How to get into What’s Hot category at US iTunes?

[Eli]

Originally Posted by pchukwura

...what I would pay for the email addresses of those Apple employees...

They're not hard to find, but keep in mind that pestering them is likely the best way to not get featured.

[pchukwura]

Originally Posted by Hodapp

They're not hard to find, but keep in mind that pestering them is likely the best way to not get featured.

Yea...networking is the hard part of this. Especially since Atlanta isn't exactly the tech hub hehe... maybe a few trips to the Bay is in order!

[flybird]

Originally Posted by antony.thai

Probably not, why = see above!

Most do!

[OstinGames]

Originally Posted by BravadoWaffle

Every time I read Eli's responses, I say "Oh Snap!" in my head... even when he's ripping into me.

Additionally, I like his most recent profile changes. vrbo.com... lol. And apparently he joined the forum before there was internet.

From what I've seen, the "What's Hot" section is generally a hand curated selection of the most popular "New and Noteworthy" games from the past that were featured on the main page (not the sub categories). If you get featured in N&N, and your game is popular there, generally you stand a good chance of getting moved down into the "What's Hot" section.

Hi everyone,

You seem to have the point, BravadoWaffle, our Zepi:Classic HD hit What's Hot at Trivia category after being in New&Noteworthy the same with Zepi HD ....

Do you think the fact that on August 5, 2011 (two days after the release), Zepi:Classic HD hit Top Games Paid iPad Apps (position #179) and Top Puzzle Paid iPad Apps (#40), also contributed to success?

[ImStrapped]

I've noticed the same with our game. The day it came out we got featured under N&N and then a week later, we appeared under What's Hot cat.

[magmedia]

Ok,

This is my theory with very little experience.

Getting on What's Hot is related to ratings, yes, not necessarily to downloads.

The name itself implies that people are liking the app.

From what I see, it is probably related to user sentiment as conveyed in the user reviews + ratings. We know it's pretty easy to do this, you can see that services like xyologic.com and apptrace.com more recently can pull out overall sentiment analysis from the mass of reviews. Reviews where most users say "brilliant", "love it", "amazing" etc are likely to be picked up as What's Hot candidates.

I actually spoke to the founder of Apptrace and according to his experience the What's Hot is not determined algorithmically but that there is some sort of human intervention and selection. I'm not sure if that is the case.

It's not just a numerical factor of the number of reviews, that is for sure. But when you browse the What's Hot and look at the # of reviews, the apps with the higher reviews tend to be first and those with less reviews lower down.

Also there is probably some sort of weighting between the reviews of past versions and the new version, with more weighting given to the latest app version.

That's my 2c, just a theory which I happen to feel fairly strongly about. It makes sense to me.

[HTWGames]

We got into the What's Hot section for only a few days but apparently took a nose dive for some reason. Our title Polara was doing really well but for some reason no one caught on to it after the first few weeks. We'll see how things go but honestly we've been put through the ringer with trying to get support... I don't understand at all why, everyone who has played our game, INCLUDING Touch Arcade, has enjoyed it and thinks it's a great innovative take on the free-runner genre.

Maybe people are gassed out by that Temple Run game, but in all honesty our game offers up WAY more challenge and engagement than running for a few minutes from monkeys while collecting gems... Maybe I'm wrong but really I'm trying to understand the lack of support. Even when we dropped the price back to 99 cents people really just couldn't be bothered... instead they chose Punch Quest and then didn't give the guys any money. Is this bizzaro world? Someone please tell me I'm in bizzaro world. Maybe I should shave off my goatee...

[FlowStudioGames]

Originally Posted by Eli

I'm not ripping into anyone, but I'd say the exact polar opposite of "What's Hot" is a reskin of a matching game.

Thumbs up, both true and funny

[BlueSpiral]

I think it also depends on the Category your games are in. As far as I know my Stacword Match Day and Escape from Stacword Island games didn't get a mention in the N&N but in the UK Stacword Match Day has spent a fair amount of time in the what's hot section for word games and briefly Escape from Stacword Island made it into the What's hot section for Trivia games in Germany.

[MightyRabbitJosh]

The actual "What's Hot" category (the one you see on the "Featured" page) is hand-picked by Apple. It's usually updates to older titles and the best of the past week's "New and Noteworthy". The things in the category change once per week (Thursday afternoon) - if it was determined by an algorithm it would change constantly.

I think some many countries have a "What's Hot" section that lists around 200 games, but I know that isn't the case in the US (either that or I'm just not able to locate it). It's possible that section is determined algorithmically - Saturday Morning RPG has popped in and out of other countries' "What's Hot" lists for the past few months. It doesn't really do anything for sales/downloads - the only thing that really will impact your numbers is getting featured in one of the highly visible featured lists.