Four Ways of Microsoft Improving Marketplace

May 2, 2012 News, windows phone

As the poet once said, “Mo’ apps, mo’ problems”, or something like that. The Windows Phone Marketplace continues to grow and with more eyeballs on it, Microsoft is making sure devs know the rules that will keep their apps in the store instead of on the sideline.  It seems that developers from Microsoft know well about the gola shared by their customers of a great shopping experience.

By the four points below written by Microsoft official blog, marketplace users could effectively have a much better apps shopping experiece:

Avoiding trademark trouble

When a trademark or copyright owner contacts us about a suspected violation, we investigate and pull apps when the complaint is valid. Lately we’ve been doing more of this, especially for trademark misuse. Sometimes the requests come from the owners of big, well-known brands. Other times they come from new brands. Either way, we often find trademark violations are unintentional: some developers just aren’t clear on what constitutes a violation. But these investigations—and the time and money they can cost—can be avoided by doing a little homework before submitting or updating your app.

Keeping the quality bar high

First, we’re seeing developers submit the same app to multiple Marketplace categories, a violation of our policies. Instead, you should pick a single category that best reflects the content and function of your app. This not only helps customers find your app but gives all developers an equal opportunity to have their app discovered where people expect. Developers who submit the same app across multiple categories will have it removed from the catalog.

Second, when you create multiple closely-related apps—say, a series of quote apps that vary by theme—the Marketplace tile images must reflect the unique features of each individual app. They cannot be duplicates or near duplicates of each other. Your branding also shouldn’t dominate the tile.

Cleaning up keywords

Starting this week, we’re going to start enforcing the five keyword rule for all current and future Marketplace apps. Any app that exceeds this number will have all its keywords deleted. Affected developers will be notified and can then enter five new keywords in App Hub. We’re taking this action to help ensure that customers are able to find the most relevant set of apps for their search—including yours.

Refining our approach to content policy enforcement

The final issue I want to discuss is one that affects all major app stores today: the treatment of apps that are “racy” or sexual in nature. We’re committed to offering a diverse selection of safe and quality apps that appeal to a wide range of customer interests. Items that some customers view as entertainment, others may consider inappropriate. This is a challenge for any big retailer, whether they operate online or down the street.

Tags: apps shopping, clean up keywords, marketplace, Microsoft, policy enforcement, the quality bar, trademark trouble