Introducing Appify

Wherever you happen to fall in the debate over the proper App Store model--whether you think Apple's store is too authoritarian, or Google's too anarchic--there is one thing I think most reasonable people can agree on: with hundreds of thousands of apps available, and a million no doubt in the near-term pipeline, we need a richer set of tools and services for exploring and discovering new apps. The mobile app ecosystem is arguably the most interesting and rapidly diversifying region of the software world right now, but the search and filtering options available to us are shockingly under-developed.

That's where Appify comes in. The brainchild of my outside.in collaborator, John Geraci, Appify, in John's words, "lets everyone discuss and share what their favorite apps are for anything in the world quickly and easily." In the simplest sense, it's an alternative directory and discussion site for apps (on multiple platforms), but John has given it a typically ingenious structure: the site is organized around questions, with specific apps suggested by the community as answers. I like this so much more than the "What's Hot" and "Productivity" categories that dominated the traditional stores. Most of the time, when you go to an app store, you're not thinking: "I'm in the mood for a Travel app right now." Instead, you're thinking: "What's the best subway app for NYC?" Appify gives you a place to ask that question, along with some more entertaining variations. (My current favorites from the site: "What's the best vuvuzela app for driving your coworkers nuts"; "What's the best app for when you're on mushrooms in the hills of Santa Cruz and it's 3 am?"; and "best app for entertaining my 1-year old when it's 6 a.m. and I'm hungover?" (I wish I'd been able to ask that last question a few years ago when I had a 1-year-old.)

The site is in early beta, and obviously it has to grow a community of users for it to become more comprehensive. But John and his team are rolling out new features very quickly. Just today they added the ability to ask a question directly from Twitter -- just write it in the form "@appify what's the best app for tuning your guitar" and the question will automatically get added to the site.  It's one of those services where you click around a few pages, and instantly have a list of new features that would make it even cooler. From my conversations with John--I'm an adviser to the company--I know they've already got a long list of improvements, and I'm excited to see it develop over the next few months. Go check it out!

Comments

[sto credits]

just know a little about it.thanks your good post.

[Chapmanchapman]

Just read about this in Monocle magazine, they profiled Geraci as one of ten Americans leading the way for better cities and urbanization. Great stuff.

-Ryan

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Steve:

FYI ... I have a new book coming on medical mapping, epidemiology, and of course, John Snow. I think this one is something you'll want to see, especially the new take on Snow and his work. Drop me an email if you can. I'll fill you in.

Tom Koch

[acuvue oasys]

Thanks Steven - when is the site going to roll out live?

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Frist read I missed the "mobile" in the first paragraph. Naturally I was suprised to see that all the apps are for iPhone or iPod. My mobile phone is Boost. Any apps for Boost or other mobile companies allowed on this site? Maybe this should be called iAppify? :)

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