Google Unveils Chrome Web App Store

Seeking to centralize web-based applications and games much in the same way that Apple has done with the iPhone and its iTunes App Store, Google has unveiled plans to launch "an open marketplace for web apps" called the Chrome Web Store.

Though the marketplace bears the branding of Google's own web browser Chrome, its offerings "can be used by anyone using a modern browser that supports [standard] web technologies," according to the company. However, using the Web Store with Chrome will allow users to create "convenient shortcuts for easily accessing [installed] apps."

Among the initial offerings will be PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies and LucasArts' LEGO Star Wars, with LucasArts telling Joystiq that the LEGO Star Wars title will be Three Melons' existing Unity-powered effort LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2.

Google claims that the marketplace will offer "a broad range of amazing web apps" and that "developers will be able to reach millions of new users" through it. Developers will be invited submit their various applications to the marketplace sometime before it formally launches, with Google offering some preliminary details to help them get ready.