No special development toolset required, just publish a text file with the proper metadata and you're good to go. They're even planning an integrated payment system.
My knee jerk reaction is this is a giant step towards the web as we know it becoming "GoogleNet". I hope they get some sizable competition in this space.
No, I don't think so. Until the URL concept is dead, it will always be easier to promote your web site directly, via multiple reviews, affiliates, other software, etc etc. Google app store will be just one of these.
I cannot see how the apps are meant to be "installable". Will Google run them on the AppEngine (or similar)? What if my app requires a set of services running on another machine?
Our startup, Favetop (http://favetop.com) provides similar shortcut functionality for web apps along with direct site search capabilities. We also allow users to save all their favorite online media alongside their web apps with the ability to share these with friends and followers if they choose.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 90.6 ms ] threadThis could be huge.
There's the ability to install serverless (static file based) things too; the example given is browser-based games.