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Maybe because it is the Windows Phone Developer Blog that late on a Friday new improvements are announced concerning the Windows Phone Marketplace.

I mean since devs go 24/7 anyway right – they do not believe in the tech slowdown that begins on a Friday afternoon.

The blog post provides these improvements on the dev and public side of the Windows Phone Store that take effect soon:

  • Backend updates in Dev Center to improve performance and reliability
  • Windows Phone Store is now available in 42 new countries (113 total). They include – Angola, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo (DRC), Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
  • New rating requirements for games destined for Taiwan and Russia.
  • Developers will be able to add a Privacy URL, similar to what we see in the Windows Store already, on their Windows Phone Store listing.
  • Added functionality to validate an apps beta testers email address as part of the submission process.
  • Reduced keyword field length to 30 characters to help make search results more accurate.

Sounds like they are continuing the effort to make the Windows Phone Store and Dev Center a reliable place for the mobile devs to do their work.

Source: Windows Phone Developer Blog – Windows Phone Store market expansion and new game ratings