With over 85,000 apps on Apple’s App Store alone, the task to find apps tailored to your needs and likes is daunting. Who wants to sift through that? Sidebar is hoping to help smartphone users with the process of finding the perfect apps for their phones. An app in itself, Sidebar will ask you a series of demographic questions (gender, age, location) and a series of questions to determine your interests and content preferences (i.e. what type of news do you prefer, do you play online games, what types of outdoor activities are you interested in). Once Sidebar figures out a rough sketch of who you are, the app will begin to recommend mobile content to you.
Sidebar will recommend daily content to you within the app, including videos, games, music, apps, ringtones, podcasts, promotions, news articles. The app will load no more than 12 content recommendations per day, which will last for 24 hours until the next batch of recs are sent to you. Recommendations include a short synopsis of the app or content and a screenshot or image. If you like the rec, you can save it and and download or access it later.
The startup has also recruited two seasoned professional to help run operations. Patrick Kennedy, a former Sony Pictures Digital exec, joins the company as president and CEO. At Sony, Kennedy oversaw Sony’s entry into mobile entertainment and the creation of Sony Pictures Mobile. Sidebar’s new COO is Kieran Hannon, former CMO of online retailer Cooking.com and former marketing EVP at Helio.
Kennedy tells us that the app, which is free, will be available on Apple’s App Store and for other smartphones, such as the Blackberry and Android within the next three months. The service around Sidebar is compelling. While there are other ways to find recommended apps, such as the App Store itself, and websites like 16 Apps, it’s great to receive the personalized recommendations on your mobile device.
Have you guys seen the AppStore search engine http://uquery.com ?
It’s very easy to find apps for my iPhone
I am using http://uquery.com to find my apps. It’s a search engine dedicated to find iPhone apps. Very fast.
Kind of logical you use it…since you created it…
Cool
When I tried to sign up, for my windows mobile, I was told that it wasn’t ready yet. As for OP posting about uquery. Wouldn’t that be counter-intuitive to anyone NOT running an iPhone which is the point of sidebar, NOT for iPhone apps, but for the rest of us WM users?
Sorry one more comment, when I went to the website, in the banner displayed in the title of the page, it states the following:
“Download Blackberry and Android Application” So where is the WM functionality?
Sanjay, Veronica is correct – I’m the director of marketing at Sidebar and the reason you received that message is because we have not yet launched. If you signed up to receive information from us on the website, we will send you an email to download the Sidebar app when it becomes available. Thanks for your interest in Sidebar!
That sounds pretty cool… anything to help the process of finding useful apps!
Hi Sanjay,
Just wanted to note that the article mentions that Sidebar would be available “within the next three months” so that’s most likely why you’re receiving the ‘not ready yet’ message.
I also looked at the site and it says “We’ll send you an email when SIDEBAR is ready to download, along with instructions.” Sounds like they’ll contact you as soon as it’s downloadable.