more so when many of the 'apps' are nothing more than a bookmark to an existing website.
But this is something that many people have anticipated and Google likely has as well. Chrome OS is still months away so the Web Store may be more of a long-term project, but early results don't seem to be very encouraging to developers.