Tag: Mobile

6 Essential Considerations For Enterprise Mobile App Development

Have you decided to develop a mobile application? But do you know that there are various factors that you need to consider before jumping in?

As we all have noticed that the mobile app market is on the rise from the last couple of years and it will continue to expand in the near future as well.

Today, enterprise mobile apps play very important role in a business environment. Generally, a business app is a complete package that is quite larger and complex.

These applications are mainly developed to combine with some other important tools that used by a company to run its daily operations.

Unquestionably, smartphones and tablets are improving the daily life of users as there is always an app of carrying out almost every aspect of the daily schedule. Currently, various businesses worldwide are looking forward to developing enterprise mobile apps for their own employees and customers alike.

As the enterprise app market is all set to expand significantly, there will be a wave of developers, who are waiting to claim their piece of cake. Therefore, how will you ensure that enterprise app stands unique? How will your application bring value to your business users?

Here, you can find 6 essential considerations that you need to keep in mind while making an enterprise application:

Ensure That You Build Multi-Level Verification

Today, passwords are not considered as the 100% safest and secure assurance from the spiteful activities. It would be beneficial to develop multiple level authentication as it will be helpful, where not only the passwords hold the main key.

Talking about this system, whenever the use processes for login, the application will send the code to the registered number and by entering the code, the users are allowed to access the application. This is a secure way to give an access to an application to only those users, who are authenticated.

Consider User Interface

As we all know that enterprise applications are mainly used by all the employees of the company or any organization; therefore, it is important to consider the functionality of the app. When developing an enterprise app for your employees or customers, you should consider usability as it comes first than any other things.

Usually, people make use of enterprise apps so that they can be better at their jobs and they will surely praise the app for making their complex work a lot easier. One of the main things to develop a successful enterprise app is to emphasize intuitiveness.

The easiest way to do this is using different icons because icons are an excellent foundation for developing a useful mobile UI. You can make use of it to instantly explain the functionality of the button.

You should also remember that you can manipulate hardware buttons as well. By doing this, you can add more amount of intuitiveness to your application’s navigation. In your application, you can include different kinds of intuitiveness through hardware buttons like Menu, Back and Home.

Never Depend Only on Integral Security Features

One of the essential aspects of enterprise mobile app development is the security of the app that developers need to keep in mind at high priority. Even, the safest and secured platform iOS is not even completely secured against the cyber-attacks, so there is no point to think about the Android.

However, Android is one such platform that offers a better adaptability to developers and the development platform is C++ that is less prone to the attacks. Thus, both the platforms are not completely safe, so you should take extra care of security features from your side when developing an enterprise application.

Avoiding Insecure Data Transmission

When talking about the prevention of the important data transmission, encryption is a highly important thing. More than 33% of the IT companies today are not using the encryption methods to the important information.

Being a leading and development company, it is the duty of the company to install the best encryption methods to prevent the unsafe important data transmission. Today, you can find various mobile app development companies that are providing the best safety and security in the mobile apps.

So, you make sure that you look for one such company that claims to consider security as the most important point.

Incorporating With Company’s Legacy Systems

Enormous companies are there that still run on legacy systems. It is not going to change in one single day; therefore, developers have to consider about how their enterprise applications are going to work with these outdated systems.

Companies and organizations can avoid your product as it doesn’t incorporate with the older systems that they have already invested heavily in like enterprise resource planning systems. To overcome the problem, you may want to think about using an enterprise-grade mobile backend-as-a-service solution with an API infrastructure because it will enable mobile devices to easily access legacy systems.

Delivering a Higher ROI

When mobile developers are offering a better mobile application with rich UX, they can serve a higher ROI. Investing in the mobile app development comprises time to market, the cost of update and maintenance, etc. All these costs factors are for making sure good ROI and it is only possible when an application succeed to attract both existing and prospective customers.

Conclusion

Before you indulge yourself in developing an enterprise mobile application, it would be essential for you to comprehend the audience that is going to use the application. No matter whether you are making enterprise mobile application for your customers or employees, you need to go with a simple interface, combining with exclusive features to meet users’ needs.

