Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Marketing’

01 Dec 2009
3

The Future of Mobile Technology: A Discussion With Charles Stack By Hans Erickson in Misc.

I recently watched a video discussion on the future of mobile technology with Charles Stack, current CEO of iNomadics, the man credited with selling the first book over the Internet and a pioneer in e-commerce.  It was quite interesting and I’m going to outline my key takeaways from it.  Here is the full 40 minute discussion:

The Mobile Landscape Just 6 Months Ago

This was taped in May of 2009.  And reaching back across those 6 long months ago Charles had some very revealing statistics:

1) There are 4 billion+ mobile phones on the planet

2) Mobile Internet usage was up 500%

3) This accounted for half of the new internet connections being made.

Bottom line, people accessing the Internet over mobile is seeing explosive growth.

The New Paradigm

The new paradigm that we must understand that the rise of the mobile phone has created is this:

  • Always There – mobile phones are almost always with us
  • Always On – they’re always on, for many even throughout the night while it charges
  • Location Aware – the biggy, it always knows where it is (and you)
  • Touch – intuitive interface that relies on the most primal of human instincts
  • Motion Control – goes along with the above
  • Multimedia – this device can create and deliver virtually any form of media in common use; picture, text, and video

Charles’ main point here is that anytime there is a paradigm shift we must pay attention to the differences, for within all shifts are new opportunity.  Take any one of the above attributes of mobile phones and it’s not to hard to see the vast possibilities.  “People now have an electronic device on their person constantly?  Create tools that a person may need throughout their day.  These electronic devices know where they are in the world at all times?  Deliver information that is relevant to their surroundings…” etc.  You get the picture.  This represents an amazing change in the way people interact with the world.  I believe that Charles quipped that his son hardly speaks, but that he sends 1100 texts a week.  Clearly his son can communicate, but massive a shift has occurred.  It’s up to us how we respond.

The Future of  Mobile Phones Through Apps

Charles went on to categorize the types of uses he sees for mobile phones:

  • Interstitials – basically time wasters, games etc.
  • Memory Augmentation – Wikipedia, any online or offline resource we use to access information, be it personal or public
  • Social Networking – social connection creation or maintenance
  • Remote Operation – operating electronics remotely or accomplishing tasks from afar
  • Mobile Presence – anyone who can benefit from a mobile presence, retailers, venues etc.
  • Manufacturers – same as above
  • Field Personnel – tools to optimize workers in the field, repairmen etc.
  • Nomadic Tribes – basically independent workers, freelancers etc.

So that’s about it.  Very good discussion.  Where do you see the future of mobile technology headed?

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

19 Oct 2009
1

Mobile Marketing 101 By Anthony Nystrom in Mobile Development

Mobile Marketing 101
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

01 Oct 2009
0

Analysis of the Techcrunch 2009 Web App Survey By Hans Erickson in Case Study, Mobile Development, Mobile Development News

Techcrunch has released the results of their 2 month Web App Survey.  Some pretty interesting results.  I’ll highlight the ones I found most interesting. First off, the good and bad news.

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A quarter of the respondents have apps that see 10,000 active users or more!  That’s 20,000 apps that are seeing some fine activity.  But 30% have 100 or less users.  24,000 apps just sitting there.  First off, I’ve seen the quality (or lack thereof) of that bottom tier so I’m not too surprised.  Too many developers cranked out ill-conceived or poorly executed apps in a rush to “the gold rush.”  I’m actually more surprised that 20,000 apps are getting a fair amount of use, given the sheer number of apps and their seriously limited channels of discovery.  But then again, there have been a purported 1 billion apps downloaded, clearly some apps are getting used.  And that bottom tier begins to make even more sense when you consider the following:

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It is clear by now that the mobile app market is a very different beast than many industries, having seriously limited channels of delivery and discoverability, and with that in mind it could be argued that spending gobs of money on marketing won’t yield traditional results.  But for 54% of developers to just push it out there and then sit back and see what happens seems silly.  And of course it’s probably that same 54% reported that their app costs them nothing to maintain.

The next several slides go through the number of people working full time for the app in various capacities.  75% report zero to one full time engineer (with 34% of that reporting zero).  And with that the rest make sense, full time designers; 65% don’t have one, full time marketers; 59% don’t have one, full time managers; 59% don’t have one.

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Nearly 50% have just one founder.  The picture of a lone developer, working late into the night on his/her app really seems to hold true, at least half the time.  And when you account for the other 32% of founders that are reporting being a team of two, it’s not hard to see how a whopping 82% of applications are bootstrapped. Basically one or two people working together on their own dime and time to create an app.

But I’d like to close with some good news for those wishing to develop a mobile app and make it their living. Look at the following slide:

Picture 9Read one way, 79% of apps are supporting 1 or more people.  Now we don’t know what being “full time staff” really means in terms of what people are getting paid, but I have to assume that the majority of these people are making a some sort of decent living.  So it can be done.  Like all statistics I’m sure there is much more of a story here, but gleaning what we can from the above I’d say that mobile app development is still a compelling proposition.

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30 Sep 2009
4

Marketing Mobile Applications: Some Great AdMob Metrics By Hans Erickson in Case Study, Mobile Development, Mobile Development News

The mobile application market is still pretty young compared to many industries.  However, not many industries have experienced the explosion of uptake and growth that the mobile app world has seen in the last 15 months.  To lend some clarity on how best to deal with this mushrooming beast is AdMob, the mobile advertising platform, with their study on iPhone and Android App Discovery and Usage issued this past August.

First lets look at the findings.

Point of interest number 1: 90% of app discovery takes place on a phone.  This is a monumental shift from web and desktop applications.  No longer confined to sitting at a computer, people are hunting for new apps from virtually anywhere, to the point where “looking for new apps” could possibly be considered a form of entertainment in itself.

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Point of interest number 2: iPhone and Android users are spending an average 80-90 minutes a day using apps.  Granted, this number was arrived at utilizing some assumptions, but even without the weighted assumptions the numbers are still remarkable.  Over a third of iPhone and Android users are on their phones for more than an hour and well over half of iPod Touch users are using apps for more than an hour:

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Point of interest number 3: iPhone and Android users are downloading about 10 apps a month and iPod Touch owners are downloading 18 apps a month.  Of further interest is the fact that iPhone users are actually buying the most apps, averaging 2.6 per month. iPod Touch owners are a little behind that with 2 apps per month, surprising given the almost double rate of downloading.  Android is far behind with roughly 1 paid app sold a month per user.

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Point of interest number 4: Free to paid upgrading is the most significant driver of paid app purchases.  This holds true and is roughly the same across all platforms.

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What This Means for Marketing and Application

1) Visibility in the respective app stores is the number one way to drive downloads. With 90% or more of apps being found from a toilet seat, a bus bench or a couch the absolute best way to drive the sale of your app is to show up in the rankings or other high visibility parts of the app store interfaces.

2) A large portion of users are spending a significant amount of time on their phones. These numbers seem greater than what anyone was predicting two years ago.  Not only is possible to reach a highly targeted and interested audience through platforms like AdMob or Google Mobile Ads, but you can turn around and utilize these platforms to make money by serving ads in your apps.  Or look into mobile branding opportunities that don’t necessarily rely on click-through rates, but are more about a brand getting it’s message to simply show alongside your quality content.

3) Make a Lite version of your application. Study after study has come in over this past year showing that Lite versions drive paid downloads.  Perhaps it’s the double visibility, or the “try before you buy” advantage, but either way, Lite versions boost sales, and if it is simply adjusting or restricting the functionality of what you’ve already built, there’s no reason not to.

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