

Ask HN: please review my apps search engine: AppsVu - navanit
http://appsvu.com/?

======
jfarmer
Remove the ads. Your goal should be to become the standard way people search
for apps. Once you do that the business model is obvious (thanks, Google!):
app developers pay for ads on the search result page.

First, focus on search quality (precision/recall). Your results right now are
awful. <http://iphone.appsvu.com/zynga>

I'd expect a list of Zynga apps, not a list of spam websites[1]. If you hadn't
posted this on HN I'd suspect your business model were adsense arbitrage.

Once you have a search engine that actually works I'd release free apps for
all the platforms, build Android/iPhone/etc optimized websites, and plug the
hell out of the service everywhere there are smartphone users.

The question you should be asking yourself is "Why would someone use this
rather than the default way of searching for apps?" For the iPhone that means
iTunes. What can you do to make it more useful than iTunes? Are better results
enough? Are iTunes' results bad?

[1] I looked through the search results again and realize now they aren't
links to spam websites. But the fact that I thought they did is a problem.
"Mafia Wars 24 Reward Points FREE by Zynga app detail :: 148Apps :: iPhone
Application and Game Revie [sic]" reads like spam.

I suggest you build your own database, and not link to 148apps.com.

~~~
navanit
Interesting. Thanks for your detailed thoughts.

The reasoning behind linking to 148apps and the like was because most app
buyers read reviews before making a purchasing decision - so this was meant to
help in the use-case, as well as standout above the iTunes search which
doesn't have independent reviews.

But, I see where you're coming from and will definitely think about shifting
to that track.

~~~
jfarmer
That's fine. The reviews should be on your site, not some other site.

Maybe mimic Amazon's review system? Get all the reviews from iTunes and
augment them by letting people say helpful/not helpful, and then showing the
most helpful highest rated review and the most helpful lowest rated review,
etc.

Basically create a landing page for each app and then optimize the )(*!@# out
of it.

The reason I think this is the right approach in your case (vs. Google) is
because your universe is very contained. There's a single, canonical database
of applications you need to index (for iPhone apps). Google has to index the
whole web, so creating verticalized sub-products is hard to do without knowing
what's important and what isn't.

Google is obviously moving in that direction, with maps, reviews, music,
video, etc.

This might be different for Android vs. iPhone. I'm not very familiar with the
Android ecosystem.

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tjoozeylabs
Honestly I would rather spend my time developing apps rather than a site that
shows peoples apps that have been developed already.

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peterhi
Doesn't handle no results very well, it crashes.

Doesn't find apps that exist such as 'kira kira'

~~~
navanit
1\. Whoa! Thanks! Must have introduced that bug a few minutes back while
making last minute changes. 2\. Working on the index quality - not fully
indexed the market/appstore yet.

Thanks!

~~~
navanit
Crashing is fixed now.

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Jim_Neath
Looks odd when viewed on a large screen.

I'd personal make it 100% width or at least center it.

~~~
navanit
OK! Thanks - I'm guessing it looks squeezed to the left now.

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pclark
oops: <http://iphone.appsvu.com/broadersheet> :)

~~~
navanit
Thanks. The crashing is fixed now. The index is still young as I validate the
idea.

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mos1
Quality of search results wasn't very high.

Quantity of ads on page was quite high.

Presentation made it difficult to skim the results.

~~~
navanit
Thanks. With regards to difficulty skimming: Is this because there'a a larger
gap between results, or characteristics of the font, ...?

~~~
mos1
I think the gap helps, actually.

I think it's more just the length and repetitiveness of the links... like if I
search for Yelp my first result is:

Yelp by Yelp app Detail :: 148 Apps: iPhone Application and Game Reviews And
news.....

Maybe it'd work better if you highlighted the search terms?

~~~
navanit
Got it. Yes highlighting and trimming long titles should help with that.
Thanks.