Once, you define your users and their needs, you can discuss your project with any leading enterprise mobile app development company that already has experience of developing such applications.

Mobile Marketing: Integrating Offline Marketing In Print Media

If you’re like me, then you must have heard or been a recipient of some form of mobile advertisement in one time or another. Despite its promising spiel for being the next big thing, not only in the smartphone revolution but, in the realm of marketing as well, it is not intended to independently cater to all of your marketing needs.

The objective of mobile marketing is not to interact with the consumer exclusively on their mobile phones alone, but to constantly engage with them.

Repetitive exposures to a stimulus would increase the likelihood of them being able to remember your advertisement. Research indicates that a majority of consumers have to come in contact with a brand at a minimum of eight times before they are cognitively mindful of it, and an additional two before they actually take the consideration to purchase it. This type of dynamic and regular engagement is termed participatory marketing. Any time mobile marketing is incorporated in on-and offline strategies, it may end up being participatory and become fully employed to produce a profound and enduring relationship.

The proper mobile marketing can certainly create that essential connection between your customers’ offline and online experience (e.g. online for browsing through your catalog and offline for the particular transaction). The cost of an item is the usual reason in the delay concerning research and purchase. An incorporated participatory marketing strategy creates an awareness of your brand that will most likely influence the consumer. And by increasing consumer awareness, you may be able to generate those sales to boost your quarterly net profit.

Using Print

One of the most significant and most economical mobile integration options is by using print. This is often as basic as motivating customers to view your website using a mobile phone or to send a code via SMS to sign up in a study or sweepstakes or to obtain customer details.

* Flyers

* Letterheads

* Banners

* Instructions

* Newspapers

* Business cards

* Catalogs

* Magazines

* Handouts

* Menus

* Tickets

* Manuals

Among the best approaches would be to use current print promotions in classified ads, newspapers, and magazines. With these, you can integrate a mobile initiative which is associated with the advertising campaign, directions for downloading featured mobile vouchers for consumer convenience (the customers will not have to cut one out of the paper), or marketing content material that promotes the advantages of your campaign and describes the way to get connected to current location-based ads.

Businesses may also integrate within a direct-mail campaigns. They are able to enable customers to enroll in mobile alerts whenever their monthly bill is due or when their membership status has been updated or changed. When they send merchandise to the customers, they could also let them send a text message to obtain the status of their delivery, or motivate them to subscribe for promotions or special discounts in connection with whatever they have purchased.

An additional way to integrate print in mobile marketing would be to include things like mobile directives to respond (call to action campaigns) or Quick response (QR) codes in your packaging or provisional service products, including disposable paper plates, utensils, cups, and napkins. Alternative paper resources, like envelopes, letterhead, banners, flyers, and business cards, could be employed to direct people to your own mobile website or even get them to text in a brief code to acquire a file format (Vcard), with significant contact details or to receive an open source calendar standard (Vcal), of your respective events.

Web Hosting and Attention-Grabbing Facebook Mobile Marketing

Web Hosting and Attention-Grabbing Facebook Marketing

What works with social media for business owners?

Facebook Mobile for Business

To begin with, the majority of websites and blogs are created using WordPress. So, the security of your Word Press website or blog is crucial.

Two very cool security plug-ins for bloggers who use WordPress are available. Imagine this scenario. One day you wake up and your blog has been hacked and every single article had disappeared. Thank God for backups. It could be absolutely disastrous if someone were able to hack into your WordPress site. SecureWP and WSDSecurity are two plug-ins that can be used collaboratively and they give you increased security for your WordPress blog.

  1. Password generator generates super secure passwords that no one can guess. If you have an administrator that has full access to your account, you need to be sure to generate extremely secure passwords.

  2. A lot of hackers use systems that are smart. They go to a WordPress blog and look at the source code so that they can tell which version of WordPress your blog is running. These plug-ins eliminate the version of WordPress from your source code. Hackers try to exploit challenges of your version of WordPress, so by eliminating the version of WordPress from your code, it is extremely difficult for automated attacks to target your blog.

