The “new + rising” section of the App Store – Do you love it or hate it?

The “new + rising” section of the App Store – Do you love it or hate it?

January 24, 2013 | By andrewbares

With Windows Phone 8, the “new” section of the App Store was renamed to “new + rising”. Along with the different name came a different algorithm for displaying “new” apps. Here’s how it seems like the algorithm works:

• There is a time limit for what is considered “new”. The time limit seems to be one month from the current date, however Facebook Pro (awful app by the way, it simply opens the mobile website) was released on 12/18/2012 and Helpbridge was released on 12/7/2012. These are the exception, not the norm.
• Downloads and ratings affect placement in the category.The order seems to be generated by a combination of user ratings (Speedtest.net is at the top with 4.5 stars for example), downloads, and how recently the apps were released (Facebook Pro isn’t found till further down in the list, despite it somehow having a 4 star rating from 6,000+ reviews).
• The list doesn’t change very often. Speedtest.net has been at the top of the list for at least a few days now.

Depending on your point of view, the “new + rising” section could be a great improvement from the old system, or it could be awful. I personally love the “new + rising” section, but I’ll share both viewpoints here! Each side certainly has valid points.

I love the “new + rising” section, and here’s why!I only check the Store maybe once a week. With “new + rising” I see all the great new apps that have been released recently. They have plenty of user ratings (300 for Speedtest.net, 160 for Snex8x, etc) and are all *good* apps that I want to download! With the old system, all I would see was worthless apps that simply open a web page, and apps that had no ratings. I would often miss out on the release of the good apps like Speedtest.net since I didn’t visit the Store daily.

Now this is just a guess without any statistical backing, but I bet that many Windows Phone users fall into the “I only check the Store maybe once a week” category. The “new + rising” category clearly favors this type of user. Microsoft certainly has data relating to how often users open the Store… I would bet that they created the “new + rising” section because they saw people don’t open the Store often, and therefore were missing out on great apps. If you think like Microsoft, you realize that you want people to download as many apps as possible. Thus, they created the “new + rising” section that caters towards the majority who do not check the Store often. Providing a list of great apps released in the past week/month will get far more downloads than providing a list of mostly crappy apps released in the current day!

However, the existing stats about the iPhone App Store don’t support my conjecture. Astudy of 1,591 iPhone owners showed that users typically visit the App Store 6 times every week! Either Windows Phone users are different, or I’m completely wrong in my guess. But the study does bring up another point that supports the “new + rising” category: “85% of App Store visitors need to see a strong reviews, screenshots or price to be convinced”. The old “new” category had 0 to 1 reviews for most apps… which as the study showed means that people are less likely to download the apps. The “new + rising” category has TONS of reviews on the other hand.

I hate the “new + rising” section, and here’s why…

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