The official "When will Google buy AppBrain?" thread.

[88 FLUX]

Maybe I'm alone in this opinion. But considering the extreme superiority of AppBrain over the Market's site as well as Google's habit of buying up anything and everything they can, I can't help but assume that it is only a matter of time before the AppBrain team receives that lovely payout from the big G.

If you share the same opinion, let's start a friendly little pool. Let's all start predicting when the purchase will happen. Person closest to the actual date will win the satisfaction of knowing that they won.

Gotta predict an exact date. Can't say "late November" or anything like that. Otherwise, it spoils the fun.

My prediction: November 8th, 2010.

 

[eyesparky]

Never. I like AppBrain and use it all the time but if Google are serious, their next Market update (which needs to come soon) needs to be a major step beyond where AppBrain is now. If you had asked me this question 2 months ago I would have said Yesterday, as a base to quickly iterate from to create the next generation Market experience. Now, Google need to be further along.

 

[nkawal]

Google's probably never going to buy appbrain, When gingerbread comes out, there is supposedly a new market coming as well. We'll probably see all the same features as appbrain then. Just my thoughts.

 

[BetaRoc]

I agree. Why buy something that they can copy?

 

[88 FLUX]

I agree. Why buy something that they can copy?

Because they've done it many times before. The services listed below are just a couple examples of ones that were created from companies that Google has acquired or have had the services of acquired companies integrated within. See the link below for even more:

Blogger
Picasa
YouTube
FeedBurner
Google Voice
Google Goggles
AdSense

So why would they buy another company when they can just copy? Because that's how Google does their business. The cost of buying them is pocket change to the big G. So to counter your question, I would ask the following: Why would Google copy AppBrain when they can just buy them? It wouldn't be nearly the first time.

List of acquisitions by Google - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ottscay]

It's not a bad idea, but I'm going to go with "they won't buy AppBrain" simply because it's too late now. Gingerbread will probably be announced in the next 50-60 days (possibly a bit sooner depending on that Sony gamephone platform) which means that the market overhaul for Gingerbread must be well underway by this point.

I'd guess that the upcoming issues with high end games, possible integration with PSN, etc., not to mention improving the current way of finding apps, and security, all mean a much larger overhaul than AB's IP can offer.

 

[DroBoy]

I say we start up a small company and have google buy us out..

 

[meyerweb#CB]

Come up with an idea as good a YouTube, and maybe they will....

 

[meyerweb#CB]

While waiting for a better market, finding things on App Brain can be improved by using Google Advanced Search, and limiting the search to appbrain.com.

 

[sookster54]

AppBrain is wicked, great app management, I think Google is more interested in getting paypal added and if it does then I'm going back to Market so I can buy apps with it- right now I avoid buying any apps because I don't like posting my CC # all over the place.

Besides, if they do obtain Appbrain, then that's "one down, more to go" for them, there's SlideMe and a bunch of others.