2011 has been an amazing year for Chomp! The app market has seen explosive growth, and as apps surpass a billion downloads every month, app search and discovery are more relevant than ever. This year we have covered a lot of ground with product launches, partnerships, new technical advisors and our expanding team of scientists building and improving our technology.
In September, we announced our partnership with Verizon. We will be powering search in their new Verizon Apps store and Chomp app search will ship in every Verizon Android phone. Verizon has a fantastic team, and we enjoyed working closely with them at the Verizon Application Innovation Center. Partnering with the largest U.S. carrier to power search for Verizon Android users has been a significant milestone for Chomp.
September also marked the launch of Chomp Search Ads. This is the first ad product that connects app advertisers to consumers searching for apps. The new program, which is currently in private beta, allows developers to bid on keywords or phrases, which deliver their ads when users search on those terms within our app search engine. Chomp Search Ads matches app ads to the most relevant potential customer, resulting in quality ad matching for both the advertiser and the consumer. We have already had an incredible response to the private beta!
In August, we announced that two prominent scientists had joined the company as technology advisors – Dr. David Blei, a Princeton University assistant professor and machine learning expert, and Dr. Don Metzler, a USC assistant research professor, Information Sciences Institute computer scientist and information retrieval expert. Drs. Blei and Metzler join Chomp to further strengthen the company’s technology lead in app search. They work directly with my Co-founder & CTO, Cathy Edwards, and our Chomp team of PhDs and scientists from Berkeley, MIT and Google.
We pride ourselves on innovative and cutting edge design. In addition to launching Chomp on Android in February, we released a new version of our iPhone app with a completely redesigned user interface in September. We have made discovering apps a more dynamic and enjoyable experience.
Thank you for your support this year. We will be bringing you even better app search in 2012, along with exciting new announcements. Keep searching and discovering great apps!
Ben Keighran
CEO & Co-Founder
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