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Apple Acquires Chomp; App Store Search And Discovery To Be Completely Revamped

168 points by rkudeshi 15y ago

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
barredo 15y ago
How many times did you bought a new app you discovered through Genius? That's why.
- ugh 15y ago
  I can see how it’s better (the performance is awesome, searching in iTunes is just sooo damn slow, inflexible and no fun) and it has some cool but obvious tools. I’m just wondering why Apple needs to buy them. Can they really not just copy that?
  - marquis 15y ago
    Talent acquisition?
    - pemulis 15y ago
      And submarining Android app discovery doesn't hurt.
      - jrockway 15y ago
        True! With Chomp gone, where will Google find experts in search?
        sskates 15y ago
        You can laugh, but Android Market search is horrible.
        revorad 15y ago
        Perhaps look in the basement of the SPYW department?
        megablast 15y ago
        You say that, but android market place search is embarrassing.
  - pooriaazimi 15y ago
    I came here to say how nice of Apple not just bluntly copying Chomp (you know, like widgets, Safari Reader and notifications)...
    - ugh 15y ago
      I don’t think it’s possible to bluntly copy Chomp (if you stay away from copying their aesthetics). All the stuff they do is pretty obvious and standard. It’s only special because the App Store search is so terrible. To me a performance upgrade would be the most valuable thing, I don’t think anyone would claim Apple copied Chomp when their search suddenly performs better.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
        But why reinvent the wheel? They saw something they liked, they thought it was better to buy the technology, so they did. Good for Apple and good for Chomp!
    - falling 15y ago
      http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/07/safari-5-another-step-towards-better-reading-on-the-web/ http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/07/safari-5-another-step-towar... (last paragraph links to: http://twitter.com/chrisdary/status/15672452287 http://twitter.com/chrisdary/status/15672452287)
ghc 15y ago
Oh great. So now what am I going to use to search for new apps in Android?
- BenSchaechter 15y ago
  Give http://quixey.com http://quixey.com a shot.
phil 15y ago
On behalf of all app developers: oh, hell yes.
- chubs 15y ago
  Yep. I'm really hopeful that this will result in some good marketing avenues for my apps. Here's hoping!
- kenrikm 15y ago
  Exactly, this is so needed. As it is now unless it's in the top 100 it does not exist.
  - kolinko 15y ago
    well - it depends on the category. For games/entertainment this is true, but for productivity etc, a good SEO can make a big difference ( http://www.slideshare.net/kolinko/app-store-seo-tutorial http://www.slideshare.net/kolinko/app-store-seo-tutorial )
    - phil 15y ago
      That's true, but their search ranking is weird and kind of broken right now (e.g. company name is indexed; descriptions aren't). It would be great if that got overhauled.
indraneel24 15y ago
Kevin Rose was an investor in Chomp, IIRC. Good for him.
zavulon 15y ago
I really hope this means there will be a better way to find games. When I search for "rpg", what I really want is an old school RPG game, you know, where you kill monsters, solve quests and get XP points. Instead, I get a massive amount of MMORPG's (which are not really RPG's at all), and "Do you want to be Chris Brown" applications. On the same token, when I search for "adventure" games, I really want to find games like Sam & Max or Monkey Island. Instead, I see a whole bunch of kids games, and at best, "find a hidden object" games. Not what I want at ALL. http://rpg-site.com/ http://rpg-site.com/ and http://toucharcade.com/category/games/adventure/ http://toucharcade.com/category/games/adventure/ help, but they still miss a lot of stuff. Edit: tried out Chomp, it doesn't help. This problem would be ridiculously easy to solve with letting users tag apps
- Steko 15y ago
  "solve with letting users tag apps" That just leads to Shady Developers Ltd. hiring Shady Astroturfers, Inc. to spam tags on his competitors.
  - joshu 15y ago
    this is a solveable problem. i've done it, in fact.
    - evgen 15y ago
      In a situation where the stakes were basically limited to reputation and informational content perhaps, but not with serious money on the line. When tag-turfing can swing thousands of dollars an hour I have less hope that the host can outwit all of the possible parasite variations.
      - joshu 15y ago
        The perception was that the data was being fed into search engines. So I think the stakes were similarly high.
- jonhendry 15y ago
