How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apps (apologies to Dr. Strangelove!)
Today we announced our acquisition of AppVee – owner of the AppVee.com and AndroidApps.com professional video and text review sites. As we’ve stated multiple times, we believe strongly a) there are going to be one million apps out there b) apps are going to be free and c) the problem of finding apps that you love to fit your personal life is difficult and becoming harder and harder.
The New York Times, on the other hand, appears to see things differently. The paper’s Sunday edition published a story pointing out that, among other things, most people seem to use only 5-to-10 apps on a regular basis and asserting that the plethora of apps out there “may just make them feel a tad more overwhelmed.”
Where to begin? We’ve always believed that apps are an almost perfect analogy to the web (why Apple is Google’s First Real Competitor). Just because I generally use only 5-to-10 websites on a regular basis doesn’t mean I don’t want the ability to access the other one billion web sites out there whenever needed. As I wrote previously – you may not access Amazon.com’s website as often as Yahoo News, but you are sure glad it’s there come the holidays — and so is Amazon!
As my colleague Brad Spirrison wrote earlier today, the poor soul trapped in the rubble in Haiti was sure glad he had the Pocket First Aid and CPR app on his iPhone – even though I am guessing he wasn’t using the app as part of his daily routine.
No, the point is not about only using 5-to-10 apps each day. The point is about having all the apps you need, whenever you need them (remember they’ll be free), to provide an immersive, valuable experience that will bring you delight and joy, connect you with loved ones, save you money, make you money, or all four.
Our vision at Appolicious is to leverage the mobile social graph to allow you to find apps you’ll love by relying on the wisdom and expertise of other folks in your network in addition to professional reviews. The addition of AppVee.com and Androidapps.com will bring together a larger audience in addition to solutions that work on all three screens: computer, tablet, and phone. We think this is a problem that is only getting worse; and the launch of the iPad last week will only drive more developers to the app ecosystem, further exacerbating the problem for consumers.
