My alma mater (which is also the university where I work) just released an iPad application for its student newspaper, the Optimist.
Of course, the folks at my university (myself included) are excited about this product, and about the chance to explore what publications can do on a tablet device like the iPad. But a few voices (including those of my friend and critic @chrylis, and MediaPost writer Steve Smith), pulled me from my personal revelry long enough to ask an important question: Why choose to make a native iPad app when one could make a mobile-optimized website instead?
In his critique of the iPad and its apps, Steve notes several apps (particularly, apps of publications) that provide more limited content compared to their online counterparts and fail to make up for that limitation through seamless navigation or personalization. @chrylis questions the utility of an app that runs only on one device, as opposed to a mobile website that would run on many.
They're right.
No new product (including mobile applications) is worth buying (or selling) if it doesn't add some value above the products that are already available.
If a new product does the same thing as something else on the market without doing it better, or more easily, or more conveniently, or less expensively, or with greater access, or with more satisfaction, then it has missed its mark as a new product that meets consumers' needs.
If an iPad app looks like its online counterpart, but with less content, more restricted navigation, less ubiquity, and no additional not-available-via-web features, then the web version will prove more useful to both iPad-users and non-iPad-users.
Steve Smith recommends two ways of differentiating iPad apps from their web versions: personalization and navigation. I would add a third: communication.
Personalization would enable an iPad user to configure an app based on their personal preferences. Maybe this means pulling in information specifically relevant to the user's interests. Maybe it means adjusting viewer settings to fit the user's lifestyle. Maybe it means reconfiguring navigation so that the viewer's favorite features are the easiest ones to access.
Navigation on the iPad should work intuitively, should flow gracefully, and should access data simply. Maybe this means simplifying the menu to just a few categories. Maybe it means reducing visual clutter. Maybe it means letting users customize the menu to their own preferences. Maybe it means expanding or hiding extra content with just a touch. Maybe it means taking advantage of two axes for scrolling "deep" into a topic versus "wide" across topics. Maybe it means a visually-logical arrangement of information, instead of only lists.
Communication should enable iPad users to easily share comments, connect apps with social media, and integrate information from various sources. Maybe this means allowing activity on an app to update a user's status on their social networks (as desired). Maybe it means that comments made in an iPad app would show up on web versions as well. Maybe it means that users can collect articles from various apps into a centralized database, so that users can bookmark pieces of information, cross-link them, and add their own notes.
As Steve Smith pointed out with current examples of successful iPad apps, the personalization and navigation pieces are already being achieved by several app makers. I suspect that the communication piece will require additional development and exploration, perhaps even in the capabilities of the iPad SDK. Regardless, these value-adds must be part of an iPad app if the app is to be more useful than a mobile-optimized website.
With your own products, whether mobile or not, are you adding value for your customers? Or can their needs be met just as well (or better) with another item on the market?
Showing posts with label application. Show all posts
Showing posts with label application. Show all posts
Friday, April 9, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Giving Handles, Selling Blades
(or, How to Make Money by Giving Free Stuff)
I just bought my first iPhone last week. Since then, my continuing odyssey through the wonderful world of the iPhone App Store has inspired some musings on why free apps (and other free products) can be great money-makers for an organization. Absurd, you say? Let me explain with an example.
One application I have downloaded is RunKeeper Free, by FitnessKeeper, Inc. The app uses the iPhone's GPS and a timekeeper to record distance, duration, pace, and speed. RunKeeper Free also provides me with a Google Map of my route, plus allows me to save my run history to the app and/or to the RunKeeper website, where I can also view Calories burned, elevation, and start/end times for each activity in my history. And, of course, because of the iPhone's multitasking abilities, I can also listen to my tunes while RunKeeper tracks my workout.
FitnessKeeper, Inc. also offers a paid version of the application - the RunKeeper Pro. For $9.99, the RunKeeper Pro provides the same features as RunKeeper Free, as well as audio cues, training workouts, iTunes playlist integration, the ability to post geo-tagged photos and status updates, and integration with social networking sites. The RunKeeper Pro also runs without the small, silent, inobtrusive ads contained in the free version - ads which, incidentally, I did not even notice until their absence was highlighted in the description for RunKeeper Pro.
A download button (linked to the iPhone App Store) for the RunKeeper Pro is included on a screen within its free counterpart.
So, if FitnessKeeper, Inc. offers a robust $10 application, why do they also offer a free version? Won't the free version cannibalize the paid version? Would anyone pay $10 for the Pro version when he can get the most valuable features for $0 with the free version?
The answers to the last two questions are "probably not," and "yes," respectively.
iPhone users who would download the free version (me, for example) would probably only download an app like this if it were free. If the only version available were the paid version (or the $10 paid version anyway), such users would probably decide that the app was not worth downloading after all. They would choose another, free, app, or no runner app at all.
Some iPhone users will download the $10 RunKeeper Pro right off the bat, even though they know that a free application with most of the same features is available. These users are probably either hard-core runners (possibly), exercise-motivation-seekers, or gadget aficionados (most likely). To these users, it is worth $10 for audio cues, pre-programmed workouts, playlist integration, photo-sharing, and social networking features unavailable in the free version. Thus, offering the RunKeeper Free does not steal the business of these paying customers.
Still other iPhone users will download the RunKeeper Free, and later decide to upgrade to the $10 RunKeeper Pro. Perhaps they loved the free version so much that they were ready to try the paid version. Perhaps their curiosity got the best of them, and they just had to try out the additional features. Or perhaps they developed into such avid runners that they came to see the RunKeeper Pro as a good buy.
Whatever the reason for the upgrade, the RunKeeper Free paved the way for some prospective paying customers to become actual paying customers. The free version enabled FitnessKeeper to build trusting relationships with potential customers. And it provided opportunities for RunKeeper Free users to show off the app to their running buddies, some of whom might be the types that would purchase the paid version.
And so, one can think of the RunKeeper Free as less of a profit-less product, and more of a marketing tool for the RunKeeper Pro.
It's like the strategy of razor manufacturers. Gillette, I'm told, sends a free razor to young men on their eighteenth birthdays. Those young men like the experience of shaving with a Gillette razor, so they keep coming back to Gillette to buy replacement blades.
Also, free products (or paid ones, for that matter), like the RunKeeper Free and RunKeeper Pro can connect the organization to fans who might also pay money for other items. FitnessKeeper could have among its customers a market for more FitnessKeeper gear, like t-shirts, running shorts, sweatbands, socks, watches, etc.
What products can your organization give away for free? And not just demos or promotional products, but real, useful tools that can benefit consumers and can help you to start building a fan base? Out of that trust-relationship, those fans may become paying customers for your other product offerings. Or, even better, they may spread the word to others like them who become paying customers, too.
I just bought my first iPhone last week. Since then, my continuing odyssey through the wonderful world of the iPhone App Store has inspired some musings on why free apps (and other free products) can be great money-makers for an organization. Absurd, you say? Let me explain with an example.
One application I have downloaded is RunKeeper Free, by FitnessKeeper, Inc. The app uses the iPhone's GPS and a timekeeper to record distance, duration, pace, and speed. RunKeeper Free also provides me with a Google Map of my route, plus allows me to save my run history to the app and/or to the RunKeeper website, where I can also view Calories burned, elevation, and start/end times for each activity in my history. And, of course, because of the iPhone's multitasking abilities, I can also listen to my tunes while RunKeeper tracks my workout.
FitnessKeeper, Inc. also offers a paid version of the application - the RunKeeper Pro. For $9.99, the RunKeeper Pro provides the same features as RunKeeper Free, as well as audio cues, training workouts, iTunes playlist integration, the ability to post geo-tagged photos and status updates, and integration with social networking sites. The RunKeeper Pro also runs without the small, silent, inobtrusive ads contained in the free version - ads which, incidentally, I did not even notice until their absence was highlighted in the description for RunKeeper Pro.
A download button (linked to the iPhone App Store) for the RunKeeper Pro is included on a screen within its free counterpart.
So, if FitnessKeeper, Inc. offers a robust $10 application, why do they also offer a free version? Won't the free version cannibalize the paid version? Would anyone pay $10 for the Pro version when he can get the most valuable features for $0 with the free version?
The answers to the last two questions are "probably not," and "yes," respectively.
iPhone users who would download the free version (me, for example) would probably only download an app like this if it were free. If the only version available were the paid version (or the $10 paid version anyway), such users would probably decide that the app was not worth downloading after all. They would choose another, free, app, or no runner app at all.
Some iPhone users will download the $10 RunKeeper Pro right off the bat, even though they know that a free application with most of the same features is available. These users are probably either hard-core runners (possibly), exercise-motivation-seekers, or gadget aficionados (most likely). To these users, it is worth $10 for audio cues, pre-programmed workouts, playlist integration, photo-sharing, and social networking features unavailable in the free version. Thus, offering the RunKeeper Free does not steal the business of these paying customers.
Still other iPhone users will download the RunKeeper Free, and later decide to upgrade to the $10 RunKeeper Pro. Perhaps they loved the free version so much that they were ready to try the paid version. Perhaps their curiosity got the best of them, and they just had to try out the additional features. Or perhaps they developed into such avid runners that they came to see the RunKeeper Pro as a good buy.
