By Deborah Eldred

When rock band Guns N' Roses recently released "Chinese Democracy," their first CD in more than 15 years, the band took an interesting approach to its release. Instead of making the CD available in all stores, it struck an exclusive deal with Best Buy.

Sales of the CD tanked.

One could argue that this was due to the fact that the younger generation of music lovers could have cared less about a band that reached its prime in the mid-90s. But could the fact that the CD was not available everywhere also have hurt its sales?

Guns N' Roses could have gone wider with their product, but chose not to. Until recently, mobile marketers trying to get their mobile applicatuions noticed did not have a choice -- it was Apple's iTunes App Store, and, well, not much else.

Marketers: Don't do what Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose did -- sticking to one outlet for your product and risk losing a substantial portion of the buying populace.

With the sudden proliferation of app stores, there is no excuse not to.

BlackBerry now has the Black App World, and the recently-released Palm Pre will have the Palm App Catalog. While both are upstarts, they could soon be considered serious challengers to the throne that iTunes currently sits on.

Gunning for iTunes
According to comScore, as of April 2009 it is estimated that 11 percent of mobile users are using some type of smartphone -- 21 percent of those smartphone users are using an iPhone.

Many more mobile users would no doubt love the idea of owning an iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre or some similar device, but either cannot or will not due to carrier exclusivity agreements.

If these agreements become non-exclusive, however, more consumers will have choices as to which handset to use.

Regardless of what they choose, consumers will no doubt be looking for content. Mobile app providers need to be where the consumers are. Thus, they will need to be everywhere.

Now is the time to get in, particularly when it comes to some of the newer app stores. There are several reasons for this.

First, newer stores will, at this early stage, have less content available than the iTunes App Store, if only because iTunes has been around longer. Therefore, it will be easier for new apps to stand out due to less competition.

Second, while quality standards will always be high, new stores may tend to have faster approval cycles because they want and need to get content up quickly to drive user interest at such an early stage.

Finally, providers who are able to get their apps in some of the new app stores tend to have a better chance of attracting downloads from new users who wish to populate their new phones with some really cool, useful apps.

The iTunes App Store was a revolutionary concept when it first launched. That revolution has now spawned a number of other marketplaces where consumers can get their app fix.

While iTunes is still considered the cream of the crop, mobile app marketers cannot ignore the fact that some of the upstarts have a plan to rise to the top as well.

As in the bricks-and-mortar retail space, marketers need to make sure their products are in as many places as possible. Just ask Axl Rose.

Deborah Eldred is director of mobile and personalization at R.H. Donnelley's Dex, Lone Tree, CO. Reach her at .