ilamont 15y ago
Is this basically better search technology?
dirkdk 15y ago
awesome, finally Apple is going to improve app discovery, because that sucked pretty much. Here's a blogpost I wrote about what Apple should do with the App Store: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628073 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628073
foobarbazetc 15y ago
I just tried Chomp. The sorting makes no sense, looks to be hand-edited or possibly paid for by the apps, and the current App Store sort seems to be better to me. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong part of Chomp? Which section do people like?
- ask995 15y ago
  Same here. Just tried it out and it didn't seem impressive at all. Is someone aware what was the main reason for this aquisition? is it the team or technology?
- dangero 15y ago
  I agree the sorting right now is crap. I think the idea is that right now chomp cannot grab internal data to sort things, so the idea is to combine the data available on Apple's internal side with some of chomp's concepts and technology. The other thing is that it removes chomp search for Android which makes the gap between Android and iOS app market even larger.
theblogdoctor 15y ago
Was this an acquihire? I haven't met anyone in my startup circles in San Francisco (and I go to a LOT of events) who said they were using Chomp for App Discovery. I tried it a year ago and back then it sucked (i.e. the results were not relevant).
boonez123 15y ago
50 MILLION! Sheesh. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chomp-chomp-apple-eats-aussie-startup-for-us50m-20120224-1tsbi.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chomp-chomp...
thijser 15y ago
This is an interesting development, where better search/discovery technology gets acquired and (hopefully) integrated into the main platform. Apple was able to acquire a company with proven technology, because Apple provides plenty of hooks for third party services to allow them to innovate much faster on search/discovery technologies than iTunes itself can. Unfortunately for Android Apple is way ahead of Google here, with the iTunes store having an affiliate model for all paid apps, and ways to get the actual appstore listings programmatically. AppBrain and other services that want to provide Android app discovery services have to go through a painful process of getting information about Android apps, and even then it's nearly impossible to know whether a particular app will be available to a certain phone model X running in country Y. In addition, there is no direct way to monetize the leads that can be generated through good discovery algorithms. It's ironic how the more iTunes store in this sense is more open than the Android market.
georgelawrence 15y ago
I was going to launch something similar http://www.appstoretools.com http://www.appstoretools.com as a fun little side project this weekend... But if Chomp is worth $50M, maybe "side project" is not the right way to think of it?
- paraschopra 15y ago
  Their team size was 20. Clearly it wasn't a side project.
Maro 15y ago
What the App store needs is recommendations like Amazon. I'd spend way more money, like I do at Amazon =)
- coob 15y ago
  It has 'Genius' for App discovery, which recommends apps based on previous purchases. It's well hidden and not very good.
  - Aqua_Geek 15y ago
    I'm curious as to how helpful "Genius" is for you. If I've already bought a to-do app, for example, the odds of me wanting to buy another one are pretty small. And yet, that seems to be the kind of thing that "Genius" always recommends - more of the same kind of app I've already bought.
tluyben2 15y ago
I hope 'search gigant' Google will fix their discovery system; I find the Android store results, at least for what I search for, biased towards big publishers on the one side and total crap on the other. Usually I use google.com to discover apps and after that I find them in the Market, not the other way around as it should be (find app => search for reviews online). It seems weird that I have to do it like that. In the Appstore I never had that problem. Same with promotion of my games/apps => Appstore gives you a lot more 'credit' (for lack of a better word) as indie/starter than Market seems to do. Ofcourse the one (inability to discover what you want/need) creates the other (low downloads/sales). Not sure if that's a glitch on my part somehow, but in the indie communities I 'hang', almost everyone has the same issues.
jljacques 15y ago
I'm really excited to see what Apple comes out with on this. Any thoughts on how long this might take Apple to actually implement any changes to the system?
cycle 15y ago
I think something like Amazon's or Netflix's similar products would be great.

