GetJar, an independent App store provider, has re-launched its mobile website. The new site offers better social media integration, allowing users to log into the website to share details of their downloads and comment on the social network using their Facebook accounts.
GetJar also has new ‘Like’ and ‘Dislike’ buttons on its mobile store so customers can sort apps.
The decision to add Facebook Connect was partly fuelled by a recent survey conducted by GetJar, which found that only 21.6 per cent of app downloaders actually discover those applications in the stores.
While 8.8 per cent of respondents said they discovered apps through recommendations from friends, 53 per cent discovered them ‘online’.
However, of US respondents, 20 per cent said they discovered apps through friends and family.
GetJar chief executive, Ilja Laurs, said, “Now that users can share apps with their friends on Facebook, recommendations are really a bit old school.”
He added, “Our recent research clearly showed us that what consumers care about is what their friends are downloading and using, not what we as an app store think they should download.”
The new site also allows consumers to track their personal downloads with GetJar’s ‘My Apps’ feature, which consolidates the user’s downloaded app history and makes it accessible for reference.
GetJar’s new user interface comes as a great relief for those who want further recommendations or want to search apps on their own. The new mobile app store interface includes: Navigation tabs for fast browsing, improved search to find apps with ease, a ‘Top Apps’ section to identify popular apps and a ‘Just In’ section for the latest and greatest selection of apps.
The success of this new feature might see it being replicated by other application stores such as Apple’s App store and Android Market from Google. In fact, the model has been attractive for players, like Apple, that intended to use Facebook Connect in its Ping social music network from launch last year, but the feature was removed at the last minute after the tech giant failed to reach a deal with the social network.