Here at Ruckus, our mission is  to create experiences through mobile devices that entertain toddlers to teens from their fingers to their minds ― and invite their imaginations to grow.  We started this company because we noticed that children were going more and more digital, and we wanted to provide the best digital story-telling experiences possible.  We are always on the look out for other family-friendly companies to team up with, and Famigo is one.

Famigo is a start-up company located in Austin, Texas that is working to make mobile technology family-friendly. They create tools that make it easy for parents to find and manage content for their smartphones and tablets.  The very first tool they have developed is Famigo.com, a resource for parents that curates and reviews kid-friendly Apple and Android apps.  They have reviewed and featured several of our apps on their site including My Little Pony: Twilight Sparkle, Teacher for a Day, The Velveteen Rabbit and Spot the Dot.

Curious to find out more about what Famigo does, we sought out their co-founder, Q Beck (Yes, his first name is just the letter Q, and no, it doesn’t stand for anything.) to get the inside scoop on how this company is making mobile work for families.

Ruckus: How did Famigo come about?

Beck: Famigo was founded because we saw an opportunity to improve the mobile experience for families. From app discovery to typical daily family use, mobile devices just aren’t made for parents and their kids. We want to make it easy for families to use smartphones and tablets as a family.

Ruckus: What is the idea behind Famigo.com?

Beck: Famigo.com was created to solve the problem of app discovery for families. Parents don’t have the time to wade through the Android and Apple marketplaces to find new apps for their kids, and often it’s hard to even know where to begin.  Our site makes it easy to search for apps based on a bunch of different criteria, like the age of your child and whether you’re searching for a game, educational app or book.  We also give you the lowdown on each app by assigning a family star rating and giving the “cool” and “drool” (the good and the bad), as well as providing you with assets from developers. This way parents won’t have to waste time or money downloading apps that won’t work for their family.

Ruckus: Have you noticed that family time is on the decline and technology time is on the rise?

Beck: We have and we wondered “Why do family and technology time have to be two separate things?” We think it’s sad when everyone’s immersed in their own separate, digital worlds. There are so many missed opportunities to have shared experiences that make our families that much more awesome.

This is Famigo’s mission, to bring families together through technology.

In order to help as many families as possible, we’ve started our quest for a better world for families with Android and iOS. Smartphones are everywhere, affordable, and easy to use. But, more importantly, they have a huge potential to bring us together through shared experiences. Whether we’re playing Words with Friends, sending emails, or simply talking to one another, smartphones have the capability to keep us connected like never before.

We started the process of making smartphones better suited for families with Famigo Family App Review. It’s a tool that helps you discover family-friendly apps, making them easy to sort through by categorizing based on age and function, and then reviewing them so families know what to expect before they buy and download.

Now we’re going a step farther by making any Android safe for even the youngest members of families through our the Famigo Sandbox, our Kid Safe App Launcher. It’s a win-win for parents and kids. The Famigo Sandbox gives kids their own play space within the phone where they only see the apps they already love and want to be playing. It also helps parents by locking down the phone so their child can’t make calls, send emails, click on ads or get out to the web.

By making smartphones work better for families, we’re hoping that parents and kids will have the tools they need to create awesome shared experiences together. Which will, in turn fulfill our mission of bringing families together through technology. (See how we did that? Pretty smooth, we know.

Ruckus: How does the app review process work?

Beck: The number of stars an app receives from Famigo is determined by our team of app reviewers who fill out a lengthy questionnaire on each app that algorithmically determines each app’s family rating.

This questionnaire covers such topics as: Ease of Use, Educational Value, Entertainment and Family Usefulness. Scores from each of these sections are calculated and together they result in the Famigo Family Rating.

These questions and our rating algorithm are based on feedback from our research of how families evaluate apps.  Families reported that they look for apps that are easy to use, educational, entertaining for all ages, and free of violence, nudity or inappropriate content.

Ruckus: How do you choose which apps to review?

Beck: All of the apps you see on the site have been hand-picked by our team of trained app reviewers. They select up and coming, brand new apps that have family-friendly content and appear to be great for kids.

Ruckus: Beyond Famigo.com, where is Famigo headed?

Beck: We have some big releases coming up very soon that we’re super excited about that we hope will make smartphones and tablets even more useful for parents.  We’ll always ultimately be working towards our goal of making mobile technology family-friendly.