168 points by rkudeshi 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

barredo 15y ago

How many times did you bought a new app you discovered through Genius? That's why.

ugh 15y ago
I can see how it’s better (the performance is awesome, searching in iTunes is just sooo damn slow, inflexible and no fun) and it has some cool but obvious tools. I’m just wondering why Apple needs to buy them. Can they really not just copy that?
- marquis 15y ago
  Talent acquisition?
  - pemulis 15y ago
    And submarining Android app discovery doesn't hurt.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      True! With Chomp gone, where will Google find experts in search?
      - sskates 15y ago
        You can laugh, but Android Market search is horrible.
      - revorad 15y ago
        Perhaps look in the basement of the SPYW department?
      - megablast 15y ago
        You say that, but android market place search is embarrassing.
- pooriaazimi 15y ago
  I came here to say how nice of Apple not just bluntly copying Chomp (you know, like widgets, Safari Reader and notifications)...
  - ugh 15y ago
    I don’t think it’s possible to bluntly copy Chomp (if you stay away from copying their aesthetics). All the stuff they do is pretty obvious and standard. It’s only special because the App Store search is so terrible. To me a performance upgrade would be the most valuable thing, I don’t think anyone would claim Apple copied Chomp when their search suddenly performs better.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 15y ago
      But why reinvent the wheel? They saw something they liked, they thought it was better to buy the technology, so they did. Good for Apple and good for Chomp!
  - falling 15y ago
    http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/07/safari-5-another-step-towards-better-reading-on-the-web/ http://blog.arc90.com/2010/06/07/safari-5-another-step-towar... (last paragraph links to: http://twitter.com/chrisdary/status/15672452287 http://twitter.com/chrisdary/status/15672452287)

ghc 15y ago

Oh great. So now what am I going to use to search for new apps in Android?

BenSchaechter 15y ago
Give http://quixey.com http://quixey.com a shot.

phil 15y ago

On behalf of all app developers: oh, hell yes.

chubs 15y ago
Yep. I'm really hopeful that this will result in some good marketing avenues for my apps. Here's hoping!
kenrikm 15y ago
Exactly, this is so needed. As it is now unless it's in the top 100 it does not exist.
- kolinko 15y ago
  well - it depends on the category. For games/entertainment this is true, but for productivity etc, a good SEO can make a big difference ( http://www.slideshare.net/kolinko/app-store-seo-tutorial http://www.slideshare.net/kolinko/app-store-seo-tutorial )
  - phil 15y ago
    That's true, but their search ranking is weird and kind of broken right now (e.g. company name is indexed; descriptions aren't). It would be great if that got overhauled.

indraneel24 15y ago

Kevin Rose was an investor in Chomp, IIRC. Good for him.

zavulon 15y ago

I really hope this means there will be a better way to find games. When I search for "rpg", what I really want is an old school RPG game, you know, where you kill monsters, solve quests and get XP points. Instead, I get a massive amount of MMORPG's (which are not really RPG's at all), and "Do you want to be Chris Brown" applications. On the same token, when I search for "adventure" games, I really want to find games like Sam & Max or Monkey Island. Instead, I see a whole bunch of kids games, and at best, "find a hidden object" games. Not what I want at ALL. http://rpg-site.com/ http://rpg-site.com/ and http://toucharcade.com/category/games/adventure/ http://toucharcade.com/category/games/adventure/ help, but they still miss a lot of stuff. Edit: tried out Chomp, it doesn't help. This problem would be ridiculously easy to solve with letting users tag apps

Steko 15y ago
"solve with letting users tag apps" That just leads to Shady Developers Ltd. hiring Shady Astroturfers, Inc. to spam tags on his competitors.
- joshu 15y ago
  this is a solveable problem. i've done it, in fact.
  - evgen 15y ago
    In a situation where the stakes were basically limited to reputation and informational content perhaps, but not with serious money on the line. When tag-turfing can swing thousands of dollars an hour I have less hope that the host can outwit all of the possible parasite variations.
    - joshu 15y ago
      The perception was that the data was being fed into search engines. So I think the stakes were similarly high.
jonhendry 15y ago

ilamont 15y ago

Is this basically better search technology?

