Google later this year will open an app store for its Chrome browser, allowing developers to expose and sell applications such as multimedia magazine content and 3-D games for the latest generation of Web browsers.
Google made the announcement at its annual I/O developers' conference, which attracted 5000 software developers from 66 countries.
Google executives declined to be specific about a launch date.
The idea behind what Google calls the Chrome Web Store is that in recent years the most important new software applications run in a Web browser, rather than on a computer's desktop, but there is no equivalent to Apple's app store for the Web.
"It's been really hard for users to discover applications on the web," said Sundar Pichai, vice-president of product management for Google.
As one example, Terry McDonell, editor of Sports Illustrated, showed off a magazine app still in development that featured video embedded within the text, along with interactive embedded advertising that would not only demonstrate a product, such as a camera, but could also point consumers to the nearest store to buy one.
There would also be a tool to allow readers to share content with their friends.
"It's really a very simple idea," McDonell said of the app.
"It's to somehow put together the best of the web with the best of the magazine, to pull out the absolutely most important things in the DNA of the magazine and transfer them in a way that they are even more enjoyable, like photography, for example."
Most important, he said, touching on an issue precious to newspaper and magazine publishers, the app would be good enough Sports Illustrated could charge for it.
Google said the app store would be available for its Chrome browser, as well as the Chrome operating system the company is developing for netbooks and laptops.
- San Jose Mercury News
