Simple Spark

Opinions, recommendations and suggestions. They’re now applicable to any apps listed in the Simple Spark catalog. Pimp your favorites, give them gold stars (just like in grade school) and generally get your talkiness going on any app listing.

3000+ Apps

We would be remiss to not mention that we surpasses 3000 sorted searchable apps this week. How cool is that? Our thanks to everyone who has jumped in and contributed.

And, of course, keep the feedback coming. We absolutely appreciate it.

Caffine is our friend these days, what with all the late nights and missed sleep. Suffice it to say, we’ve been working hard. But clearly, so has everyone else: there are 2700 apps in the catalog now, fully searchable and completely categorized. The amount of web software out there is really impressive, from quick and easy utilities to full-blown communities.

Categories have been expanded and refined in a number of ways and now include religion & spirituality as well as pets.

There are also a number of improvements this week that are less noticeable but will aid you considerably in your quest to find the app that’s right for you.

Peruse, browse, walk among the virtual shelves and discover cool stuff you never knew existed.

It’s been an exciting week for the Simple Spark team. As you can see, it looks a little bit different around here. Today we have updated the look of our site and we think it is a great improvement.

• –We’ve expanded our layout and redesigned the catalog to include a multi-app display. This lets you easily browse apps you might not have thought to search for.
• –We’ve also added a search box at the top of the page, so no matter where you are on the site you’ll be able to easily search for apps.
• –And finally, we’ve added a category listing in the sidebar for easier browsing.

These and many other small changes came based on feedback from our users and we want to thank all of you who have sent good wishes, comments and suggestions. Keep it up!

We’re at week three now with more goodness to share.

Improved Search

We’ve made dramatic improvements to the search results here at Simple Spark. You’ll experience results that are both exact and precise, getting you to the app you need as quickly and conveniently as possible.

Over 1700 Apps in 8 New Categories

The Catalog has grown dramatically and is now over 1700 apps. To say we’re impressed at the breadth of apps is an understatement. Go check them out and find the ones that work for you.

Identity
Sports & Recreation
Language
Auto
Polls
Publishing
Green Living
Charity

Two weeks in and we’ve some pretty cool stuff to announce.

Universal Bookmarking

We’ve opened up our bookmarking feature to 39 of the most popular bookmarking services you already use.

Which ones? Here’s the list with a little screenshot.

digg.com, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Squidoo, reddit, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, BlinkList, Newsvine, FURL, Ma.gnolia, coRank, RatePoint, BlogMarks, Scuttle, Fark, Folk’d, Maple, Netvouz, MarkaBoo, Gravee, RawSugar, Startaid, Ask.com, Spurl, BlinkBits, Blue Dot, Live, Taggly, simpy, Shadows, Searchles, Netscape, Excites, Diigo, DZone, MyLinkVault.

Want one that isn’t already supported? Drop us a line and we’ll be happy to support it.

New Categories

We’ve added two new categories in response to a number of new apps submitted to the catalog.

Family

The first is Family which includes family trees and geneology, family calendars and todo lists, places for parents to share advice, and social networks for kids.

Widgets

A Widgets category has also emerged that’s definitely worth checking out as well.

Thanks again for stopping by. We hope you enjoy the improvements.

It’s officially been one week since we launched and I’m happy to report that we’ve served up thousands of pageviews already. We figured our friends and family would come by, but it’s clear that many more have joined them in checking out our little experiment. To put it simply, thank you for coming by here and checking out what we’ve got going on.

We’ve made a lot of improvements in the past week, primarily in search results, and are adding new apps to the catalog every day. We’ll be expanding the categories in the days ahead as well as the features we offer, so stay tuned.

Thanks again and enjoy Simple Spark.

Jon and I have been working for many months and are happy to finally pull the curtain back on our project. Introducing Simple Spark, a great place to find and share a new world of web apps or, more succinctly, Simple Spark is the place to find Cool Stuff for Your Life Online.™

Smart Search for Web Apps

Search for a web app on Simple Spark to get right to the solution you need.

• - Over 1000 web apps actively tracked with screenshots, icons, descriptions, feeds and more.
• - Cryptic web app names are translated for easy searching. (Search for “flicker” and you’ll actually find “Flickr”.)
• - Find online alternatives to traditional desktop apps. (A search for “Powerpoint” will yield powerful online alternatives.)
• - Save and share any app in the catalog
• - Add or edit any app in the catalog

Browse Web Apps By Category

All apps are tagged with appropriate categories selected by the community.

• - Browse numerous categories from Music, Photos and Social Networks to more specialized categories such as Event Planning, Task Management and Time & Expense Tracking
• - View an app you know and get additional app recommendations in the sidebar.
• - Cross-categories allow you to see apps that belong to two categories at once.

RSS Feeds Galore

Track web apps in a variety of ways so that you can track a competitive space, keep tabs on your competition, or just keep up with what’s new.

• - RSS feeds are available for any search term
• - Feeds are also available for any category
• - Track the newest additions to the catalog.

As always, your feedback is much appreciated so don’t hesitate to drop us a line. Subscribe to our blog for future announcements and features in the weeks ahead.