Archive Page 2
(because it’s not mine!)
Many of you might have received an email about a birthday party scheduled for tonight. Hopefully you’re not planning on coming because the party isn’t mine — it’s actually a humorous misunderstanding caused by an overly aggressive planning web service.
Perhaps you’re familiar with Plancast.com – ’foursquare for the future.’ Well, last week I received a facebook invite to my friend Madeline’s birthday party. The event was titled “My Birthday Extravaganza (i.e. Maddy boops is an old lady).”
When I RSVP’d for the event, Plancast scraped the event and added it to my profile.
Then it e-mail blasted this to all of my friends:
And at some point Plancast also announced the event from my twitter account.
Five different friends emailed me to ask about the event. Some were disappointed they weren’t explicitly invited (“no party invite? i’m hurt”) Other expressed their regrets that they couldn’t make it. And some were just confused (“I completely got all the way to adding the party to my calendar in outlook, when i finally realized that it wasn’t your birthday party and you’ve never once been called maddy boops or whatever in my hearing”).
This is partially a result of the confusing name of the event. But it also caused by Plancast’s lack of focus around who actually planned the event. In fact, on my Plancast profile page it proudly announced “You planned this!” This isn’t an issue for large scale public events where the host doesn’t matter, but for private events the system is a little bit broken.
Regardless, I’ll be sure to let you all know when I have my own birthday extravaganza!
(P.S. Did you notice the awesome picture at the top? They’re binary candlesticks!! “The only birthday candle you’ll ever need. One candle with 7 wicks that you light depending on your age. Works for birthdays 1 through 127.”)
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- Apple’s app-focused marketing. Apple’s marketing focused strongly on apps. People buy the devices with the intention to purchase lots of apps! In fact, the average user has downloaded about 50 apps (over 4 billion apps have been downloaded and 85 million devices have been sold). Wowza!
- Lack of an Android Touch. The iPod touch nearly doubles the amount of devices with access to the app store (from 50M to over 85M). No equivalent device exists on Blackberry or Android. There simply aren’t that many Android devices yet.
- Lack of awareness among BlackBerry users. Most Blackberry users don’t know they can download apps. (I’ll go out on a limb here and say that Facebook has done a great deal to help, but awareness is still lagging.)
- Poor penetration of Blackberry App World. Blackberry is a late comer to the app store game. Blackberry App World only launched a year ago in April 2009. Blackberry App World doesn’t come preinstalled on new Blackberry phones! Users have to manually install the software to access the store. This is ridiculous.
- Blackberry’s App World’s bias away from paid apps. Blackberry doesn’t make you setup a payment method to access App World or download free apps. This creates a roadblock for paid apps and creates a huge bias towards free applications. Paid apps require Paypal which many users hate.
- Poor Android app store experience. Best explained here. And for paid apps, Google checkout is required which hasn’t really hit widespread adoption. So it’s not surprising that Admob reports 63% more app purchases for each iPhone user vs Android users (1.8 vs 1.1 monthly paid apps). Even most Googlers can’t purchase paid apps because of weird restrictions on their employee unlocked handsets.
So those you have it — a few potential reasons for the differences. At the end of the day I believe small developers are best advised to put their energy into developing for the Apple platform. Building products for the other platforms probably doesn’t make sense at present time unless you have a game-changing mobile vision for a product that’ll take years to complete and needs the openness that Android provides. Or if you’re a startup showing traction that relies on a strong network effect to take over the world (ie Foursquare). Or if you’re a big company with tons of cash to build out your branded app — like Facebook, which tries to have versions available for every phone possible! But gosh, I’d hate to be that engineer locked in a basement building for all six users of the Sony q7d3m1p$9!&9b7u64gph model phone.Possibly Related Posts:
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Everyone loves an underdog. In the mobile world that underdog is named Android. AdMob’s latest mobile metrics report, released today, has already caused the press to make grandiose statements like “Watch Out iPhone, Android Use Is on the Rise” and “Android Passes iPhone In US Traffic.”
But let’s look at the numbers to make sure we’ve got the basic facts right: there are more iPhones sold everyday than Android phones. How do I conclude this? In Google’s Q1 2010 Earnings Call, Jeff Huber reported 60,000 new Android activations per day. Sounds impressive. But consider that Apple reported 8.75M iPhones sold this past quarter. A quarter is three months long or ~87 days which means Apple is moving 100,000 iPhones a day.
So Apple continues to sell nearly twice as many phones as Android. Now add in the fact that Apple sold close to 11M iPods too (unclear what % are the iPod Touch, but it’s safe to assume a majority) and it’s clear that Apple continues to be the big winner in terms of mobile OSes. In fact, to date apple has sold 85M iPhones and iPod Touches. Android is nowhere close: even if we generously annualize the current sales figures and add a year, android’s user base would still only be at 21M.
So how the heck did Techcrunch just run a headline reading “AdMob: Android Passes iPhone Web Traffic In U.S.”?
Simple answer: the methodology itself has a major flaw. AdMob is simply reporting the ad request that runs through their advertising network. These figures heavily depend on the adoption of Admob’s services — i.e. the relationships they’ve formed with app publishers and websites. And the adoption of Admob’s services across platforms varies widely. Also, Android apps are twice as likely as iPhone apps to be free (which generally correlates with ad supported). So Admob’s ad impressions are simply NOT a good proxy for the overall state of the market. Especially seeing as Comscore pegs Apple’s share of the smartphone market as 25.4% vs Android’s 9%.
