Now the app gallery displays recently popular apps by default. And currently the following are the top 5 apps:

1 How do guys look at you? by SurveryMaker Inc 425 installs

2 Do Boys Like You? by SurveyMaker Inc 160 installs

3 What Wild Animal Are You You? by SurveyMaker Inc 488 installs

4 What Kind of Love Are You? by SurveyMaker Inc 250 installs

5 Do You Need a Boyfriend? by SurveyMaker Inc 270 installs 

Note: I have nothing against SurveyMaker Inc. Maybe they just got lucky with their app launch and the new sort order. 

It should be pretty obvious that:

(a) The recently popular logic is not as sophisticated as you'd think

(b) There are many ways people will exploit the recently popular logic (Anybody remembers when the recent app sort order was default?) 

Guys, please keep the default sort order to max installs. That way, we can be sure that apps will focus on getting installs / retaining users rather than dumping multiple versions of their apps or hiding / unhiding their apps or whatever else to stay on the first page. I want to focus on making my app a bit useful for the user. I don't want to be spending my time trying to trick the app-directory instead.

Please don't discard this comment without considering the message.  

Regarding display in the gallery, we have complaints no matter HOW it's sorted. There is always someone who has something to say about a particular sort order especially if it's not putting their app on that front page.  

This is a valid point. However, "people will always complain" should not be the reason to not think about the default sorting logic. Look at the first 5 apps that I showed as example. Doesn't that kinda say that this default sort logic is a bad idea?  And that the "Recently active" calculation is falwed?

ps. Few of us complained about the "Most Recent" default sort logic. Nothing was done, and in the end people exploited it so much that finally the default sort logic was put back to "Most Installs". I see the same thing happening here. We are encouraging people to lauch replicas of their apps to show up as the top "Recently active" apps. Afterall, just 100s of installs get you to the first "Recently active" page.

The goal here is to give fair representation to everyone in the app gallery.

Our top 5-10 apps by install hasn't really changed a whole lot since launch. If we were to leave it sorted by max install, the apps that got popular first or have been around the longest will always get put at the top and get prime app gallery real-estate and that wouldn't give the new/little guys much of a chance.

The idea behind recently popular sorting to is to keep track of the "fast-movers" and spread the spotlight around a bit rather than just showing the same list of max installs that doesn't really change a whole lot. Defaulting to max installs would be providing and unfair advantage to established apps over new up and comers. Established apps can easily make the top of this list as well.

It is my understanding that recently popular is determined by the number of installs during a recent time period (not sure what that time period is) so the apps you see, small or new or not... have met the appropriate criteria and are showing fast growth and popularity.

Perhaps the logic behind recently popular does need to be re-examined, but max installs is definitely not the answer that most of the developers out there are looking for and it makes it more difficult for new entrants.

Yeah .. I (now) agree. Perhaps Recently Popular is a fairer metric .. but, then, the logic should definitely be re-examined very carefully, becaue currently it seems very flawed.

Thank you for the explanation. 

"most installs" ... is equal to the NBA replacing those ads on TV for the WNBA with more ads for the NBA ...

 the WNBA is not inferior, the NBA just got a 50 year head start ... so the WNBA needs a "fair" portion of AD dollars for TV ads to build their base.

i'm sure the recently popular algorithms will get better and better as time goes on ... one of my apps just got recently popular, and it happened pretty fast ... app was a couple days old and got a lot of installs ... BUT i'm sure there are sleeper apps, probably lots of them that may take a month to gain their footing and then explode out of control.

 I agree with "recently popular" ... I also like the idea of a random display, alternate through all 3 ...

 all 3 concepts have pros and cons ...

Guess I need to pipe in with my two cents because this has drastically affected my installs and revenues which have dropped by 70% since 5/30.

I agree that the most installs is probably unfair because it keeps apps in pretty much the same order. The ones near the top will always get more installs. As more apps are added, they will get worse and worse install rates until it's no longer worthwhile to create apps.

On the other hand the algorithm is all important. Here are some things that I think would make it more fair if they aren't already being done:

Early adoptors should get some precedence because they jumped on the opportunity and got their apps launched. The early bird catches the worm so to speak. 

Average time that an application is installed should count.

If apps are installed and immediately removed then that should not count at all or actually count against an app.

Useage, number of views, number of invitations or positive actions.

A rating system should be put in place.

Ratings should be weighted by the longevety of the user doing the rating, the amount of spamming they do, etc.

Apps that abuse of the TOS should be penalized.

A randomizer to bring every app to the top occasionally should be implemented.

I'm sure others can add to this list. What I'd do is implement some kind of scoring system based on a number of factors. Give everyone their 5 minutes of fame every now and then so they can have another chance.

Steve 

Another idea that would help everyone equaly is make the directory be more finely categorized so user's can drill down more easily to what they're looking for.

For instance in games I notice there are the following "fans" apps. There are a total of 405 games, and of which are 126 sports fans games such as the ones listed below. Why not create a subcategory of games in the navigation for these. I'm sure there are other similar groupings.

