Posts tagged Chomp
The Most Popular App Store Keywords From Chomp & Google Play
Oct 15th
SEOs focusing on Web search may have had a Panda update and an EMD update at the beginning of October, but SEOs focusing on mobile and app search have had their own share of turmoil in the last few months. In February, there was a major spam crackdown by Apple which resulted in many developers [...]
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New iOS 6 App Store Search Results Look Like Chomp
Aug 31st
Earlier this year Apple acquired Chomp a site and app dedicated to app search and discovery. That purchase was a signal that Apple was going to revamp its app store. That overhaul has apparently happened in iOS 6, which will become available to the public later this year. Some developers are now…
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Apple Buys Chomp to Improve App Search
Feb 25th
Apple, which now boasts more than 500,000 apps in its App Store, is aiming to improve search and discovery features. In a deal rumored to be worth $50 million, Apple has acquired start-up Chomp to revamp App Store search and recommendations.
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In Chomp Apple Gains A Social Search Engine For Apps
Feb 24th
Reported first by TechCrunch last night, Apple has paid a reported (but unconfirmed) $50 million for Chomp and its roughly 20 employees. Chomp offers both iOS and Android apps and a desktop site and is dedicated to solving the problem of app discovery. It can either be described as a search engine…
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What Apple’s Chomp Acquisition Means For the Future of the App Store
Feb 23rd
Whenever somebody we know gets their first iPhone, it seems the first question out of their mouths is always the same. “What apps should I get?” It’s seldom anything about how the phone’s user interface works or how to do certain day-to-day tasks. That much tends to be obvious once even the least tech-savvy person gets their hands on an iOS device.
When it comes to finding applications, however, things are not always as straight forward. The iTunes App Store makes it easy to find the most popular apps or break them all down into general categories. If you’ve been using the device for awhile, the Genius recommendations can help, but even they can be of limited value. The selection has expanded so much over the last few years that app discovery has become a little cumbersome.
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Apple knows this. To help build out a better system for app discovery, they just acquired a company called Chomp, Techcrunch reported today.
Chomp is, quite simply, a search engine for mobile applications. It spans both the iTunes App Store and Android Market and offers more sophisticated and contextually relevant results for search queries. As the company explains on its website, “Chomp’s proprietary algorithm learns the functions and topics of apps, so you can search based on what apps do, not just what they’re called.”
The company first grabbed attention in the mobile space by landing significant funding from well-known angel investors and venture capital firms. It counts among its advisors tech scene hotshots like Kevin Rose and Ashton Kutcher.
The Chomp acquistion is reportedly intended to help Apple completely overhaul the way apps are searched for and discovered in the App Store, according to Techcrunch.
With Chomp’s technology integrated, searches for iOS Apps will return more useful results and recommendations could be aided by additional data points, such as social cues and other aggregate user behavior data.
In the end, Apple’s selection of more than 500,000 mobile and tablet apps will be easier to sift through and developers should have an easier time getting exposure for their work.
Chomp also has a Google-style text ad platform in beta, although it’s not clear if that will play a role in Apple’s integration.
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Slight Increase in Paid Android App Downloads Seen Again, Says Chomp
Aug 1st
Mobile application search and discovery service Chomp has released its June 2011 report on app search trends and found that, for the second consecutive month, paid app downloads on Android have increased. The increases are small – paid Android app downloads increased just 2% from April to May and only 1% from May to June.
And in total, only 6% of all Android downloads on Chomp’s network were paid.
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In other words, these small jumps don’t seem to signify any major shift in the overall trend involving the dominance of free apps on Android. However, it will be interesting to watch this space to see if this trend continues. After all, over time, even small increases can add up.
The 1% increase on Android was spread out across multiple price points, but the $4.01 – $5.00 range saw the largest jump, from 0.1% to 0.6%. The most popular categories were games, utilities and entertainment.
In comparison, iOS app developers saw a 4% increase in paid app last month, over May. The ranges seeing the most growth there were the $0.99 and $1.99 price points. The $4.99 price point also saw an increase, going from 0.8% in May to 1.0% in June, while the $9.99 price point declined from 0.3% in May to 0.1% in June.
In addition, the word “free” was the number one search term across all countries sampled on Android, through the Chomp app for Android.
On iOS, the company saw much more diversity on search terms, although “games” was a popular query.
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Paid App Downloads on Android Up 2% Since April, Says Chomp
Jun 29th
Mobile application search and discovery service Chomp just released its latest app search trends report, and tucked away in the data is promising tidbit for Android app developers to note. There has been a slight, 2% increase month-over-month in the number of paid applications downloaded on Android.
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Paid Downloads Up on Android
Android still struggles with paid applications, of course. Chomp found that 95% of the downloads seen through its network were free in May, and only 5% were paid. However, that’s 5% in May vs. just 3% in April – so, a small jump up.
The company further broke down the paid app downloads by price range, and found that the group with the largest number of paid downloads is the group containing the 99 cents apps (1.7%). The next highest group was the one where apps cost $2 or less (1.5%).
The paid app with the most referrals on Chomp was Beautiful Widgets (£1.99 or about $2.87), which goes to show that Android users are still very interested in phone customization.
Overall though, the most popular category on Android is Games.
iOS Paid App Downloads Decrease
Meanwhile, iOS saw a slight decrease in downloads during the same time, but only by a negligible 1%.
More trends are available in Chomp’s complete report, here on Slideshare.
