Marco Arment took the time to transcribe an incredible interchange between John Roderick and Myke Hurley. John Roderick, a musician and incredible thinker on the music industry, talks about how the music world has changed in the past ten years and what this means for distribution.

As I read it, all I could think of was how replacing “ten” years with “five” and replacing “music” with “software”, had no discernible impact on the truth of the statements. Marco then makes this point at the end.

Go read it.

I am proud to announce that I’m the featured speaker at Mobile Portland this month. I gave this presentation once already at CocoaSlopes in Ogden, Utah. It was very well received.

The topic from the Mobile Portland site:

The software world has been turned on its head and all the rules that were once taken for granted are now obsolete. Elia has developed new rules for modern mobile apps, learning from his 17 years of running an indie company and transitioning from the old to the new.

Elia Freedman is the founder and CEO of Infinity Softworks. During his 17 years running an indie mobile software company, Elia has navigated the transition from Newtons to PalmPilots to Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iOS and Android. The rules of making money in mobile has changed drastically in the past five years, let alone the past 17.

Elia’s business is changing, too. In this presentation, “Build Businesses, Not Apps,” Elia will share the thinking that has led to his own business transition, leaving you with plenty to think about in the New Year.

If you would like to attend, it will be held at Urban Airship’s offices, Monday January 27th at 6pm. Hope to see you there!

Justin Williams lists three really good criteria (from a really good programmer) to make a product:

1. It’s something I want. (I’m selfish).
2. Either no one is doing it, or no one has hit a home-run. (I’m ambitious).
3. It could maybe, possibly theoretically be used by my mom. (I want to be loved).

#1 is a good reason. #2 and 3, as Justin points out, make it profitable (and possibly a business). Justin’s latest app is Photos+. Check it out in the App Store.

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disclosure: I know Justin.

There’s been a storm brewing the past week in developer circles about the “Rate This App” dialogs appearing in apps. These have been around since the dawn of the App Store so I don’t know how this got started now.

I could care less about this discussion. The reality is that, in the app stores, only a couple of things matter: name, icon, screenshots, ratings, and sales. That’s it. Ratings and sales are intertwined. More of one means higher rankings (both in category and search), which means more people find and buy your app, which means higher rankings. Personally, I am not surprised to see these dialogs appear nor do I hold it against the companies who ask.

While some of these dialogs are worse than others, it is insane to expect people to skip optimizing around one of the few things they can control when it comes to app store sales. Reviews matter. Even worse, current app release reviews matter most. Every bug fix means the review count returns to 0, which means it is in developer’s best interest to ask you over and over again for a review.

Don’t like it? Delete the app. It will stop asking.

Developers complaining about the practice: why does no one point the finger at Apple? We optimize around what brings us success. [1] If Apple deemphasizes ratings and reviews than these boxes will disappear.

David Smith wrote a long post called Degradation and Aspiration. In it he wrote:

I want to believe that the App Store is a special place. I want for it to be the singularly best venue for customers to come and find innovative, well designed, quality software. Software that pushes the boundaries of what is possible and continually amazes and delights its customers. I want for there to be an aspirational pull upwards on my own development. I want to feel like I need to work extra hard to make sure my apps meet the high standards my customers have been trained to expect.

Oh, how I wish I felt this about the App Store, David! I long ago lost this feeling, if I ever even had it. There is just too much crap mixed in with too much great software, and too many instances of that crap rising up the sales charts while great stuff languishes in obscurity.

In the long run, and as I’ve discussed here before, I think the app stores are forcing fundamental changes in the nature of the software business, one that those talking about this issue of app ratings won’t like either. More apps with advertising, more apps free with in app purchases, more apps that use psychology to get you to pay, more apps that use tricks and slight of hand to make money.

I love David’s sentiment. I wish it were so. But I’m afraid we’ve long past that point. The App Store is just one giant Walmart, but without the greeters.

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[1] I never employed one of these dialogs in powerOne — considered it but couldn’t find the right time to ask — but when we would ask for reviews in the in app blog we would see a huge upswing in reviews and a huge upswing in sales, often 30-40% improvement.