What Users Find Most Valuable About Apps

Google have just released a useful report on the adoption and usage of mobile apps.

Named "How people discover, use, and stay engaged with apps" the document is a helpful resource for those who are looking to develop or improve their apps.

There's some good insight included, such as whether price or privacy are most important when deciding whether to install an app. And that the average number of apps that users have installed on their smartphone is 35.

But perhaps the most important finding concerned what users find most valuable about their favourite apps... and the perhaps unsurprising finding is that they rate usability highest. Yup, the fact that they’re easy to use and navigate makes users love apps the most.

Read the full Google report here

The Wider CIO Role In A Digital Age

The role of the CIO has evolved over the last decade or so. In my opinion this is primarily as the technology services, digital products and online marketing industries have changed considerably over that period.

Cloud, Apps, SaaS, micro services, and a bunch of other technologies & paradigms now means that:

• Hosting a online service with 99.9% availability is just a £10/month subscription rather than a £100,000 per year investment
• Developers no longer go to offices and work where work is, but instead sit in their bedrooms and offer themselves to the most innovative opportunities
• Your customer (or customer's customer) is now online at any time... and more than ever before likely to be viewing your services via a smartphone
• The new Chief Digital Officer role came & went, with a lot of their work being picked-up by the CIO (and some by the CMO)
• Vendor lock-in is less of a concern than a vendor that doesn't have an API

All this also means the CIO role in the digital age has become more strategic than ever to the CEO. 

This is because, as software replaces more and more things, every business is becoming a technology business.

Never bet against Google in 2014

Over the last dozen years Google has grown to be one of the most dominant online players, perhaps the biggest. Its current market value is about $350bn and all signs are that it can continue ruling the online space, despite several factors, including:

1.  More and more people using mobile devices for their daily searching and browsing activity
2.  Increased competition from Microsoft’s Bing.com search engine (which has blatantly tried to copy Google’s model and put a lot of money behind it’s promotion)
3. A list of discontinued products that have surprised on-lookers and left some users high & dry (e.g. Google Apps: closed in early 2012 and Google Reader: a feed-based news aggregator which was dropped in July 2013)

However despite Google’s mantra of “Don’t be evil”, which tries to set it apart from the more traditional software and IT services companies... it’s sheer size and might means it can’t help but disrupt any market or segment it decides to move into. From mobile phone operating systems & devices, to the Chrome operating system and a web-based email service (that became the top provider about a year ago) Google continues an upward trajectory. The consequence of this is that it is probably the only company able to challenge Apple in some areas of consumer electronics and communications.

What this means is that betting against Google in anything it decides to do is an unwise move. So if it targets any market or products that your company is in over the next year or so… my advice is, get out.

the corporate layers - an idea developed

In a recent post I started to work through my thoughts around the development of McKinsey's company software layer concept. I mentioned that I thought there was at least one obvious omission (e.g. web services) and that a single layer to explain it all was too simple.

So now I find myself putting forward an evolved version of this idea, unashamedly taking McKinsey's model as the basis of it.

Corporate layers

View more PowerPoint from Hayden Sutherland

As you can see from my embedded presentation there are now five proposed layers rather than just two.

1. Core business processes
2. Web services & API’s
3. Owned media such as website(s), Apps, Kiosks, etc.
4. Paid media such as online advertising (PPC, etc.)
5. Earned media such as Social, Word-of-mouth, etc.

Although I believe the lines between owned, paid and earned are now becoming increasingly blurred, there is a place for each of the different communication media in my new model.

So I have a mobile app developed - now what?

In today's final guest post from Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps, he answers questions on the important subject of what to do once you have your mobile application actually developed for you.

Do I need to promote my mobile app once it has been launched?
Well actually, the promotion should start before launch so that you have already generated interest in the app and your target audience are waiting in anticipation. Once the app has been launched you then have about a week to really push it and take advantage of being featured in the ‘new app’ sections of app stores. After this, you need to follow an ongoing programme of activities to maintain interest in your mobile app.