  3. When you try and login to WordPress with the incorrect password, it generates a response. These automated systems look for those responses in an attempt to hack your blog. These plug-ins remove that response completely. Instead they jingle or blink the login screen so you, as the user, know you have the wrong password, but a machine or a software tool would not know that, therefore, automated hacking attempts are reduced.

Facebook Marketing on a Mobile Platform

Four hundred and eighty-eight million people are using Facebook mobile every month. That is bigger than the entire population of the United States. Additionally, three hundred million pictures are uploaded to Facebook every single day. Close to a billion members take pictures and upload them to Facebook using their smart phone. People have Facebook on their smart phone and check Facebook when they are in a line waiting for a coffee, stuck in traffic, and doing it almost everywhere, this makes mobile users very important to Facebook. Half of the nearly billion Facebook users use Facebook through their mobile device and they are actually twice as active than non-mobile users.

People have a tendency to never leave their house without their mobile device. This is wonderful news for business owners! The more you as a business owner can get your message in front of those users who are in constant contact with their circle of friends, the better. Marketing has shifted from trying to get your message in front of people during certain times to becoming an intricate part of their social experience. Ads are coming in through their news feed and users don’t even know that what they are looking at are ads. Facebook’s mobile ad click-through rate is an astounding four times higher than Twitter!

Facebook, Instagram and Cameras

In the past, Facebook’s weak spot was mobile. They were behind the eight ball for developing a robust app so with the purchase of Instagram, Facebook took the lead in this market. It shows the marketplace that Facebook is serious about mobile. Instagram is solely a mobile app. You have to view photos through a Instagram partner, but Facebook might be rolling out an Instagram.com profile where users can share their photos through the web. It could be a whole new social network like Pinterest.

Steve Jobs was a mentor for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is rumored to come out with their own smart phone. They could be taking a leaf out of Apple’s book and be working on a whole new market in the smart phone industry. It would be a whole new developer marketplace that is perfectly feasible. At some point, there will be more mobile phone subscriptions than there are people on the planet. The whole world is in your hand with a smart phone. You can check your e-mail, check in with friends, view the news, use apps to do just about anything. It is only going to grow and it is a wonderful thing for connecting people among the world. The Facebook mobile app is still relatively limited. For example, you can’t share with the app. So, many people are using Safari to view Facebook on their smart phone and accessing the social media network that way. Facebook might very well venture into the hardware market in the near future to further capture market share within the prominently growing mobile marketplace.

Facebook Page Manager App

Facebook page manager is a great way to manage multiple pages. You can have access to your page on the fly, post content and quickly reply to comments and moderate them. Its very helpful for business owners and entrepreneurs. The latest update to the Facebook iOS and Android apps will now let you tag your friends in status posts and comments. The feature, which has long been available on the Facebook website, can be activated by typing “@” followed by the name of the friend you want to tag in your comment or status update. You can use this feature on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or any Android device running the latest version of the Facebook app. The biggest feature that is still missing, however, in the Facebook mobile app is share. This means half a billion people per day are not able to share something on their mobile device.

Marketing Tips for Businesses

Mobile users should be engaged and treated differently. It is all about content. Mobile users default to the news feed so the more you can be an effective producer of content the better.

  • Shorter posts are better – 160 characters or less
  • Be entertaining
  • Make use of photos
  • Ask questions that are short and sweet
  • Include a call to action such as “like” or “add your comment” or “click here”.

Local Businesses and Facebook Mobile Marketing

For the longest time, people could setup a check-in deal. Offers are only available if you have a place page. But if you do not have a place page and can’t setup an offer, you can instead periodically post a status update, for example, “Are you reading this on your mobile phone, come in for a free latte.” Every single member of your staff should know all the ins-and-outs of what your company is doing on social media. Offer a coupon on-the-spot if people check-in. Encourage visitors to take a photograph of themselves in your store and post it on Facebook. It can go a long way and get people excited if they see their friends at the store.

