Thanks in large part to the raging success of the Apple App Store, application marketplaces are an integral part of every mobile platform these days. But an  app store announced by Google Wednesday at its annual developer conference adds a new twist to the model. Launching later this year, Google's Chrome Web Store will offer up online applications through its browser and forthcoming operating system.

"We believe it should be easier for users to discover Web apps and for developers to reach a large audience," said Erik Kay, lead software engineer at Google, on the company's Chromium Blog.