With experience in both web marketing and software development, i
would like some research on market opportunities for new consumer
software applications. Basically, I would like to establish an idea
for our next project, and to do this need to know the most downloaded
consumer applications. Or the most popular problem that consumers
search for that can be addressed through software. Please ask if more
clarification is needed. I am looking for number of people searching
for a particular type of software, number of downloads per day, market
size, etc

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 31 Oct 2005 07:36 PST

Hello Mark,

By way of clarification, is your question meant to include the really
big hitters...the software programs that are free and almost
universally used?  I have in mind software like Internet Explorer,
Adobe Reader for PDF files, media players like RealPlayer, and so on.

If so, how many would you like to see listed, and what sort of
information do you want about them?

And if those aren't what you're after, can you please provide a bit
more detail about what you're looking for.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by mark_ecommerce-ga on 31 Oct 2005 08:10 PST

pafalafa-ga,

thanks for the question - i want to exclude the big hitters as the
objective of this exercise is to find a new product opportunity - so
the examples listed should not be included (eg, adbobe, media player,
internet explorer, anti virus, etc).

maybe a better description would be niche products, which sell in high
volume but by smaller companies - examples I can think of would be
applications for dvd copy, record streaming audio to mp3, convert pdf
files to exel, pc repair utilities, etc - i hope this makes sense.

Thanks
Mark

Hi! Thanks for the question.

Please take note that before providing a rating; please ask for
clarification if you will need further assistance in the answers I
have provided below.

One way to do this is to look at the software download websites that
list the popular products at their website. I then bunch them up into
categories and the number of instances or products that were visible
in their most popular downloads category. The number there shows how
many products of the same kind were classified as most downloaded.

So for example in the category ?Peer-to-Peer? software of our first
source, we have 8 products in the most popular list. So we can say
that this category (Peer-to-Peer) is very popular for the first source
which is Download.com. Meanwhile for Topshareware.com, the most
popular software category would be Media Converters.


Peer-to-Peer Software ? 8 products
Spyware and Adware Removal Software ? 7
Media Players ? 6
Instant Messaging / Chat Software ? 5
PC Utilities ? 3
Image Viewers / Editors ? 3 

Source: Download.com
http://www.download.com/3101-20_4-0-5.html?tag=nav_5 


---------------------------------------
Media Converters (ex. Convert DVD to divx) ? 26 products
CD/DVD Burner ? 6
File Recovery ? 6
Peer-to-Peer Software ? 5
DVD Player Software ? 3
Download Accelerators ? 3

Source: Top Shareware
http://www.topshareware.com/top_downloads.aspx 


---------------------------------------
DVD Copier Software ? 4 products
PC Utilities and Registry Tools ? 4
Anti-virus ? 3 
Peer-to-Peer Software ? 2

Source: Sofotex
http://www.sofotex.com/download/Ratings/index.html  


Search terms used:  
Top popular software downloads

I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.
                                                          
                              
Regards,                              
Easterangel-ga                              
Google Answers Researcher

I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to offer up my 2 cents worth on
the type of software you might want to consider developing...something
that is needed, and would have an eager market.

The world is dying for a good copy-and-paste program!

I'm not joking.  This most elementary of computer tasks has become an
ever-larger headache over the years.

As an internet researcher, I copy and paste all day, and the
frustrations of the task are legion.  Line breaks don't hold when they
should, or hold when they shouldn't.  Tables get repositioned and garbled.  Word
wrap won't wrap.  E-mails copy with a bunch of unwanted garbage.  HTML
sometimes copies, sometimes doesn't.  Columns vanish.  And on and on
and on.

To get a sense of what I mean, try copying a table from a PDF file
into a spreadsheet program.  It's almost impossible to keep the table
columns preserved.  Often, the entire table copies into a single cell
of the spreadsheet!

A cut-and-paste program that could make tasks like that easy would be a winner.

Best of luck,


paf