Last Friday, Google announced on its Android Developers blog that "Android Market", Google's own repository of online applications for smartphones that run on the Android platform, is now allowing organizations to charge money for their software, in an attempt by the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine to effective a growing number of developers to write more applications for the platform.

"I'm pleased to announce that Android Market is now consenting priced applications from US and UK developers," said Google engineer Eric Chu in a blog post Friday. "Initially, priced applications will be accessible to end users in the US starting mid next week."

Up to the previous week, Android Market had only being offering applications free of charge. The Google team, however, has now showed its wish to improve both quality and quantity of the products featured in its virtual inventory and is trying to motivate programmers to develop applications for Android by offering a competitive revenue sharing program.

In fact, according to the blog post, Google will give programmers 70 percent of the total Android app revenue, with the remaining 30 percent going to wireless service carriers and billing settlement fees. The only factor that could deter developers from working for this policy is that both end users and developers will have to use Google Checkout, the only accepted method of payment at the moment.

Android Market will adopt quite a different plan from the one used for Apple's App Store, the successful online repository of programs for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

US and UK-based Android developers can already go to the Android Market publisher website to upload their applications beside with end user pricing for the apps. The Google team said it will allow developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France and Spain to offer priced applications before the end of the current quarter.