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[qubit]

New Scientist has an interesting article on how the dynamics of the Apple App Store filters out the junk. Researchers simulated how four types of developer, innovators, optimisers, milkers and copycats faired. They found that the worst kind, the copycats soon sank to the bottom, leaving the order of success as above. Note that innovating doesn't give you the best success! A bummer for anyone that's a natural innovator - as these people are the engines of the whole App Store ecosystem.

Modelling Apple's App Store marketplace as an ecosystem reveals what makes it thrive and which apps are likely to sell

IT IS easy to get rich as a developer on Apple's App Store - just build an app that mimics a bestseller. So why doesn't everyone get in on the act? Because the ploy ends up killing interest in the store entirely, according to researchers who built a simulation of the store to see what makes it tick.

Apple's thriving marketplace of well over 500,000 apps for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is a self-regulating ecosystem that doesn't tolerate copycats, say Soo Ling Lim and Peter Bentley at University College London, who modelled activity on the App Store.

Since Apple releases very little data associated with App Store interactions, Lim and Bentley built the next best thing - an "artificial life" simulation of the store. Named AppEco, it uses bits of software that obey unique behavioural rules to mimic apps, developers and consumers.

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So, what kind of developer are you?

[Sinzia]

I'm the kind that can't code his way out of a paper bag, sadly.