Hey HN,
Here's the first version of my web app search engine and directory for which I would love to hear HN's opinion. Starting from Crunchbase's datafeed I've been working nights and weekends for the past couple months to clean and curate the data, design the site and build the web crawler. The next release will include several social features including app following and discussions (sign up for the private beta if you want first access when it's launched). If you're an app creator feel free to add yours using the "Add Your App" button on the bottom.
Hey - cool first version (the design is incredibly polished for a first version!). There are a few sites out there doing this (but in the mobile space) - Quixey's probably the biggest, but some other directories/review sites that might be worth looking at (if you haven't already) are FeedMyApp and AppStorm. Not saying this idea has already been perfected- but these other sites might provide some UX ideas beyond the MVP you built here.
I'm a huge fan of the hover on the search results page - very well executed. I think the browse by category on your homepage could be more clearly defined - I see what you did but the actual apps draw way more attention than the category titles, so there's a bit of a disconnect there (you feel like you're just browsing a list of featured apps, without much order to them, despite the fact that they're organized by category).
Thanks for the feedback! Quixey is probably the site most similar to mine and they're certainly not the only player (just met a couple guys from there at yesterday's Super Happy Block Party Hackathon).
I agree with you on making the homepage category links more prevalent. I figured it might be a problem but liked the design enough to keep it. Guess I'll be changing that up now. The order is actually based on traction (an index I've come up with based on publicly available data on each app).
I would get rid of the hover over effect for search results. It's distracting and not particularly useful. The design is very polished aside from that.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 21.4 ms ] threadThanks for checking out my project.
I'm a huge fan of the hover on the search results page - very well executed. I think the browse by category on your homepage could be more clearly defined - I see what you did but the actual apps draw way more attention than the category titles, so there's a bit of a disconnect there (you feel like you're just browsing a list of featured apps, without much order to them, despite the fact that they're organized by category).
Excited to see the next version..
I agree with you on making the homepage category links more prevalent. I figured it might be a problem but liked the design enough to keep it. Guess I'll be changing that up now. The order is actually based on traction (an index I've come up with based on publicly available data on each app).