Detroit Lions Fans
Miami Football Fans
Toronto Maple Leaf Fans
Kentuky Football Fans
New York Islander Fans
Philadelphia Flyers Fans
etc,etc,etc,etc

Take a look at Bebo and the way they categorize applications for some good ideas.

Hi,

Just to answer a part of this, I did bring up a random sort in the enhancement meeting.  We have added the new sort and that's about all we're going to add.  I think everyone agrees that no matter what, there will be someone unhappy with the way it's sorted.  The amount of devs here, we just can't please every single one of them.

Rhonda

I don't particularly mind the 'recently popular' default sort, but I think the way in which it is implemented is not ideal.

If you check out the comments on this post, you'll see that only the 1000 most 'recently popular' applications across all categories are calculated. Because of this, when you go into, say, the Video category, only 139 applications are shown. The user *must* change the sort to something else, like most installs, to actually realize there are 450 applications in this category. Regular users are not going to change the sort order. They have no reason to. They will just look through the application list as it is handed to them, which happens to be incomplete.

With this default sort, as soon as an application drops below the 1000 most recently popular applications, no one will ever find it. I can say that our application has only had 1 install since the default sort was changed to 'recently popular' (and our app was found through someone's profile module not the gallery). We launched shortly before the new default sort and gathered at least a handful of installs each day leading up to the change.

There's really something wrong. I know that there's always going to be someone to complain but really, please think this through again.

In my situation, my app Don't Press the Button was getting 2000 new users a day, was seemingly very popular. As soon as the change took place, instead of getting new users, I'm losing users every day.

If an app is placed at the top of recently poplular, it seems like they will continue to be poplular until the next new app is submitted, because all other apps that aren't poplular won't be found.

Apps that advertise, apps that spam, apps that annoy will also have potential to grow as well, but those apps that play by the rules or don't have big advertising budgets will die.

I don't have the answer, but will make a couple suggestions again. If people come to the directory looking for something, make it easier to find by category. Having just a "Games" category isn't finely divided enough.  Some people may actually have an idea what they are looking for, Adventure Games, Role Playing Games, War Games, Sports Games, etc. Search doesn't cut it alone. By categorising more finely, every app will have a better opportunity, users will find what they are looking for, it's a win-win situation.

Another possibility is to actually limit the recently popular to 1 page of apps and not give the impression that the list is all there is. This way when users didn't find something interesting immediately, they would start to browse the other methods. 

As it is, I would do better to delete my app every couple of weeks and start it up again under a different name. Or just keep making copies of it, change the name and icon, and submit it again. Not that I would do that. But I'm positive that other developers are. 

It seems like everyone has a lot of ideas, and a lot of dissagreements. I also know that there are no 3rd party Myspace App galleries.

As a proposition, who would be interested in building the first non-Myspace based app gallery? I know there are lot's of app galleries out there, but none have caught on to Myspace apps yet.

I now agree that the "Recently Popular" sort order should be the default. However, in its current state, the "Recently Popular" order is pretty much the "Most Recent" order. Because unlike the older apps which all seem to have a 1-3% growth, the new apps have 20-50% growth because of the limited number of users they have. So, we should definitely make things fairer to the older apps by not going completely by the % of growth. Otherwise we'll never have an indie app reaching significant mass.

An app that has 100K users, and is still growing by 5K every day is certainly more "recently popular" than one that has 500 users, and is growing by 50 users every day.

This thread is talking about two totally different things 1) That which is suggested by the title "The App Gallery displays Recently Popular list by default." and 2) The Recently Popular algorithm.

I see a lot of talk about item 2) but very little about item 1). Frankly as a new application author, item 2) is the least of my concerns. I just want my app to show up *at all*.

If you do a search for my app "Zorap" you will get zero results because Recently Popular is selected. Very few users will change this. In fact, I thought our app wasn't in the directory for a few hours after it was published, until I realized I have to click "Alphabetical" or "Most Recent".

It seems obvious to me that if one does a search, either by typing in "Zorap" or clicking "Video" from the main Apps page, the results should by default have *no* additional filter (e.g. Recently Popular) at all. This is my expectation in doing any other kind of search on a computer.

Otherwise, no one will ever find my app, and I have no chance of getting on Recently Popular, let alone at the top of the list.

It short, I suggest listing all apps that match a search query or are in a particular category by default. I don’t care as much how they are sorted, just as long as they are not filtered. Then, if the searcher finds there are two many results, he can click Recently Popular.

Hi Jeremy,

As discussed previously in my other post there are many larger reasons why recently popular is the default in the app gallery. I don't anticpate that will change.

However, those are actually not supposed to be "filters". They are supposed to just be different sort criteria with "Recently Popular" being the default. I don't think it was the design intent that any app be excluded or filtered out based on the selection there. The intent was to simply re-sort them.

I don't think it is the intended result for search to not find your app either. I will log a bug regarding this and we will look into it. Regardless of the sorting, search should allow users to find your (or any other) app.