Can our community help discover the next great Android app? Welcome to a new experiment called #thenextinstall where we try to see if we can find an Android app in the rough, and boost its installs and exposure to new highs.

Last week our community selected Minimal Reader, which is a great little widget for reading RSS feeds. After it was featured on our site, the daily installs spiked to a 30-day high. The developer listened to the feedback from new users, and he tells us an important update is in the works.

This week the goal remains the same:

• Find an app with less than 100k installs
• Come up with a one or two sentence pitch that encourages users to install it
• Submit your suggested app in the comments below or in this weekly thread

Browse over the new app suggestions and let us know if any of them make it onto your device.

Week 2 winner: AfterFocus by MotionOne

This week’s winner was an easy choice. AfterFocus crushed all challengers and came out on top with the most buzz. The app racked up over 10k installs since it was released last week, but we think it has the potential to reach 1 million installs in the coming months. If you haven’t tried it yet, this simple camera app allows you to edit photos and create DSLR-like photography by faking the depth of field. There is an auto mode that produces great results, but we prefer the manual mode that allows more control.

Check out some of the early reviews:

• “I found myself wanting to go out and take more pictures just to play around with it. Even crappy pictures came out great!”
• “Beats instagram by a long way.”
• “This is Saweeet! I love the auto and manual focus options.. aperture.. the filters.”
• “Just wow! This app is amazing! Filters are better than instagram! Editing is better than picsart! So happy ive discovered this app!”
• “I was left speechless after watching what this application can do!!”

Week 3 Challengers

Fetchnotes

Pitch: Cloud-based note taking service that Twitter users will love. Hashtags allow you to let your creativity run wild while we organize your notes for you. It’s so easy our dog could use it.

Suggested by: Stigy

Carrier Coverage

Pitch: Which carrier is best for your location? Carrier Coverage helps answer that question.

Birthday Calendar

Pitch: Never miss another birthday again!

Connect by Quickoffice

Pitch: An all-in-one app to view & edit documents that sync across all your devices.

SnapNPlay

Pitch: Take a picture of sheet music and play it back on your android device.

Placeme

Pitch: Placeme always remembers the places you visit. With Placeme you can enjoy your mobile life while the app automatically records all your place visits for you.

StorageAnalyser

Pitch: Unsure what kind of data is consuming the space on your drives? StorageAnalyser can help.

Suggested by: LKuech

Boid

Pitch: Boid is the new Twitter client for Android 4.0 that is designed for beauty and simplicity. We put a big focus on the stock Ice Cream Sandwich style to bring you a pure Android experience while browsing Tweets.

Pepperplate

Pitch: Manage your recipes, create menus, shop with ease and cook like a pro. Pepperplate is the only way to seamlessly manage your recipes, menus and shopping lists on the web, Android Tablet and Android Phone.

Suggested by: Canterrain

Karma

Pitch: A new service for in-the-moment gifting. Karma lets you send a thoughtful gift from anywhere, at anytime. It’s as easy as sending a text.

What’s next? How can I participate?

If you want to play along, then join the league of app addicts.

• Join Android and Me and suggest new apps in this weekly thread
• Download AppAware and let it track your new app installs
• Share this post with a friend who has an Android device and ask them to try out one of the apps from the list

Over the coming week, we will continue to monitor all the apps and see which generate the most buzz. We will be watching the installs, download clicks, review scores, coverage on other sites, and more to see which app comes out on top.

Next week we will name the winning app, and then put it up against 10 new apps to repeat the process.