Not a lot has changed since my first posts of 2006 from the original blog below, so here is a small update as I bring it over to Blogger; when we were
doing some of the first mass-distribution apps (nokia festival guides
pushed to 100,000 of festival goers on over 1,000 different devices) or
2008 when we saw the iphone taking grip. Back then, everybody who went
to the festival wanted the app, just not everybody could have it.
Now,
everybody wants the apps, and thanks to iPhone and then android quite a
few people can have them. What has changed, I hear you cry, is that its
not just the odd app, there is an app for everything. To which I will
answer: yes, however, even with 500,000 apps on the app store, and 100
apps on my phone, I only use a few of them on a daily basis, and they
have not changed that much:
- News and magazines have been revolutionised by the iPad, obviously, but even on smartphones, with apps like Pulse
- PIM is generally managed by social apps these days, but also on OS
- Entertainment has skyrocketed: doodlebug, cut the rope, angry birds, etc need no introduction, neither do ebook apps
- Travel evolved from apps like tripit to more social environments
like PIM did: foursqaure, facebook places and more... also specific apps
like tubeexits and apps to check buses, trains and even Boris (BoJo)
bikes are making travel that bit more civilised, unless you are
travelling low-cost by air, and then you are stuffed :)
So what else? well to be honest the world is going social, and
with that you have 90% of what most people use daily, and what is
driving apps:
- Smartphones
- Mobile social networking
- Mobile networks driving point 1, but not necessarily directly
driving point 2! MNO app strategy has to diversify post Vodafone 360,
Blackberry app store, Ovi and other carrier and handset manufacturer and
OS providers attempts to mimic an iPhone down approach rather than
focussing on their strengths and a multilateral approach to enagaging
data users.
- Interesting apps and games by interesting people, this first revolution happened when everybody embraced iOS and then Android, but will skyrocket with HTML5 giving access to everybody, not just coders, to build great (and crap!) content
Original post from 2006 on "So what is driving mobile applications":
- Personal Information Management (PIM), as
we move from a world of "this is my laptop and I cannot work until I
have Outlook and Office premium edition installed" to a world of 1gb
Gmail and MSN, basically our info has become centralised. trying to
access this info via WAP will be, well challenging, and if you do not
know your pop3 settings for your PC, why will you for your mobile: the
Gmail ODP is clearly the way forward
- News/RSS/etc. lets face it; news WAP
site are terrible, and RSS is that terrible combination of boring and
complicated... get with it, I would download an ODP for The Register,
the FT and the BBC tomorrow, and in doing so a) visit their site more
often, and b) forget their competition forever!
- Magazines; We all have our favourite
magazines, some have tried to become MVNOs, most have email newsletters
to capture our imagination mid-print. However, our consumption is
changing, we now forgive print for being up to 2 months out of date for a
monthly magazine because of all the glossy pictures and the ability to
relax on the sofa on a Sunday or on a flight thumbing the pages... but
at the moment we go elsewhere for the mid-week fix, in the form of
different web-sites, weekly magazines, etc. The sensible magazine would
reward and keep our custom with up-to the second info on what of their
mag most matters to me, you and the guy in the lounge with the same
magazine as me who will be sitting in seat 2C, but needs to know about
the latest gadget as or before it hits the press releases.
- Entertainment: Calling a number and
going through an IVR system is no way to order a gig or cinema ticket,
and there is no graphical means of representing the purchase, or a map,
or any other potentially useful information. a cinema application, lets
you browse gigs and events and even bars, see where they are, read
reviews and, most importantly allows people to browse and make a
purchase in their own time, as well as receive info and even original
media (you only get this ringtone if you order via mobile) as well as
the other keepsakes like the tickets, which can be sent in the post as
usual. A mobile app also allows people to browse events after hours and
on the weekends, when these kind of purchase decisions are made. If you
have done your research on Channels to market by personality types,
MBTI, etc. you will also know that IVR/telephone only appeals to
extroverts in nature, which is OK-ish in the US, where 50% of your
client base will make impulse purchases via an outgoing means, but in
the UK and most of Europe that is as low as 30% of your market.
- Travel. My problem with Lastminute.com
in the late nineties, is the same problem I have with Lastminute.com,
and every other travel provider over ten years later; who wants to
browse holidays on their computer? Well quite a lot it seems, however,
as with entertainment above, a lot of impulse purchases would be done
via mobile. Moreover, more peripheral orders would be done via mobile,
such as hire car, hotels, restaurants, tours, guides, etc. As the
application already knows you are going to Rome on the 12th September.
However, the other day I woke up particularly early on a Saturday and
decided to see if I could get a ticket to Santander, which places you in
the death grip of Ryanair only if you live in London... their website
could not even sell me a ticket on the same, day. Instead there was a
message to ring reservations... Reservations had another message that it
was out of hours and to ring a premium number... I had to ring three
times to get the number down (buying golden numbers to help your
customers would just be a waste of money wouldn't it!). I finally rang
an extremely expensive number 3 times to be told "the other party has
hung up". You may argue that if Ryanair cannot even get their web and
phone channel in order, what would they do with a mobile app? That is
the glass half empty approach, the glass half full is: what is Ryanair,
Easyjet and even the flag carriers like British Airways, doing without a
way to browse, and buy tickets via mobile in order to gain a
competitive advantage, or in the case of Ryanair, to actually have a
same-day channel at all!
originally posted by Christian Borrman 22:19pm 20/12/06, updated 12:56pm 15/05/08
