By Natasha Baker
TORONTO, May 6 (Reuters) – Finding new smartphone and tablet
apps is getting easier, thanks to new apps designed to help
people discover still more apps.
Most people discover apps by searching app stores or through
referrals from friends and family, according to global
information and measurement company Nielsen. But critics say
such marketplace searching makes it difficult for people to
discover new content outside of the most popular apps.
With more than one million apps on Apple’s App Store and the
Google Play store, the two major app marketplaces, and growing
numbers on Microsoft’s Windows Store, the numbers can be
daunting.
“The sheer number of apps available, combined with a lack of
tools to help them find them, makes it difficult for consumers
to find what they’re looking for,” explained Raul
Casta +/-on-Martinez, senior analyst focused on mobile apps at
Boston-based Yankee Group.
Tappd, a new app for iPhones, takes aim at the problem.
Users select topics of interest, such as books, finance or
sports, and the app curates recommendations from friends, mobile
app experts and other users of that app.
“It changes the discovery process away from what’s being
downloaded the most to what friends, experts and people with the
same interests are talking about right now,” said David Duncan,
co-founder of Tappd, based in Melbourne, Australia.
“As many apps are now free, it’s not about the price of the
app, but the time you have to invest,” he noted. “I don’t want
to invest a lot of time into an app and find out it’s not right
for me.”
App Social, for Windows Phone, works in the same way as
Tappd, curating app recommendations from friends and technology
influencers. But Quixey, a web and Android app, takes a
different approach.
It allows users to search for apps based on what they are
trying to do or achieve. Searching for “book a flight” or “read
Obamacare news” yields apps pertaining to that goal.
“People should be able to find the apps they want by just
typing in what they want to do,” said Liron Shapira, co-founder
at Quixey, based in Mountain View, California.
Quixey, which is free, lists iOS, Android, Windows Phone and
Blackberry apps.
Major technology companies are also working to make content
inside apps accessible by search engines, which will also help
consumers find new apps – what the industry calls deep linking,
according to Casta +/-on-Martinez.
“Apps have grown in a silo isolated from the rest of the
Internet,” he explained. “App content doesn’t show up in a
typical search if you use Google or Yahoo or Bing.”
“As they grow in relevance, and the number of minutes we
spend on mobile devices continues to increase, consumers will
need better solutions,” he added.
According to mobile marketing and analytics firm Flurry, the
average consumer spends two hours and 42 minutes on mobile
devices daily. Some 86 percent of that time is spent within
apps, an increase of 6 percent over last year.
(Editing by Chris Michaud and Tom Brown)
