Chrome OS Site

Google has began to make the finishing touches to the upcoming Chrome Web Store. It is widely anticipated that the Web Store will be officially released to the public next month, at which point Chrome OS is likely to make it’s debut.

In a post published on Google’s Chromium Blog yesterday; new features were announced for developers:

Starting today, you can sign up for a Google Checkout merchant account via your developer dashboard. If you’re planning to use Chrome Web Store Payments to charge for apps, you’ll need to complete this setup before you can accept payments. If you already have a merchant account with Google Checkout, you’ll be able to associate it with your items in the store. Signing up for Chrome Web Store Payments is currently available to developers based in the US who have a US bank account. We’re working hard to also enable payments for international developers and will update you with a blog post once we have more details. If you have more questions about setting up your merchant account, see this help article we created.

As shown by the screenshot below, developers will be able to preview how their app will display in the Google Web Store:

It seems like the launch of the Web store is imminent. The wording of Google’s blog post seems to point to a fast approaching release date; most probably in the coming month:

We’ll continue to work on the web store design and add polish, but with today’s launch you can get your app’s landing page ready for the launch.

Disappointment for developers outside the USA

The Google Checkout feature is still unavailable for developers outside the USA. This means that those in the UK for example will not be able to test their paid application as of yet (at least not the checkout feature). Even-so Google has promised a speedy resolution of this; nonetheless it is unclear whether ‘international developers’ will be able to test their apps in time for the launch of the Web Store:

We’re working hard to also enable payments for international developers and will update you with a blog post once we have more details.

Chrome OS release soon?

There is no logical reason to rule out that Google’s advanced preparations are related to the impending launch of Chrome OS. Afterall the purpose of the Web Store is to showcase applications that will be used in Google’s upcoming operating system. More-so, this announcement by also points to the much awaited release of Google TV because it too will run web applications.

A week ago we revealed that Chrome OS will be coming this October. News of the Web Store’s soon release are lready beginning to confirm this.