background:
after getting no joy from the google marketplace store, i decided to make my game free, with a couple of ads. downloads were still crappy from the marketplace.
i’d also tried getjar with no success, they seem to require you to do the pay campaigns before anything happens. i don’t have that much faith in my game to pay people to play it.
so i dug around the interwebs a bit and found a bunch of alternate marketplaces. i have no affiliation with any of these places, but thought it might be useful to share my findings.
note , my game is, well, a bit rubbish, so ‘success’ is relative and in small numbers…you’ll probably have much better results…
appslib.com
this has been the most successful for me. strangely. their market app is preinstalled on the archos range of android devices, so that’s where most archos owners get their apps. archos is a french based hardware company so you’ll get a lot of downloads in europe 
. it also checks compatibility automatically, which is really helpful given the billions of android devices out there.
slideme.org
i’ve had a few downloads from these guys too. nice interface and they are also embedded on a number of devices as the default marketplace
mobango.com
less downloads, this place is more of a sharing community it seems.
easy to use, but not as good results.(for me)
appia.com
this is more mysterious. i’ve not had a great deal of downloads, they supply branded storefronts to companies like Telcel, Digicel, Comcel iApps , Vodacom Apps, Vodafone VStore, Samsung Apps, and the Zedge apps catalog. compatibility wise you are presented with a billion devices and are expected to check those that work. hmmmm
check all the devices!
appbrain.com
this is more of a front end to the google market. great interface and all that, but didn’t do much in terms of downloads.
seller.samsung.com
still waiting for this one to be approved.
in summary. i got 100x the number of downloads of my *free* crappy app from these places relative to the android market (google play) . it is a bit of a pain having to maintain accounts for all these places - they all seem to need different resolution icons, banners and screenshots. But their device penetration seems to make it a worthwhile endeavor ymmv of course…
i’d be interested in anyone elses experiences with these places…
cheers!
andy
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