Twitter criticism driving Nokia's app store revamp

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 11 Dec 2009 at 14:55

Nokia is working on the next-generation of its Ovi apps store, fuelled by criticism aimed at the company through Twitter.

Speaking to the Financial Times, George Linardos, head of products at Nokia’s media group, admitted that the Ovi Store had failed to live up to expectations. To that end, the company is revamping it with one eye on criticism made through social-networking sites.

“We have screens up in our offices running the Twitter feeds all day long,” he said. “It’s like sitting there and getting punched in the face. But when we make improvements we see the impact instantly.”

Among those improvements, Ovi will feature in-application payments, an overhauled UI and recommendations based on location and friends.

According to Linardos, one million applications are downloaded from the Ovi Store each day, growing 100% every month. It still remains some way behind Apple's iTunes App Store which logged two billion downloads after a year.

Linardos claimed to be unconcerned by this figure, claiming Nokia was taking a “tortoise and hare” approach to its app store development.