Whatever the reason for the upgrade, the RunKeeper Free paved the way for some prospective paying customers to become actual paying customers. The free version enabled FitnessKeeper to build trusting relationships with potential customers. And it provided opportunities for RunKeeper Free users to show off the app to their running buddies, some of whom might be the types that would purchase the paid version.
And so, one can think of the RunKeeper Free as less of a profit-less product, and more of a marketing tool for the RunKeeper Pro.
It's like the strategy of razor manufacturers. Gillette, I'm told, sends a free razor to young men on their eighteenth birthdays. Those young men like the experience of shaving with a Gillette razor, so they keep coming back to Gillette to buy replacement blades.
Also, free products (or paid ones, for that matter), like the RunKeeper Free and RunKeeper Pro can connect the organization to fans who might also pay money for other items. FitnessKeeper could have among its customers a market for more FitnessKeeper gear, like t-shirts, running shorts, sweatbands, socks, watches, etc.
What products can your organization give away for free? And not just demos or promotional products, but real, useful tools that can benefit consumers and can help you to start building a fan base? Out of that trust-relationship, those fans may become paying customers for your other product offerings. Or, even better, they may spread the word to others like them who become paying customers, too.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Mobile App Idea #1: Gas Station Locator
From time to time, I think of ideas for marketable new products or services. My dear readers, I would like to share some of these ideas with you. If you find one of my ideas to be absolutely brilliant, so brilliant that you want to actually develop it, please do so. Unless otherwise noted, I will demand no royalties for my ideas.
However, if I conceived an idea, I might have further insights on how to actually implement it. You may want to pick my brain. Or at least send me a thank-you note for inspiring your profitable new invention. Just a thought.
Allow me to share with you an idea that came to me today for a new mobile phone application: a Gas Station Locator.
Running out of gasoline can be a rather inconvenient experience. Not that this has ever happened to me, of course; this is just what I hear.
Someone (maybe a fuel company? maybe AAA?) should develop a mobile phone application that uses the phone's GPS to locate the nearest gas stations. The app could be geo-visual, like the Nearest Tube application for the London Underground (see the YouTube video below).
The Gas Station Locator app (perhaps it could be called "Fuel Up!") could generate bubbles containing relevant information for each gas station - items like the station name, distance, estimated driving time till arrival, gas prices, sales and specials, availability of restrooms, and customer ratings. Maybe the application could even communicate with the vehicle's computer, to report how much further one can drive before running out of gas. Perhaps the driver could set a minimum gas level (something like "3 gallons", or "1/4-tank"), below which the application would automatically open and start locating nearby gas stations.
But drivers staring at cell phones kill people, you say.
The app should be completely audio-driven and voice-activated, so that the driver does not even need to look at the phone. The driver could ask the application to audibly list the stations in order of distance, or gas price. The app could even give spoken, turn-by-turn driving directions to the selected gas station.
Do you think drivers would like an app like this one? Do you know how to build it? How to coordinate all of that information? You are welcome to develop it with my blessing - you might be nice and let yours truly download it for free, though.
However, if I conceived an idea, I might have further insights on how to actually implement it. You may want to pick my brain. Or at least send me a thank-you note for inspiring your profitable new invention. Just a thought.
Allow me to share with you an idea that came to me today for a new mobile phone application: a Gas Station Locator.
Running out of gasoline can be a rather inconvenient experience. Not that this has ever happened to me, of course; this is just what I hear.
Someone (maybe a fuel company? maybe AAA?) should develop a mobile phone application that uses the phone's GPS to locate the nearest gas stations. The app could be geo-visual, like the Nearest Tube application for the London Underground (see the YouTube video below).
The Gas Station Locator app (perhaps it could be called "Fuel Up!") could generate bubbles containing relevant information for each gas station - items like the station name, distance, estimated driving time till arrival, gas prices, sales and specials, availability of restrooms, and customer ratings. Maybe the application could even communicate with the vehicle's computer, to report how much further one can drive before running out of gas. Perhaps the driver could set a minimum gas level (something like "3 gallons", or "1/4-tank"), below which the application would automatically open and start locating nearby gas stations.
But drivers staring at cell phones kill people, you say.
The app should be completely audio-driven and voice-activated, so that the driver does not even need to look at the phone. The driver could ask the application to audibly list the stations in order of distance, or gas price. The app could even give spoken, turn-by-turn driving directions to the selected gas station.
Do you think drivers would like an app like this one? Do you know how to build it? How to coordinate all of that information? You are welcome to develop it with my blessing - you might be nice and let yours truly download it for free, though.
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