Show HN: Famigo helps families find iOS and Android apps | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Famigo helps families find iOS and Android apps

7 pointscodypo2 comments

As a parent, it's really hard to find good mobile content for your kids. Not only is there an issue with quantity, with over a million apps between iOS and Android, but there's also a quality issue, in that so many of these contain ads, in-app purchases, or content that's not completely kid-friendly (looking at you, fart apps). We're working on the solution to all of this at Famigo - http://www.famigo.com

At Famigo, we've built a system to help find and recommend great apps for families. We approach this problem in a lot of different ways: our staff reviews every app on the site, our rankings are crowd-sourced based on what parents actually find helpful, and then we throw some machine learning in there based on app trends over time. The result is that, if you want a free, educational, iOS app for a 5 year old, we've already got those identified.

We've learned so much from the community here at HN and would love to hear what folks have to say. The URL again is http://www.famigo.com.

I've found a number of fantastic iPad apps for my 2 year old. Our favorites at the moment are the ABC series by Peapod labs. I complete agree that it is hard to find them -- in particular because Apple doesn't have a "Kids" category -- they have "Education" and "Entertainment".

I think Famigo is a great idea -- though it would help if you had a "How old is your child?" prompt on the homepage, instead of burying it in the "Power Search" because I could care less about great apps that aren't appropriate for my kid.

I also feel like the most important thing I want to see in an app is some kind of educational experience. I'm not going to give my kid the iPad just to pacify him with a game -- I wish your site presented me with a straightforward way to filter by educational value, as opposed to "free/paid" since I'm willing to pay for an app if it is well rated and educational, but won't download a free game. I know the power search gives you a checkbox for educational, but that's not the same thing. Further -- does it count as educational just because they say so?

Some other concerns I have with Famigo:

* I can't see how to rate an app on your site.

* If I could rate, I'd like to be able to rate by the quality of educational content i.e. does this app do a good job of teaching ABCs or Counting?

* I couldn't find our favorite app "ABC Music" by searching, nor could I find "Cat in the Hat" what gives?

This is very interesting. I have 4 kids, ages 3, 5, 6 and 17. Finding good iPad apps and games for the 3 youngest is HARD.

I'll take a closer look later today but this is definitely a pain point for me and (I'm guessing) other parents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com