What do the Marketplace Editors look for in a 'Featured' Windows Phone app?

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In the last of five MSDN articles helping developers get the most out of the Windows Marketplace, Paul Laberge look at the Marketplace promotion spots and what devs can to do to meet the selection criteria of the the marketplace editors.

Of interest to me was this graphic, showing the average boost that an application gets when it is featured in different parts of the Marketplace application:

Windows Marketplace Placement percentages

2000% for the main slot in the Panorama? Wow! Definitely worth shooting for, and to do that you'll need to have an application that's pretty good in all the distinctive areas of Windows Phone. Luckily Labere has went on to detail these as well - acting as a handy checklist not just for featuring, but for all applications in general as well.

So you’re sold on the whole featured app thing and want in.  How exactly do you get your app featured?  While there is no specific steps that will guarantee your ability to be featured, the featured apps process is implicitly a fair one (the best, most popular apps will bubble up to the top).  If you feel you have a great app or game, you should read the following sub-sections to get a better understanding of how the Marketplace team assesses quality apps.

Head over to Go Dev Mental, where you'll also find links to the previous four articles on geographies, trial modes and upselling, pricing, and differentiation.

Source / Credit: Paul Laberge (MSDN Blogs)