Facebook and the Future of Marketing

There have been a lot of changes with Facebook since it went public. Some of the changes include “promoted posts” and it is more difficult to get into the news feed. Edgerank is the algorithm that all content passes through on Facebook. Content passes through the Edgerank filter, and that is how it is determined what content will show in the news feed. Ultimately, Facebook is saying that they are only going to display your content on average to sixteen percent of your fans. There are, however, some tools that can increase your visibility on Facebook.

  • Ads
  • Friends Lists
  • Interest Lists
  • Sponsored Stories
  • Promoted Posts
  • Reach Generator guarantees up to seventy-five percent of your content

As a marketer, you can do some split testing and allocate a budget to see which will work well for you:

  • Either a sponsored story which is a post made on your fan page that is turned into an ad
  • Promoted posts which will be visible to mobile users and is given more visibility in the news feed, which is what people look at on their mobile device.

There are some creative ways around this. Fan pages like George Takei (an actor) is a page that has a phenomenal following and has a very high engagement rate. Study fan pages that are successful and watch their page to see how these brands are achieving fan engagement. People on Facebook want to know that there is a real human being behind the brand.

Business owners have put an enormous investment into creating a fan base. People have expressed concern and frustration resulting from Facebook now requesting more investment to get your content visible to more than sixteen percent. Next to every single post on Facebook, you are given the option to pay for your post to be more visible. The large denominator problem is when companies have a huge fan base, so if that person is not regularly interacting with the fan page, they will not see the content. It can get very pricey to promote a post, sometimes from three hundred to five hundred dollars per post.

Why would you use a Promoted Post on Facebook?

If you have a webinar or special event coming up a promoted post could be a good option. Some companies have been able to double their reach, increase engagement with promoted posts. If a page has a low number of fans or has plated or a low engagement rate such as less than two percent, you might want to play with promoted posts to see if it is a worthy advantage. You can better reach the mobile users with a promoted post.

Web Hosting Tips for Facebook Visibility

If you are like the majority of business owners, you have a website or blog that serves as your ultimate destination for visitors. Some people call it their “money site”. A Facebook fan page for your business can funnel visitors to your website or blog, where hopefully that visitor will perform the MDA (most desired action) such as joining your e-mail list or purchasing a product. So, as a business owner, it is imperative to keep a professional looking website or blog online. This can be done with a web hosting account through a reputable hosting firm that offers tools such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal content management systems for creating an engaging web presence.

Industry Analysis – Nigerian Mobile Telco

Introduction

Nigerian Mobile Telco has been referred to as the fastest growing market in Africa. Nigerian telecoms came into mainstream in 2001 when the deregulation of the subsector of the economy gave way to the private involvement. The telecommunication system was opened up with the issuance of Global System for mobile communication (GSM) unified license in 2001. GSM license in Nigeria cost about US$285million. Nigerian Telecommunication (NITEL) was the only operator in the market before 2001 with subscribers of about 500,000 from a population of 140 million.

The deregulation usher in telecom players like MTN, Glo Mobile, Zain formerly Celtel, Etisalat, Visafone, Multilinks, Starcomm and Zoom formerly Reltel. The telecom regulator in Nigeria is Nigerian Telecommunication Commission (NCC), with reference to NCC Act 2003; 3-(1) “There is established of a commission to be known as Nigerian Telecommunications Commission with responsibility for the regulation of the telecommunication sector in Nigeria”.

Product/ market Segmentation

The market is divided into urban and semi-urban, and rural market. Tele density in the urban is about 65% while semi urban is about 45% and rural is less than 15%. Product Segmentation is GSM and CDMA.

Major Players

MTN, Zain, Glo and Etisalat control the GSM market. While Visafone, Multilinks, Starcomm and Zoom formerly Reltel are CDMA product segment. The market share of these major mobile telecoms are MTN-40.54%, Zain- 30.20%, Glo Mobile-28.11 and Etisalat- 0.7%, M-Tel Mobile phone business of NITEL-0.45%. While Visafone leads the CDMA market, follow by Multilinks, Starcomms, and Zoom.