For now the underdog hasn’t won. They haven’t even come close. And everyday Apple continues to add more users than Google. Until that changes, the real usage figures won’t be anywhere near each other.
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I recently had the pleasure of meeting two MBA students with big ambitions: they want to redefine online shopping. I sat back in my chair and listened closely as they pitched their ideas for an entirely new online shopping experience. 3D this, interactive that, Web 2.0 the other thing.
As they laid out the extensive feature set they envisioned and the millions of dollars in venture capital they were hoping to raise to build this product, I was struck by an interesting realization: the concept of a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) is actually quite counterintuitive. Don’t you want your product to be as awesome as possible? Features are good, so how could fewer be better?
Manhattan is full of gorgeous skyscrapers. No self-respecting person walks around thinking to themselves “Gosh, if I were going to build a skyscraper, I’d want mine to look like shit.” That just doesn’t happen! Instead, we have a natural tendency to want to ‘one up’ the status quo: “I’m going to build a skyscraper out of gold!”
But in software, version 1.0 of your product should look like shit! Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn famously said: “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
The heart of the issue is that very few of these minimal viable products exist in the real world. Why? They rarely stick around! Customer feedback quickly drives additional improvements and features. Soon, memories of the mediocre original product completely fade away! How many of us realize that the original iPhone didn’t have apps?! It wasn’t until July 2008, an entire year after the iPhone debuted, that the app store launched. But today we only see the final product.
In a world of beautiful skyscrapers and impressive technologies, thinking small seems futile. But in this economic environment, a minimal viable product is more than just a nice concept. It’s a requirement.
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Good interfaces should be designed around an economy of clicks. Or in the case of the iPhone, an economy of taps. Put simply: apps should allow users to achieve key goals with as few finger
taps as possible.
Exit Strategy NYC’s extremely simple interface asks only three key pieces of information:
1) What subway line are you riding? (tap the line’s icon)
2) What subway station are you going to? (tap the station)
3) What is your direction of travel? (tap ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’)
The app then shows the platform diagram for this station. Three taps — that’s it! In and out in fewer than ten seconds. Compare this to the Tube Exits interface design (Tube Exits is the London equivalent of Exit Strategy NYC.) The user has to tap over a dozen times just to get the same information!
One of my favorite apps, Foursquare, took a step backwards in their latest update. Previously you could check in with two taps: once on the venue, and once on the ‘check-in’ button. Easy Peasy. But the latest update added an additional step after the ‘check in’ button. This change added no functionality, only friction.
If you’ve ever played the Settlers of Catan iPhone app, you’ve seen another worst case scenario. Users must tap a tiny “Continue” button every time the next player’s turn comes up. It’s unnecessary and it’s frustrating.
Using an app with poor tap economy is like trying to run a marathon in the ocean. You exert much more effort and get nowhere fast. There’s too much friction. Tapping is mentally taxing, especially when it lands users on an entirely new screen. The user must review this new screen, then figure out which elements are interactive, then decide which one will help achieve their goal, and then tap again! Each additional screen/tap shoves one more roadblock between the user and their end goal.
The best services let users do more by doing less. This makes users feel powerful. Have you ever used Amazon’s one-click checkout to place an order? If not, please try it. It’s 
thrilling to use! Similarly, Griffin’s iTalk app features a giant ‘record’ button that feels magical. With a single tap, the user can start recording because the app picks smart defaults and stays out of the way.
The only time having an extra tap makes sense is when the alternative is worse: a cluttered user interface. Good UIs balance which elements are shown and which are hidden. Consider Facebook’s decision to add the grid button in the upper left corner:
Economy [of taps] is always a motivating factor, but the grid adds an extra tap [because you need to press the grid button] versus the full-time tab bar. This was a compromise I felt was necessary. There’s always that balance between screen clutter–adding tabs–and the number of taps.
-Joe Hewitt Quoted in Chris Dannen’s iPhone Design – Award Winning Projects
At the heart of many apps is a single core goal that your users hope to achieve — repeatedly. For Exit Strategy NYC it’s retrieving information. For iTalk it’s recording audio. For Foursquare it’s checking in. For Amazon it’s purchasing items. Don’t make your users run in the ocean. Remove as much friction as possible. Let them fly in the sky! The quicker the user can perform their goal, the better they feel about themselves. And the better your product makes them feel, the more they’ll fall in love.
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Jonathan Wegener is a technology & marketing enthusiast living in Brooklyn. Jonathan was once told in an interview that he "thinks too much." He didn't get the job. But it was the greatest compliment he's ever received.
This blog focuses on technology, business/marketing strategy, and startups. Number crunching and back of the envelope calculations are emphasized.
Jonathan spends his time writing about technology, consulting for startups and small local businesses, and working on his own entrepreneurial endeavors. He is the co-creator of Exit Strategy NYC and is currently looking to get involved with early stage startups and talk to people with big ideas.
Feel free to reach out via gmail: jwegener
and follow on twitter. Also visit www.jwegener.com And subscribe to my feed:
