- Google appears to be working on an “interests” system for Play Store app discovery.
- Settings will let you control your interests by clearing previous selections.
- We expect to see the Play Store’s recommendations begin appearing in your For You view
When you’re running an app store, the name of the game is “discovery” — you want to always be introducing your users to the best, most useful new apps for them. Doing that well means getting a lot more personal than just highlighting top-10 lists of popular software, and successful app stores work their hardest to recognize user interests. Now it looks like the Play Store may be getting a bit more explicit about how it does this, as we spot Google testing a new “interests” setting for app discovery.
So far, we only have a loose sense for how this might work, but there’s still some clear evidence as to its nature. Looking into version 41.7.16-31 of the Play Store app, we discovered new options coming to the general settings tab that let the user manage saved interests. The app explains how these control “what you want to see on Play,” with separate settings for apps and games. Users would also be able to turn interests off if they don’t want to use the feature.