Earlier this month, Microsoft launched the Windows 8 App Store, and in the process, claimed it would have more web apps than any other platform at launch. As it turns out, they were correct on that point. But don’t consider this a total win just yet. TechCrunch writer Ingrid Lunden breaks down the data:

Microsoft made a big push to ensure that when Windows 8 went live in October, the apps in its Windows Store would not disappoint, claiming it would have more apps than any other platform at launch, and then cracking 20,000 apps within the first month. Now, according to new figures from Distimo, the store has followed through with strong download activity: the daily download volume of the top 300 apps is already three times higher than that of the top 300 in the Apple Mac Store.

The Windows 8 store’s applications are geared towards tablets and PCs, so if you are comparing it to Apple’s app business, this puts it between the Apple Mac Store and Apple’s iPad-dedicated apps on the main App Store. It’s quickly surpassed the former, which Distimo says currently only has 13,000 apps, but it is very, very far behind the latter, which in October passed the 275,000 mark. Comparing it to Apple’s entire main app store, with 700,000 apps, or Google Play with over 600,000, is even more dwarfing. Even the existing Windows Phone 7 store  is ten times as big.

Here’s a snippet on localization that I found to be particularly interesting:

One area where Distimo says Windows 8 has been particularly strong is in localized content: on average more than 10% of apps in the top 300 rankings are popular to specific countries. Distimo notes that when considering bigger markets, where developers are more likely to make language-specific apps, the proportion is even higher. In Japan, for example, 41% of the top apps are local to Japan; 30% of Korea’s top apps were Korean-language.

Read the Rest >>>

Mobile web usage is on the rise. In a past Web App Testing post we covered a survey showing that 55% of mobile phone owners use their device to access the Internet. With such a high mobile browsing adoption, it is imperative to have a reliable data connection across all locations around the world.

Unfortunately this is not the case for the UK. According to Zen Terrelonge of Mobile Entertainment:

“London has Buckingham Palace and New York has the Empire State Building, but network performance analyst RootMetrics says there’s no comparison for mobile web speeds in the two cities.

More than 16,000 ground tests showed that connections in the Big Apple are an average of four times faster at 8.5Mbps, falling to just 2.27 for London.

The results show that browsing speeds in the UK are hugely disjointed, with O2 powering high speeds of 12.5Mbps in Chingford Mount, rather than the centre of London.

Meanwhile, Three is hailed as the best overall network speed in terms of internet and texts, even clocking up 7.3Mbps for the village of Snodland in Kent.

Here is a case where in-the-wild localization testing of these different connection speeds uncovered a big issue. A 4X difference is a huge speed margin between connections in NY and the UK. This is also a red flag for application developers who launch their apps internationally, to test their apps in-the-wild in the UK and across locations.

Adding personal touches to your website can be nice. Remembering a visitor’s name can make them feel special and offering tailored ads (though some people don’t like the feeling of being tracked) means the ads are more likely to resonate with the visitor. The kicker is you have to make sure your targeting efforts are working correctly. Case in point, Pandora’s ads are regionally targeted. This is helpful in a lot of ways, but only if Pandora has correctly targeted you.

Though Pandora has user profiles, you don’t have to fill them out to any meaningful degree – and they certainly don’t ask you where you live. But they’re tracking you somehow and offering listeners regional ads. The problem is, they don’t always get the right region. Take a look at this ad I was recently served:

It’s a good cause, maybe even something I, as a Pandora listener, would be moved to call my representative about. The problem? Michael Burgess isn’t my representative. In fact, I live half a country away from Michal Burgess’ district.

Pandora isn’t totally off. I did grow up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (where Mr. Burgess is). But I’ve spent my entire adult life living in the northeast, first in central New York state, and more recently in the Boston area. I’m not sure how Pandora is pulling their demographic information, but it’s clearly not from IP addresses. My guess is they’re going by generic online profiling, which in my case thinks I’m a male, maybe in my 20s, who lives somewhere in Texas. The only thing they got right is my age range, sort of.

