Of the many challenges mobile application developers face today, one of the most pressing is that of app discovery. There are over 330,000 apps for iPhone, 75,755 for iPad and 206,000+ for Android, at the last count. It is not enough to simply launch an app anymore – the app must be found…somehow. It must ranked, reviewed, indexed, blogged about and tweeted, or it will linger at the bottom of the charts, as an undiscovered gem.
To aid with app discovery, a startup called Quixey is launching a suite of tools for application developers (even those who build for the desktop and Web, in addition to mobile), which will monitor all of a developers’ applications in one centralized dashboard and provide analytics. With the detailed information the dashboard provides, developers will be able to quickly adapt their promotional efforts based on what the world is saying about their apps.
Turning Data into Information
Quixey, known best as a “functional” search engine for mobile applications, recently launched developer accounts, which provide access to extensive app analytics and detailed comments about apps from around the Web. The way the service works is that it goes out and scours the Web for mentions of the application, especially focusing on things like sentiment and app descriptions which explain what the app is for, and how it is used. These mentions may come from blog sites, forums, social networking sites, mainstream media sites and more – basically, anywhere online where an app appears.
The searches Quixey does are more than just a matching of keywords and terms – the service actually takes the unstructured data found on the Web and structures it, creating metadata about the application. This data is then aggregated and summarized in the dashboard for easy perusal.
Also included is security data, pulled from security providers like Check Point and McAfee, which analyze the perceived “threat” of the app, in relation to privacy violations and other questionable requests for higher-level permissions.
How to Improve App Discovery with Quixey
The information Quixey provides is valuable to developers, explains company co-founder Tomer Kagan, because it allows developers to discover any discrepancies between what they think about their application and what people think about it. An app developer may think of their app as belonging in one category, for example, while the general public and the app’s end users, think of it as belonging in another. “You think you should be in XYZ category,” Kagan explains. “But no one thinks you do XYZ!”
By providing a better understanding of how the world sees your application, developers can make changes on their end to better reflect that understanding. They could rewrite their app’s description to promote the keywords that so often crop up in app reviews, they can remove references to the app’s functions no one cares about while adding others, they can move the app to another app store category, and so on. By tweaking these items, developers may be able to improve their rankings and ratings.
The developer accounts are still in private beta for now, but among those who have tested, the response has been very positive. However, the company needs more developers to sign up and provide feedback so it can better improve its service.
Below are some early screenshots of the developer accounts in action. Interested developers can sign up here. The service will launch publicly on May 23rd.
Smule can see all the info about their Glee and Magic apps in one place.
Rovio can manage the descriptions of their application, app summaries, what platforms their apps are available on and add new editions of their app from the dashboard.
Meebo will be able to show end users the many different platforms where its app can be found.
