One of the most interesting things I discovered as I was researching Craigslist tools was the hyper-competitive landscape in both the iPhone App Store and Android Market. Craigslist doesn't make its own app, so dozens of developers have hacked together mobile apps that piggyback on top of Craigslist's Web-based service. It's led to an oversupply of similarly named apps, all doing the same thing. Take a look at the screenshot below, from the iPhone App Store:
How can all of the apps have the same name? They don't -- if you look closely, you'll notice that different punctuation has been added:
- Craigs-list
- Craigslist
- Craigslist.
- Craigslist!
- Craigslist`
The reason why the developers used this name is because A) they know end-users will search for Craigslist in the App Store and B) they want to rank higher in the results than the competition. It's extreme SEO, except it's using the iPhone App Store search engine instead of Google. Note, however, that unlike Google results, Apple App Store rankings depend on human inputs. Every app in the Apple App Store has been reviewed by human beings before being accepted, which means that Apple isn't paying attention, or doesn't really care what shows up in the search results.
The Android Market is similarly crowded with apps having similar names and functionality. To further confuse things, Craigslist Mobile on Android is made by a completely different company than Craigslist Mobile for the iPhone.
I don't know who is copying who, but it makes a mess for users.
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