App Search Analytics: May 2011
View more presentations from Chomp Inc
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97% of Android App Downloads in April were Free, Says Chomp
May 30th
Last week, we cited a study from mobile analytics firm Distimo that stated the majority of paid Android applications were downloaded less than 100 times. On Android, folks like the free apps, it seems. Now, to back up that report with additional data, we have mobile search firm Chomp’s report for the month of April.
During this past month, 97% of all Android downloads throughout its search properties were free apps, and that number has increased by 2% over March, the company says.
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If the Distimo study didn’t make the Android developer’s heart sink a bit, Chomp’s new pie charts surely will.
97% of Android Downloads were Free
On Android, Chomp found that apps in the $4.01-$5.00 range stayed consistent with 0.3% of the download volume since March, but all other paid apps declined. And, as noted above, the large majority (97%) of Android downloads were free apps.
Above: Android apps in April 2011
Paid Downloads on iOS Increased 3.8%
To put this in perspective, developers with paid apps on iTunes saw downloads increase by 3.8% over March. Price points showing the most growth included the $0.99 group (1.9%), $1.99 group (0.7%) and the $2.99 group (0.6%). Of apps priced over $14.99, the $23.99 price point took 37% of the market share.
Above: iOS apps in April 2011
Maybe even more telling was the use of Chomp’s “free” filter in April, a filter which allows you to see just the free apps. Android users applied this filter 12% of the time, while 33% of all iOS queries used the “free” filter. Perhaps this is because Android users already expect the apps to be free? That would be our guess.
More trends and statistics are available in the full report, available here from Chomp.com.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Chomp for Android is a Promising, but Imperfect, Android Market Alternative
Mar 3rd
Chomp for Android is a new release from Chomp, a company’s whose search engine for iPhone apps launched last year. Available as both an online search engine and downloadable application, Chomp offers an attractive user interface for finding new Android applications which improves on the official Android Market application in many ways.
Unfortunately, where the service’s search algorithm breaks down is in one of the most important aspects: the nature of what it indexes and how it ranks its results. This is why a search for “fitness” yields dozens of results but a search for “navigation” returns nothing.
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Pros: Chomp Looks Beautiful, is Easy to Use
In terms of sheer design, Chomp is the clear winner when compared with the Android Market, in our subjective opinion. Within the Chomp for Android app, search results are displayed as cards you flip through, swiping from side-to-side with your finger. Below the results are related tags which will take you to a new page of results for similar titles. Also on each search result card is an image of the app, a “Get It” button, a truncated item description, a link to read more and a chart showing Chomp’s user ratings for that particular app. Buttons at the top of the search results let you quickly narrow down the items with filters for showing “paid” or “free” apps and “games” or “not games.”
Chomp also offers app suggestions as you type. For example, start typing “Puzzle” and you’ll be directed not only to categories and tags like “puzzle games” and “jigsaw puzzle,” but also to specific titles like “Kids Shape Puzzle Lite” and “Puzzle Blox Arcarde!” The order of these items’ listing is based on Chomp’s relevance algorithm.
Con: A Mixed Set of Results
Unfortunately for Chomp, its actual search results are a mixed bag within its Android application. At first, it seemed as if Chomp was only indexing application titles and not descriptions, which is why a search for “navigation” returned zero results in Chomp – perhaps the navigation apps out there didn’t include “navigation” in the title? But a comparative search on the official Market proved that theory incorrect. On the first page of the Android Market’s search results was a listing for “Waze: Community GPS Navigation.”
Chomp says that, actually, its algorithm returns results for apps based on what they do – that is, their topic, description, etc., in addition to the title. It also notes that a “search by developer” function is underway.
A second test search for “fitness” (inspired by the screenshot on the Chomp’s Android Market listing page) returned dozens of results, but some of those were odd inclusions. For example, the fifth result was “Lightning Bug – Sleep,” an ambient noise generator that helps you relax and fall asleep. It may be vaguely health-related, but sleeping is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking “fitness.” Similar white noise applications followed in subsequent results.
Meanwhile, the same search on the Android Market returns results where first page listings are all actually related to working out, training, bodybuilding and diet/exercise tracking. No “sleep aid” apps to be found. In our opinion, Google’s algorithm did a better job here and in several other test searches we tried.
On the flip side, though, the blog Android Police noted that a search for “mail” returns “Gmail” as the first result in Chomp, but that same search on the Android Market doesn’t see Gmail on the first page of results. This test, says the blog, “demonstrates the superiority of Chomp’s category-based algorithm.”
To be fair, some reviewers have also found this algorithm to be the better choice, including those at LifeHacker and TechCrunch. However, ThinkMobile and Phandroid gave Chomp more mixed reviews. Your experience will likely vary, too, depending on what type of application you’re looking for.
In Short: Promising but Needs Work
At the end of the day, a search tool for apps needs to function at least as good as the official counterpart it aims to replace, if not better. Chomp has the good looks to make it a promising alternative – in fact, it’s one of the most attractive mobile search user interfaces we’ve seen to date. But without a better algorithm for helping surfacing relevant apps, it won’t see the adoption it could have otherwise.
That being said, Chomp for Android is still a very new application and will be improved upon in time. Already a top mobile search destination for finding iPhone applications, it’s worth seeing how well its Android search technology improves over the months ahead. Assuming it can address some of the concerns cited here, and better its results set, Chomp could be a contender as a viable Android Market alternative. For now, however, it will only serve to supplement, but not replace, Google’s official Android app store.
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