[wccrawford]

There are 2 ways to publish on the chrome web store.

1) A link to a website, with the link hidden. Going to the actual website provides the exact same experience.

2) A packaged app that is downloaded and contained within the browser. (It may or may not use a web API for some functionality.)

#1 is basically just a bookmark. There's nothing special about it.

[jent]

In my mind, there isn't much difference technically the big question is whether users want a different experience. A certain percentage want a more fluid user flow similar to a native / desktop app. This web app seems to accomplish that using Google web toolkit and decent page load times.

[jackpine]

The fact that "linked" apps have access to unlimited caching is a huge win for user experience.

[stanleydrew]

Right, but since Chrome's app environment is really just the browser's javascript and rendering environment (perhaps with access to a few special javascript apis) there isn't really anything special about #2 either. In fact, apps that fit into your #1 and #2 bins are the same thing modulo caching.