Hey guys, Had a developer question. I see that most developers don't put in youtube links into their App Descriptions in the App Store. I presume that's because the app store description links are unclickable and uncopyable. But if AppShopper were to automatically parse them and embed videos, would you be likely to do it? I think it would be most helpful for new games if you have your own video. The argument against is that the link tends to be useless in the App Store itself Example: http://appshopper.com/photography/photo-everyday arn
sounds great that sounds like a great idea, and also if the game is a port of a computer game it would be cool if there was a link to that as well.
I think that's a good idea Arn. I have no idea how popular AppShopper is, but if a lot of people are using it, then yes it's definitely in my best interests to put video links in that you can pull out. The reason most devs don't put them in to begin with is as you pointed out the fact that you can't click on them nor copy them. BTW how are you parsing it out? In the example you gave the developer has two YouTube URL's, but you're only showing one. Do you just grab the first one?
At the moment I'm just parsing out the first one, but it's open for debate. I guess I was wondering if people might be hesitant since it's unclickable in the app store itself. There's a surprising amount of traffic to appshopper already, and I haven't really promoted it yet cause I wanted to get some other features in place. I believe a lot of bloggers use it, so it gives it would also give you a fair amount of exposure to some key people. arn
Yes, I would include a video link, if you used it. But as you said, they have no value in the App Store.
Although I agree it's nice to see videos in AppShopper feeds I'm not sure I'd be willing to clutter up my apps' descriptions with those awful looking YouTube urls. Maybe a different approach - say if devs put a specially crafted meta tag in their websites that your script could scrape (assuming the app store hands out the website urls). Something like: Code: <meta name="appshoppervid" content="XFySwWXfEbg"> Not quite as automatic though...
Ah, that's an interesting method. I was looking for a way that would be easy for devs, but also dev-controlled. There is an ease of just updating your app description. arn
Absolutely agree that there should be a video link. A lot of games are hard to visualize how they look in action. It would reduce the need for trial versions (but not eliminate them). The link should be hidden (entered during the submission process) so all the person sees is the embedded YouTube video and not the ugly link. Since YouTube works on the iPhone you could play videos in iTunes or the App Store on the iPhone itself.
