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INNOVATION ECONOMY

Entry is easy, but few prosper in app development

Scott Kirsner writes: In 2009 there were about 50,000 apps for sale in the iTunes Store, Apple’s online marketplace. Today, there are more than 500,000. The initial proposition of selling apps through Apple’s iTunes Store or the Android Market was appealing: once you’d written the software, you could set your own price and reach a vast universe of prospective customers But with so many individuals and big companies creating apps, the virtual shelves of the app stores are crowded.

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