App recommendation site
Chomp, which is like a Yelp for iPhone apps, took a big bite out of iTunes App Store in its first week, accumulating 111,000 reviews through its iPhone app since launching last Monday.
Chomp lets you make simple app recommendations and then studies your tastes to help you find other ones. The problem with the existing app store is that there are more than 100,000 different apps, making it overwhelming to find useful ones that fit your needs. Chomp makes the review process fairly lightweight -- you "like" and "dislike" apps with heart and broken heart icons, and you can add tiny 60-character long reviews. For the 111,000 number, Chomp counted the like and dislike votes as reviews, and declined to disclose its actual download numbers.
The four-person team behind Chomp got it into the top 25 free apps for social networking in the iTunes store, which helped propel more downloads throughout the rest of the week. CEO Ben Keighran said the company relied on press and "organic growth" rather than advertising to nudge the app into the top 25 list. Getting Internet personalities involved, like Digg founder Kevin Rose and iJustine, also helped, he said.
The company has raised $565,000 in angel funding from Ron Conway, Aydin Senkut and Auren Hoffman.