So how do I go about promoting my app?
There are a number of ways to promote your app and many depend on the type of app and target audience. Some ideas are:
- Consider a website to promote your mobile app
- Consider the use of social media to promote your app : Twitter, Facebook
- Present a YouTube video
- Post blog entries on your and other people’s blogs
- Consider getting app reviewers to review your app at launch to generate interest.

What if my app doesn’t work properly and I need to get it modified?
If bugs are found, resilience is poor, users are having navigation issues etc. then it is possible to get the application developers to make the necessary changes and re-deploy the app.
However, if this proves to be the case, you may well have missed the boat as it is likely users will have stopped using the app and maybe even deleted it. The app will also probably get bad reviews which will impact future uptake. It will be very difficult to recover from this and that critical week 1 impact will have been lost.
This is why thorough app testing is vital. Prior to launch, not only must the app be tested for technical issues but it should be tested by the target audience to ensure they ‘get it’. They need to know exactly what the app does without having to stop and think, be able to navigate easily, and achieve the desired result intuitively.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps

The financial low down on mobile applications

Following on from yesterday's post about getting your app right first time, Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps anwers more questions. This time around the finances involved.

So how can I make money from my App?
There are two main options to consider regarding mobile application monetization.
1. Offering Consumers A Free App And Make Money From ....
- Advertising
- Charging for extra functionality
- Charging for upgrades
Free apps receive significantly more downloads than paid for apps therefore you are guaranteed more downloads and could then use this as an opportunity to make money from displaying adverts, offering extra paid for app functionality, offering paid for functional upgrades.

2. A Paid For Mobile Application
You can charge consumers to download your app. If you are planning to do this ...
- How much would you charge?
- What do you base your charge on?
- Have you researched what a consumer might pay for a similar app?
- Are you prepared for less downloads than if your app was free and possibly have a more aggressive marketing campaign?

3. How much does a mobile app cost?
Mobile application development cost can vary depending on the type of app required. The key factors that have impact on the cost of an app are:
- How many features will need to be incorporated
- Complexity of the features within the app
- Goals and expectations
- Has a similar app been developed before or is this completely be-spoke
- Time required to create a good design
- Estimated app development time / duration.
- Server development and infrastructure costs
- Amount of project management required
- Amount of testing required

So is it a good idea to try and get the cheapest app developer I can find, or should I use a mobile application development company who might charge me more?

There are ways of paying less than the going rate to get a mobile application developed, but the old saying ‘you get what you pay for’ very often applies.

Inexperienced mobile app developers can leave you with a mess of poor quality code that is unreliable and impossible to maintain. In addition to this, using offshore app developers can lead to communication issues and difficulty in them understanding the culture of the target market. The risk exists that you will end up with an app that you can't use properly, can’t maintain, and gets bad reviews because it crashes or behaves erratically.
It’s a common occurrence in mobile application development that clients come to us to recover ‘botch jobs‘ whereby attempting to do things on the cheap has backfired and proved a false economy. For all the above reasons, it is therefore vital that you understand the risk of cutting corners and recognise the value of handing the development of your application to a reputable mobile application development company.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps

How to get your mobile application right first time

I get asked quite a bit these days for advice on mobile platforms & applications. So I have asked Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps to answer a few questions on developing and delivering the right mobile app for businesses.

Once I have an idea for a mobile app, what’s the best process to follow to get it right first time?
There are a number of things that need to be thought through in detail. This starts with defining your mobile application requirements.
- What do you want your mobile app to do?
- What do you want to achieve with your app?
- Who is the target audience? Personas, Demographics.
- Do you have branding requirements?

How should I decide what platform to build for?
One of the key drivers to answer this question is regarding who will be using the app. It is important to understand your target audience and what mobile devices they use. Analytics from websites and apps that your target audience currently use can help with this. If you find the trend to be specifically more Android orientated, or iPhone orientated then there’s your answer.
If the app is targeted for specific business users, then it may well be that Blackberry should be the choice. It has been a common strategy for companies to develop mobile business applications first for iPhone, however this approach has often been flawed and the target audience found to be predominantly Blackberry users.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps