Apple is making potentially significant changes to the search algorithm in the App Store, at least according to some app developers. If you’re a developer or publisher counting on a well-chosen name to help with visibility, things could get tougher from here on out. But if you’re a popular and well-reviewed app, things might be looking up.

This could be an early step in the general revamp of App Store search and discovery that MG Siegler heard about when he broke the news in February that Apple had acquired app discovery startup Chomp.

Basically, it looks like App Store search is now weighting app names and keywords less heavily in its search results. Previously, if you were searching for something like “san francisco parking”, apps whose names included those search terms would rank more highly. Or if you searched for something like “traffic”, you’d get a bunch of games with names like Traffic Rush. Now, you’re more likely to see apps that aren’t just a simple keyword match. In traffic, for example, you see more actual traffic/navigation apps — and yes, a few games thrown into the mix.

We’ve heard a couple of possible explanations about why this is the case. Ben Sann, founder of BestParking.com, first tipped us off to the change, because he noticed that the Best Parking app had suddenly jumped to the top of a number of searches, including “chicago parking,” “dc parking,” and “sf parking”, in each case ranking ahead of apps that were a closer match for the search term. Sann’s theory: Apple is now putting a heavier emphasis on app downloads, so that BestParking has pulled ahead of apps with better names (at least, for a given search) but fewer downloads. If Sann is right, that could mean developers who built localized versions of their apps to target different search terms are going to get screwed, while more generalized apps that serve multiple geographies (like BestParking) will benefit.

Matthäus Krzykowski, cofounder of app search and data company Xyologic, has another explanation. He says that Apple has been incorporating download numbers into its rankings for a while now, and he suggests that what really changed is that Apple has gotten better at “topic detection”. In other words, it’s now better able to infer what you’re looking for when you type in a search term, so if you type in the word “gas”, you probably want apps that help you find gas stations or low gas prices, rather than driving games or apps that happen to have the word gas in their title (like fart apps). His team also says that the search rankings seem to be looking at other indicators of popularity, like ratings and comments.

That theory seems to be backed up by Chomp’s description of its technology: “Chomp’s proprietary algorithm learns the functions and topics of apps, so you can search based on what apps do, not just what they’re called.” In other words, if Apple is getting better at topic detection, it’s plausible that Chomp’s technology played a role.

And the change doesn’t seem to be rolling out in every country. It’s hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison for different geographies, because they have different apps and different languages, but our own Ingrid Lunden says she’s seeing similar changes in the UK’s App Store search results. And Krzykowski sent along screenshots of a search for “gas” or “benzin” (German for gas) in Germany and Poland. He notes that in Germany, the results include a lot more navigation apps, while Poland’s results include more random games, suggesting that the change has happened in Germany but not Poland.

In other categories, the change seems to be more subtle. I spoke to one mobile app developer who said that his apps seemed to be ranking higher in multiple categories, with some low-quality apps removed from the rankings, and the search results now matching up more closely with the App Store rankings. However, the change wasn’t dramatic enough that he could say for certain.

We’ve contacted Apple and will update if we hear back.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

SoundCloud, the audio platform originally targeted at music makers but now a wider consumer play, has announced that it’s reached three million registered users.

And considering that the Berlin-based startup was at a million users as recently as last May – pre-pivot, if you will – the change of direction would appear to be paying off or at least hasn’t affected the company’s growth trajectory negatively. That said, these are registered users-only not active users as it were but nonetheless growth does look steady.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

In what has become one of the most slowly introduced changes to Facebook’s platform, the company is beginning to implement a long-planned tab width reduction on Pages. The official transition begins today, Facebook said earlier this month, following delays that began shortly after the company said it would make the change last October.

Now, the maximum width for any Page tab is 520 pixels, down from 760 pixels. Applications and canvas pages will need to be reformatted or else they will appear broken.

The change has been rolled out slowly in part to let brands, agencies, page management companies and other marketers finish running campaigns that relied on the wider tab size. While Facebook likes to move fast, the change would have broken a key interface used by its increasingly large advertising client base.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook has long said that it is prioritizing engagement over pageviews, and the latest evidence of that has arrived, in the form of its new photo album layout. You can now view up to 200 photos on a single page, ten times the previous 20 photos per page you could see in the previous layout. You don’t need to click through consecutive pages of an album this way, you can just keep scrolling down the page.

The company officially announced the change today (although we and many others have been seeing the change for weeks) and noted a couple other benefits to the new design. One is that additional photos on the page only load as you scroll down, so the change won’t slow down your browser; another is that the thumbnails are slightly larger, making the page easier to browse.

Photos have already been getting some upgrades lately, including the tag-a-friend option and larger sizes, and we expect more to come.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook is moving to a simpler data authorization model for third-party access to user data as we’ve been covering since the company announced the change at its f8 developer conference in April. The new model is coming today, as planned.

Developers get access to basic information, including names and friend lists, with the change, but are required to ask for all specific pieces of extended data — and it’s all within a single interface. This replaces the platform’s previous multi-step process that could allow developers to obtain more data access, possibly with less clarity around what data users were sharing.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook