Mobile Strategy » Application Stores

Making the Most of Mobile Through Partnerships

Jose HC — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:48:42 +0000

I have commented about this same topic before… to some of you personally. Just wrote a little something over at the other site but thought I would paste it here directly:

… the entire mobile banking landscape will succeed only through partnerships. Banks partnering with other service providers… (but to what extreme? And at what cost to the customer?).

A very important partnership is the one between those that provide services to the banks… Enterprise software providers, mobile app developers, system integrators – the best way to break in and go deep in mobile with a bank will be based on your partnerships with others. This is especially true for startups in the mobile space – go out and seek partnerships with providers who already have entrenched relationships with the big banks.

Success for a lot of startups in this space will be dependent on their ability to forge partnerships and alliances as they tackle the big enterprise clients. The mobile ecosystem is no longer straightforward… it is a complex web of relationships, connections, networks and partnerships.

Leverage who you know to get in where you want to get in. Leverage the relationships that others already possess to get your foot in the door.

You can develop a little app and throw it up on any of the application stores… but to break into the enterprise market (especially in finance, healthcare and government) you need to have more than a fun or cute little mobile app. You need to have much, much more than a Twitter account and recent grad pushing out tweets… you need a mobile strategy.Similar Posts:

Carnival of the Mobilists #202: Of Mobile Platforms, Stores, Acquisitions and Banking

Jose HC — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:12:36 +0000

After almost a year of following Carnivals and submitting our own entries as well it is a privilege for the Mobile Strategy Blog to host the 202nd edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists! For this week we have thought-provoking pieces, inside scoops, tough questions and overall interesting posts on a variety of topics. All of our writers provide a reflection of what is happening in the market as they discuss Mobile Operating Systems, application stores, Google’s latest acquisition (AdMob), mobile banking and mobile financial services. So let’s get started…

For this edition we welcome back MOpocket which after a long hiatus is back and sharing with us the inside scoop on Windows Mobile 6.5.1. Of special interest to Windows Mobile followers is the answer to the question: Is WM 6.5.1 real? It also includes a bonus high-level explanation on the difference between resistive and capacitive displays.

Enrique Ortiz writes a provocative piece that will surely get BlackBerry fans upset. He proposes several reasons why RIM should drop the BlackBerry OS and go with Android instead.

Over at WIP Jam Thibault interviews the CEO of Handster. What is Handster you ask? A white label provider of appstores for carriers, device manufacturers and other distributors.

MSearchGroove presents a podcast this week that opens up by declaring the exciting month of November – as an all about Android month. It does well in asking the uncomfortable question as to how many Android devices have actually shipped? It touches on Google’s purchase of AdMob and how the giant is in fact buying distribution relationships with mobile publishers more than anything through the acquisition. There is of course … go listen check it out.

This week we welcome Carnival newcomer David Eads from Mobile Manifesto who lives up to his blog’s subtitle of providing strategic insight into mobile commerce with an analysis of Scotiabank and M-Com’s announcement last week that mobile banking will be available in Canada in Spring 2010. David asks some good questions and wonders what will actually be delivered. David’s piece follows where my earlier post on Mobile Financial Services in Canada left off.

If you are new to the Carnival don’t forget to read about it here… If you want to play catchup you can read last week’s Carnival (#201) at Burning the Bacon with Barrett.Similar Posts:

Just For Fun: Microsoft Makes Fun of App Store

Jose HC — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:11:23 +0000

A lot of truth in this half-funny video regarding the App Store and poor applications. But of course funny videos could also be aimed at Windows Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, etc…

But for the sake of simply having fun take a look at the video below.

I found it over here.Similar Posts:

Mobile Applications and Loyalty

Jose HC — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:25:27 +0000

Add this one to the interesting and confusing column. But you should still pay close attention.

Take a look at the following:

73 percent of Blackberry owners have downloaded 5 or fewer applications; in contrast, 72 percent of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more applications. [Source]
Smartphone Owners Only Use Half of Installed Applications Regularly (Only 57% of all Smartphone applications on a device are being used regularly).
Apple users download and install the most applications, [but] they do not necessarily use the installed applications any more than other Smartphone users do on a regular basis. Android users report that they have removed one-third of the apps that they had installed on their Smartphones, while BlackBerry users keep almost all of the applications they download. [Source for this and previous point]

With respect to iPhone users the previous point is further reinforced by the stats over at the Flurry Blog a few weeks ago:

Loyalty by Application Category

Only an average of 25% of iPhone applications are used after three months. If you allow me to mix some numbers we can make a jump and perhaps even conclude that BlackBerry users are more loyal and less fickle than iPhone users. But before we do that, let’s take some further liberties with the numbers.

Some Crazy And Loose Analysis

If we take the following statements from above…
1. ’57% of all Smartphone applications on a device are being used regularly’
2. ’73 percent of Blackberry owners have downloaded 5 or fewer applications‘
3. and on top of these we add the fact that ‘BlackBerry users keep almost all of the applications they download’
Then we could loosely conclude (I sound like an analyst don’t I) that …
We could then also take the following statements from above…
1. ’72 percent of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more applications’
2. Apple users download and install the most applications, [but] they do not necessarily use the installed applications any more than other Smartphone users do on a regular basis.‘
3. ’57% of all Smartphone applications on a device are being used regularly’
4. But to this one we can add the extra ingredients provided by Flurry that on average only 25% of applications are in use after three months.

Again we could once more loosely conclude (I am now blushing) that …

Careful With The Numbers

It is actually difficult to know who to believe. Everyone has different numbers and a different story. At times you get the distinct impression that everyone is trying to sell you something (oops, hold on – everyone is!). The numbers above from Strategy Analytics and Flurry seem to me to be more credible than some of the other figures I have seen over the last few months. Did I mention loosely already? Maybe I am being too harsh. Perhaps the problem is that anyone can do anything with numbers (as I have in the above exercise).

Take a look for example at the App Store Market data (also published in this blog) from AppsFire that claims…

an average of 65 apps installed per device

There is certainly a big delta between 2.5 and 65. Back when I wrote it I cautioned against taking those numbers at face value since the sample was both small and probably slanted to power users.

At the end of the day we are all responsible for what we buy into or not; and how we use that information. However, the main conclusion we can draw out of this is one that you probably already know if you have been deploying applications for some time:

Don’t ignore the end user! Or your application will be dropped like a hot potato!

It is still surprising to me how many times I have seen applications deployed or new systems installed without the end user being consulted (or at least studied) and without any awareness of the day-to-day processes. The same applies to mobile consumer applications and that’s where the lifeflow versus workflow idea came from.

In the meantime… what do you think:

About the numbers and the data being thrown out there?
Do you believe it? Does it match your reality and what you have seen?
What does it tell us about the differences between BlackBerry and iPhone users?

Enterprise Mobility Implications - We will touch on these over the next few days. Loyalty in the consumer space is great but when we talk about adoption and ownership in mobile enterprise users we are diving into the deep and murky waters of workflows, design, usability and even mobile application analytics. Stay tuned. Similar Posts:

Mobile Application Development And Consumers – Going From Workflows to Lifeflows

Jose HC — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 06:34:43 +0000

Much has been written on how innovative ideas are born, evolved and tested first on consumers before they make their way into the enterprise. We have seen it with Web 2.0 and social media and social networking. This is absolutely true and the consumer market proves to be a wonderful and invaluable living lab for the enterprise. In most cases the enterprise doesn’t have a choice since after the consumer market tests and likes something they take it to work!

Becoming A Better Mobile Application Developer for Consumers

Today I am going to propose something that will go the other way instead. It goes backwards (so to speak) from the enterprise to the common folk out there. If you learn this small and valuable lesson you will become a better developer of mobile consumer applications. You may not become a rock star in the App Store overnight but your hard work will pay off in the end way after the rock star’s have faded. Your applications will be more relevant, meaningful and useful to the end user.

I made the following point a few days ago:

…if we want to talk specifically about mobile workers the conversation cannot revolve around any one of the above points. Instead it needs to focus on one thing:

the mobile worker as part of a process that adds value to your organization

I was trying to drive the point that you you need to focus on the user and their process if you are going to build a mobile application that will add value to an organization. Don’t mobilize for the sake of mobilizing! Do so because it adds value.

From Workflow to Lifeflow

If you are developing in the enterprise you do (or you should) a careful process analysis of those roles you are going to mobilize. You study the workflow – the steps involved to produce that product or deliver that service…

Crude and Simple Workflow

I have seen a lack of rigour and structure among far too many mobile application developers. The App Store has not helped matters since now everyone wants to develop for that shiny object in the room. A shiny, distracting object!

If we look at the consumer the same way we look at a field worker, a sales person or any other type of mobile worker I believe we would have better, more user-friendly and truly relevant mobile consumer applications. You can’t really study someone’s life to the extent that you study a process … but you can certainly take the context and given situations, study and analyze those. I could almost bet that the best consumer applications out there were either done by studying lifeflows or by folks with a deep understanding and first hand experience of how those flows go (because they lived them).

Crude ... but definitely not simple Lifeflow!

Even though I can write for hours about this subject I am not going to… Today I will drop this on you and if there is some interest out there in helping me explore some use cases then maybe we will continue this topic. If not I will just take my little flow and go home.

(What I would really like to do is start a repository of Lifeflows so others can use these for development purposes… I know it is a stretch… anyone?)

Not All Mobile Applications Are Created Equal

Jose HC — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:17:45 +0000

And therefore do not require the same metrics. Of course if you are developer for-fun as opposed to a for-profit one you may note be too concerned about this. However you will never know where and how to improve something unless you measure it. If you measure there is a better chance of understanding how your applications is being used…

A lot of times there is a mad rush to put something out there and then we simply forget about it… and worry only about installations and nothing beyond that. But you should worry about it especially if we consider our recent post on media convergence and mobility.

I can’t say much more about this right now but come back (subscribe at the top right) and you will see this topic blossom into a full-fledged discussion.Similar Posts:

Mobile Search Now With Video – YellowPages.ca iPhone App Updated

Jose HC — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:56:47 +0000

Yellowpages.ca issued a press release this morning announcing a sweet update to their iPhone application:
New Version of YellowPages.ca™ Mobile Search Application for the iPhone™ puts Video in the Palm of your Hands (links and pictures below).

Yellow Pages Group (YPG)(TSX:YLO.UN) launches a new version of its popular YellowPages.ca^TM local search application for the Apple iPhone. The latest version features advertiser video content and continues to put the power of Yellowpages.ca in the hands of on-the-go users.

As a local advertiser with Yellow Pages (Canada) you can now include videos. I think that’s great for local merchants and advertisers! But this update is even more important to me as a consumer since now I can get a better taste and feel for what the merchant is like and what they are offering before I set foot (or call them). Why is this important to me as a consumer? When so many of the products or services I need are available from so many different vendors what typically converts me into a return/repeat customer at your shop is not what is on the shelf (since everyone else has the same thing) but it is the experience around what is on your shelf. You got it – it is you and your sales staff. You better believe that if you have a video I will be looking at it if I am looking for what you are selling.

Perhaps I am a simple shopper (simple minded some would argue) but the purchasing decision for me is (and has to be) surrounded by the right experience. Let me give you an example. I have been using the same cleaners now for almost 20 years. I tried to leave them several times (yes I did cheat on them) but I always ended up returning to them for one reason – because I like them! I know their names (Jeff and Lucy) and although they might be a little more expensive than the place 2 minutes away from my house, they are friendly, they do a great job, they are environmentally conscious and they know me and call me by name. Whenever I visit Jeff and Lucy it is always the right experience and that is why I drive 20 minutes out of my way to my old neighborhood.

In a big city I still look for the personal touch. And I think the video on the YellowPages.ca iPhone application will help me pre-qualify some of my vendors.

Here are some screen shots of the application. I will play with it a little so you can feel free to ask me questions later this week.

App Store Market Data (from AppsFire)

Jose HC — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:21:43 +0000

The mobile service AppsFire released some interesting numbers recently, which are provided for you down at the bottom. Before the numbers first a brief explanation of what AppsFire is:

AppsFire allows you to share with your friends your lists of favorite iPhone Apps. All you have to do is download and install AppsFire app on your Mac or PC, let is scan your Apps on iTunes. Then it will point you to your private AppsFire page where you can decide which app you will share and actually share them the way you decide (email, social networks or widget).

In other words, it is a social service that enables you to share what apps you have installed as well as seeing what your friends have installed and what they think about these. Take a look at their home page below. It is a service similar (yet different) to Yappler.

AppsFire Front Page

Okay, so what are the numbers?

[AppsFire] used a sample of 1200 appsfire users (meaning that we know precisely what each user has) and took anonymously (we insist on the privacy respect), a picture of what’s exactly installed on each single iPhone. We then aggregated this data to produce a unique overview about what can be found “on average” in an iPhone.

Now for the numbers… (remember it is based on 1200 users)

Over 15,000 unique apps installed

On average 65 apps installed per device

$80 spent per iPhone

$1.56 = Average price of paid app (including free apps)

$2.87 = Average price of paid app (excluding free apps)

$0.99 = Median price of paid app

7% of users only have free apps (and typically less than 20 apps installed)

65% of the apps installed are free (vs. 35% paid)

The biggest conclusion out of all this is that through data extrapolation the folks at AppsFire claim the total App Store market to be around $3.3 Billion.

If we take the information at face value it is an incredible number that will continue to fuel the App Store phenomenon. However, I would caution at taking these figures as given mostly because I would consider AppsFire users to be iPhone and application powerusers (i.e. junkies). Many of the iPhone users I know do not install anywhere near to 65 apps on their device.

Unfortunately, some will only focus on the dollar figures and continue to feed the craze. What folks don’t realize is that not every brand necessarily needs a mobile application; not every brand needs to be on my hip (or purse) with me. Folks need to recognize that a mobile strategy is more than just throwing an app together. Sometimes this might hurt the brand more than it helps. Lots to think about.

Below is the original Slideshare presentation followed by a video.

Appsfire : App Store real market data insights

View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.

AppsFire Video

Source: AppsFire Posterous
This story also appeared on TechCrunch.

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