Quixey is lifting the veil on its fully automated, self-described “functional search” engine for applications Tuesday. Instead of simply searching for an application by its developer-generated description, the user can search and discover apps by Quixey-defined functions.
Tell Quixey what you want to do — see sports scores, edit video, find cheap gas, etc. — and the search engine will return results, ranked by relevance, with all of the web, Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, Firefox, IE and Chrome apps that match your query.
You can filter the results by type, or by associated platform — sa y, for instance, you’re only in search of applications that remove redeye and plug in to Flickr (as the photo illustrates). On the right-hand side of the page, Quixey displays system-generated text for each app that attempts to inform you whether the app lives up to its stated purpose.
The startup grabs app information from forums, blogs, social media sites and additional unnamed sources in an effort to return the highest quality results. Quixey’s keeping mum on exactly how it goes about indexing applications and defining its search algorithms — in part because it took the seven-person team a year-and-a-half to build the new technology to collect data on apps — but app popularity, rating and download figures all factor into the secret formula.
Some queries are better than others. Enter “Identify music,” and Shazam and SoundHound appear at the top as they should. But search for “stream music” or “ play music” and the...