Fig.1. Market shares (percentage of total subscriptions)

Factors affecting the industry

o Infrastructure

o High demand

o Frequency problem

o Regulatory institution (NCC)

o Inadequate base station

o Large market

o Economic sabotage

o Interconnectivity problem

o Quality of Service-Due to the problem of capacity constraint

Product Differentiation

The telecom operators offer similar products with slight difference such as

– CDMA and GSM- Voice Service

– VAS; SMS, mobile news, online banking, music, data card, etc

– With diverse product differentiation, voice is the main source of income for Telco in Nigeria.

Growth in the Industry

Nigeria has maintained its lead as African’s largest telecom market with active subscribers of about 65million relegating South Africa to second place with about 45million subscribers. From a bit above 500,000 NITEL fixed wire line and mobile subscribers in 2001. The industry grew to over 7million subscribers in 2004; in December 2008 the subscribers in the market grew to 62.99million. An addition of 22.59 million subscribers in 2008 alone represented 56% annual growth rate. Recent figure as at January 2009 put the subscribers’ base at 64.16. While GSM subscribers are in the range of 57million, CDMA subscription in Nigeria grew from just 380,000 in 2007 to more than 6million at the end of 2008. The country intelligent report on Nigeria by Pyramid research stated that the market grew by 23% with total industry revenue of US$8.42billion. With mobile penetration of 42% revenue will increase to US$11.14billion by 2013 with forecasted annual increase of 5.7%. The telecom market has been named the largest mobile market in Africa. Tele density of 0.73% in 2001 has steadily increase over the year to 33.72% as at December 2006 and about 45% aggregate in December 2008. The current market installed capacity is 117.892 million as at December 2008. The mobile industry ARPU in 2003 was around US$54 per month but as at 2008 December was US$13.

Demand in the Industry

There is increase in demand due to;

o Population explosion in urban cities and metropolis

o Business purpose- Growth in SMEs

o Improved Banking operations

o Competition-The opening up of the market to competition in all segments of the industry has resulted in major drop in price for telecommunications services.

o VAS

o Business expansion by the operator- CAPEX and OPEX investment in the industry

o Infrastructure sharing

o Interconnectivity

o Fall in cost of subscription- Pre 2001, NITEL mobile cost above #60,000 per line, after the issuance of GSM license from mid 2001, it cost #20,000 per line, and today, this figure has fallen to almost zero. Tariff for calls on GSM network was #50 per minutes, today as low as #25 per minute (mobile to mobile). CDMA and fixed wireless tariff is even much lower.

Supply level in the Industry

o The supply as regards the product availability is encouraging compared to about 4 years ago but in terms of service and customer satisfaction is the opposite

o The market is still dominated by the market leader MTN

o Infrastructure in short supply

Benefit of Mobile telecommunication Operation in Nigeria

o Create competition in the telecommunications industry

o Privatization of Government owned telecom entities

o Telecommunication becoming affordable to the ordinary Nigerians

o Increased accessibility to telecom services

o Rural telecommunication project is encouraged

o Increase revenue generation for the government

o Creation of employment opportunity in Nigeria

Conclusion and Recommendation

The telecom industry in Nigeria is a goldmine; the development of telecom in Nigeria is so rapid and gives the investors quick ROI more than what they could imagine. The regulatory body (NCC) has to do a lot in Nigeria telecom development such as the issue of frequency or spectrum allocation, also the SIM registration is taken effect from July 2009 as well as the number portability which is scheduled to take effect from May 29 2009. If these are done well and successfully, the subscribers will have another story to tell compare to what is happening presently in the industry which is characterized by high drop calls and economic sabotage among the major players vis-à-vis the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission. Federal government should also look into the problem of social infrastructure such as electricity because this has increased CAPEX and OPEX of the telecoms operators in Nigeria.

Telecommunication service providers should expand their coverage beyond urban areas unto rural areas as most rural areas of the country are still without telecommunications network coverage.

