TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Marco Arment argues the App Store has two distinct segments:

These two stores exist in completely different ecosystems with completely different requirements, priorities, and best practices.

But they’re not two different stores (“Are you getting it?”). There’s just one App Store at a casual glance, but if you misunderstand which of these segments you’re targeting, you’ll have a very hard time getting anywhere.

His analysis is dead on. There’s the average consumer market, which buys games and applications based on browsing the App Store and looks for cheap entertainment. Then there’s the much smaller group which actively reads about new applications, read reviews, and are generally looking for high quality applications — and are willing to pay for them.

The second group, even though they are small in absolute numbers, likely represent a much larger share of paying application buyers. And more importantly, because they appreciate the work that developers put into their applications, are a stable and long-term source of revenue.