dirkdk 15y ago

awesome, finally Apple is going to improve app discovery, because that sucked pretty much. Here's a blogpost I wrote about what Apple should do with the App Store: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628073 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3628073

foobarbazetc 15y ago

I just tried Chomp. The sorting makes no sense, looks to be hand-edited or possibly paid for by the apps, and the current App Store sort seems to be better to me. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong part of Chomp? Which section do people like?

ask995 15y ago
Same here. Just tried it out and it didn't seem impressive at all. Is someone aware what was the main reason for this aquisition? is it the team or technology?
dangero 15y ago
I agree the sorting right now is crap. I think the idea is that right now chomp cannot grab internal data to sort things, so the idea is to combine the data available on Apple's internal side with some of chomp's concepts and technology. The other thing is that it removes chomp search for Android which makes the gap between Android and iOS app market even larger.

theblogdoctor 15y ago

Was this an acquihire? I haven't met anyone in my startup circles in San Francisco (and I go to a LOT of events) who said they were using Chomp for App Discovery. I tried it a year ago and back then it sucked (i.e. the results were not relevant).

boonez123 15y ago

50 MILLION! Sheesh. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chomp-chomp-apple-eats-aussie-startup-for-us50m-20120224-1tsbi.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chomp-chomp...

thijser 15y ago

This is an interesting development, where better search/discovery technology gets acquired and (hopefully) integrated into the main platform. Apple was able to acquire a company with proven technology, because Apple provides plenty of hooks for third party services to allow them to innovate much faster on search/discovery technologies than iTunes itself can. Unfortunately for Android Apple is way ahead of Google here, with the iTunes store having an affiliate model for all paid apps, and ways to get the actual appstore listings programmatically. AppBrain and other services that want to provide Android app discovery services have to go through a painful process of getting information about Android apps, and even then it's nearly impossible to know whether a particular app will be available to a certain phone model X running in country Y. In addition, there is no direct way to monetize the leads that can be generated through good discovery algorithms. It's ironic how the more iTunes store in this sense is more open than the Android market.

georgelawrence 15y ago

I was going to launch something similar http://www.appstoretools.com http://www.appstoretools.com as a fun little side project this weekend... But if Chomp is worth $50M, maybe "side project" is not the right way to think of it?

paraschopra 15y ago
Their team size was 20. Clearly it wasn't a side project.

Maro 15y ago

What the App store needs is recommendations like Amazon. I'd spend way more money, like I do at Amazon =)

coob 15y ago
It has 'Genius' for App discovery, which recommends apps based on previous purchases. It's well hidden and not very good.
- Aqua_Geek 15y ago
  I'm curious as to how helpful "Genius" is for you. If I've already bought a to-do app, for example, the odds of me wanting to buy another one are pretty small. And yet, that seems to be the kind of thing that "Genius" always recommends - more of the same kind of app I've already bought.

tluyben2 15y ago

I hope 'search gigant' Google will fix their discovery system; I find the Android store results, at least for what I search for, biased towards big publishers on the one side and total crap on the other. Usually I use google.com to discover apps and after that I find them in the Market, not the other way around as it should be (find app => search for reviews online). It seems weird that I have to do it like that. In the Appstore I never had that problem. Same with promotion of my games/apps => Appstore gives you a lot more 'credit' (for lack of a better word) as indie/starter than Market seems to do. Ofcourse the one (inability to discover what you want/need) creates the other (low downloads/sales). Not sure if that's a glitch on my part somehow, but in the indie communities I 'hang', almost everyone has the same issues.

jljacques 15y ago

I'm really excited to see what Apple comes out with on this. Any thoughts on how long this might take Apple to actually implement any changes to the system?

cycle 15y ago

I think something like Amazon's or Netflix's similar products would be great.