Quixey

Have you noticed the snowballing apps trend? There are hundreds of thousands of apps out there. Desktop software, web apps, apps on social networks, apps on mobile phones, apps on CRMs, Firefox extensions, plugins, desktop widgets, and next year even apps for your car. Each month, the pace accelerates, with more and more platforms and apps getting released.

Yet, when you get into a situation where one of these apps can actually do something helpful for you, suddenly there's a huge market failure. If you need to...

• Track invoices for a small dental clinic
• See what iPhone apps will be cool to have on your trip to France
• Get something to help you to be a better musician
• Get the best software for helping your kids practice reading

...then, realistically, you're probably not going to do anything. It's just too much of a pain to search Google and wade through various blogs, spam sites, and web pages offering apps that you aren't sure can meet your needs. Think about all the hassles:

• You can't describe what you want. Go to the iTunes store and search for "be a better musician" or "musicianship". No results! You will have to rack your brain for the right keywords to describe specific app features: "ear training", "scale practice", etc. Shouldn't you be able to just type in what you want?

• You can't describe your circumstances. Go to Google and search for "apps for dentists" or "going to Paris apps". The results are a mess. If you want to browse the vast multitude of apps, shouldn't you get to see what apps are useful for your profession, your destination... your circumstances?

• You can't evaluate the best match for your needs. Go to Google and search for "software to teach kids reading". If you're lucky, you'll find a nice listing like "best educational software", and download their recommendations. But why settle for "best educational software" when you want to know what's best for teaching kids to read? Shouldn't you get to see a list of educational software sorted differently depending on whether you search for "teach kids reading" or "teach kids math"?

So: I just left my job at Slide, moved from San Francisco to Sunnyvale, and for the last month I've been working full-time as a co-founder at a small startup called Quixey. Quixey's mission is to enable you to discover apps. We plan to launch an early beta in January. Until then, you can follow the Quixey blog.