I actually like getting all the DFW ads, it reminds me of home. But I’m wasted ad dollars because I’m never going to respond. The moral of this story is if you’re going to rely on visitor targeting for any part of your website – be it ads, deals, content, whatever – make sure your targeting methods are reliable.

For Internet companies, the biggest obstacle to achieving international growth is trust, or a lack thereof, on the part of users. Why wouldn’t users trust a foreign company or service? According to ZDnet, it’s all about localization. Here’s an example of how Chinese companies are looking to expand their reach into India’s growing markets:

Localization and gaining trust among users will help Chinese Internet companies to gain a bigger foothold in the competitive India market, say market observers, who add that having a mobile strategy would work in their favor.

Priyanka Khandelwal, research analyst at 6wresearch, said India presents an “immense” opportunity for most foreign companies looking to enter the market due to the large size of its Internet population, as well as the relatively low broadband penetration and adoption of payment services.

It is also an open market where users are open to exploring new features and services as long as they benefit in one way or another, Khandelwal said, adding the Internet is gaining popularity among urban youths and those in the rural areas of the country.

Ten years ago, Indian consumers were open to buying Chinese products only if they were marketed by the Western companies, Verma said. “There was a sense of trust which Indians had on the Western world producers [whereas] China-made products and brands were not trustworthy then,” he explained.

I would argue that “localization and gaining trust” are one and the same. If a product or service is not properly localized, then users in other countries are not like to trust it.

For tips on how to conduct a full-scale localization test, check out our whitepaper: Crowdsourced Localization.

Still himming and hawing about optimizing your web presence for mobile? Well, according to a study release this month by Ericsson within five years 85% of the world’s population will have access to high speed mobile internet. From Mashable:

Today, 85% of the world’s population has access to a mobile phone with voice and text capabilities. Five years from now, in 2017, the same amount of the global community will have access to high-speed 3G Internet through mobile phones, finds a new report from Ericsson.

By 2017, there will be 9 billion mobile subscriptions. Half of the world’s population will have a 4G connection, and there will be 3 billion smartphone subscriptions. …

“Today, people see access to the Internet as a prerequisite for any device,” says Douglas Gilstrap, senior vice president and head of Strategy for Ericsson. “This mindset results in growing demand for mobile broadband and increased data traffic. Operators recognize this business opportunity and are aiming to facilitate this growth and provide good user experience with fast data speeds through high capacity networks.”

Read the rest at Mashable >>>

We’re talking about a global movement here. So if your website needs to be accessed internationally, you not only need to optimize it for mobile, you also need to make sure it’s gone through rigorous localization testing. With so many regions (not to mention individual countries) rapidly jumping on the mobile web train, where do you start?

Luckily, the Ericsson report took a look at that too. China is currently the fastest growing area when it comes to mobile (at 39 million new subscriptions, year to date) and India is hot on its heels (with 25 million new subscriptions so far in 2012).

You think your testing is complicated? Try testing a high-profile web app across 16 different languages. That’s just another day at the office for Galina Kramer, the Senior QA Manager of Localization for Zynga. Galina was the most recent guest for uTest’s Testing the Limits interview series. Here’s a short preview of Galina discussing the challenges of testing at Zynga

The most challenging aspect of working at Zynga overall is the release cadence. I was used to weekly releases, but not daily. Having such a short release cycle brings its own challenges to functional QA, which I managed at Zynga for a year. Now that I am working in Localization QA, it is even more complicated since everything has to get translated first…

…It’s all about prioritization and risk assessment. We shuffle resources on a daily basis depending on a priority and work together. Teamwork is the key, truly.

…Zynga takes testing very seriously and understands that our players’ happiness and enjoyment is the key to our success. We listen to our players all the time – QA teams work with CS and Community so that we are constantly aware of what our players are feeling.

Read the entire interview >>>