Mountain View, California — Google over the weekend announced that they have made available a developer preview of its “Chrome Web Store,” which enables access to Web applications. The new “App Store for the web” has been unfolded in a developer preview, allowing developers to get their hands on the new business.
The web store, which was introduced by the search engine earlier this year, is configured to offer a selection of apps that can be downloaded for use with Google’s Chrome web browser and its Chrome OS, which is not expected to launch until Q4 of 2010.
“Since our announcement of the Chrome Web Store at Google I/O, our team has been persistently working to prepare for our launch later this year. Today we are making the first step towards this milestone by making available a developer preview of the Chrome Web Store,” said software engineer, Michael Noth, in a blog.
Developers, according to Noth on the Google Chromium Blog, can upload applications and experiment with packaging and installing them in Chrome using the latest Chrome developer channel. Payment and user authentication infrastructure are featured.
“When the Chrome Web Store launches, it will replace the current gallery, featuring a completely new design for users to unearth great apps, extensions and themes all in one place. Until then, only you can see the apps you upload — they will not be visible to other visitors of the gallery during this developer preview. In the meantime, you can continue to use the gallery for publishing Chrome extensions and making them available to Chrome users,” Noth said.
Developers will have to shell out a one-time fee of $5, then a 5% fee along with an extra 30¢/transaction for each app, with the apps being sold at a minimum of $1.99 (or free). Something to note though is that developers are allowed to incorporate their own payment systems into their apps instead of being forced to use Google’s integrated web store payments system.
Applications indexed in Chrome Web Store are regular Web technologies and can be utilized via other “modern” browsers besides Google’s Chrome browser, according to Google. Users accessing the store via Chrome, however, have the ability to build shortcuts for easy access to applications, Google said.
Developers are now able to submit apps from the extensions gallery, but will only be able to see their own apps during the preview. More details can be found here.
The developer preview of the Chrome Web Store can be found here.