Game the Play Store

[remulasce]

Nobody actually knows how the ranking system works, but there's some general tips:

• Use keywords- App title and description contents are matched against search text.
  • I've already partially done this, by adding "Bus + Rail" in the title, "bus" "train" "arrival" "predictions" los angeles", "metro" "nextbus" to the short description.
  • Some suggest that frequency of word appearance is good in the description. My "explain everything" description does a good job of that naturally, actually.
• Link to the Play Store Front. More things linking to it -> higher rank
  • Kinda similar to how Google Search rankings work. To wit, I'm linked by my portfolio, github readme, and Reddit post.
  • One thing I've heard is to make a YouTube video linking to the app. Also we should make a promo video anyway, I think it might even show up first in the Play listing.
• More users / rate of growth / ratings
  • Can't do much about growth. But we should all bother everyone we know to rate everything.
• The icon is the first graphic the user sees. If we could make that more descriptive than "M in a Circle", we could draw more skimmers. Especially since we're ~10-20 on any relevant searches.

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Made a Facebook page, linking to the Play page: https://www.facebook.com/lametrocompanion/timeline

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Videos replace the top banner (the one we spent like no time on)

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New banner pushed to Play Store I wish there was a way to see how it looks without making everybody look at it

It's basically the input bar + a Trip, but big enough that you can actually see it at the banner size.

If I wanted to match other apps' use, I'd take some pictures holding my phone and the app in front of Union Station or something.

[remulasce]

It looks ok. Better than before. But it blends too well into the rest of the store listing, so you can't tell it's meant to be a screenshot and not like, an actual part of the Play Store app.

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Added another orange separator at the bottom of the banner, so you can see the difference between it and the listing.

I don't want to put a ton of work into this, since UI updates are in this milestone, and I'd have to redo the banner to match the UI then.

[remulasce]

Orange looks good. Might need to be thicker.

Something at the other edges would probably be good, but let's see what UI changes I make.

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I'm up to a 4.80 rating.

Gamed enough.