Rapid roll out of network resources such as base station and switches, which should result in improved quality of service; by improving on their transmission infrastructure across the country, optical fiber and microwave transmission lines should be constructed.

Difference Between An Application And A Mobile Website

If you want to establish a mobile presence for your organization or business, among the first considerations that will likely to remember is if you want to create a mobile application for users to download or perhaps a mobile website. These might look very similar at first, and knowing which is most suitable to your needs will greatly depend on different factors. These will include your budget, target audiences, required features, and intended purpose.

A Mobile Website Vs. An Application

It is very important for you to fully understand the key differences between a mobile website and an app. Both can be accessed on a handheld device like a tablet or a smartphone.

A mobile website is somewhat the same with any other website that has browser-based HTML pages linked together and can be accessed over the Internet. What differentiates it from a standard one is the fact that it is meant for the smaller handheld display along with those with touch-screen interfaces. It can indeed display text content, images, data, and video. Also, they can give access to mobile-specific features like click-to-call or location-based mapping.

Applications, on the contrary, are downloaded and installed on your mobile device instead of just being rendered in a browser. They may pull content and data from the Internet or the content may be downloaded so can get accessed to it even without an internet connection.

Which Is Better?

If you are deciding whether to build a mobile website or a native app, the right choice will greatly depend on your end goals. An app can be the best option to develop an interactive game. But if your main goal is to offer mobile-friendly content to the plenty of users, a mobile website is surely the best way to go. There are some cases where you might need to invest in both.

Experts highly emphasized that a mobile website must by your initial step when it comes to developing an excellent mobile web presence. On the other hand, an app is very useful for creating an application for a specific purpose which can’t be efficiently accomplished through a web browser.

The web vs. app question remains to be a very real consideration for businesses wanting to establish a mobile presence if mobile remains a new frontier. Weighing which of these two can greatly benefit your business is very crucial. This way, you are sure that you are making the right move to ensure the success of your business.

5 Reasons to Create a Mobile App For Your Business

The times when people were busy reading their newspapers on the bus or in the park are over. Today everybody is stuck in their mobile devices. In most countries with advanced economy the number of smartphone users varies from 60% to more than 80%. Hundreds of new applications are downloaded every day, and it seems that developing a mobile app is a great option to promote your business in today’s digital era.

The mobile products market is continuing to grow, and as a result not only big companies think of having their own mobile apps these days. Small businesses refuse to lag behind as well. Everybody wants to keep up with the times and it’s no longer a surprise when a small book shop offers its services by the means of a mobile app.

Still have doubts that your business needs a mobile solution? Here are some more reasons to convince you:

1) Attract new customers and encourage the regular ones to buy more. Launch a loyalty program within your app, so that your customers could earn points and later spend them on the goods they want. Besides, information about helpful loyalty programs and outstanding mobile products spreads very quickly among the smartphone users, which means getting more new customers.

2) Raise the awareness of your brand. Your logo that acts as an app icon has a good chance to become a successful advertisement. People scroll hundreds of applications every day and tend to remember the most outstanding icons even if they don’t install the application itself. Furthermore, a proper mobile app shows your brand’s philosophy and values much better than postcards, magnets, key holders and etc.

3) Launching a mobile app is the easiest way to collect feedback from your customers. People keep in touch with their friends through social networks and often find themselves thinking: “I’d rather text than call”. Today more and more people admit that they prefer writing their reviews online rather than expressing their opinion in person. On the other hand, a written review is usually more complex, because the reviewer has enough time to remember all the details. So if you want to receive an honest and proper feedback provide your customers with a mobile solution.

4) Leaving your business rivals behind. A mobile app can be regarded as part your service and image. People utilizing a user-friendly and well-designed application with lots of useful features feel that they are treated well and become the most loyal customers you’ve ever dreamt of. Do your competitors already have their own mobile products? Be far ahead – offer more than a good service.

5) Provide your customers with all the information through one channel. Reaching your clients has never been so easy. With the help of a mobile app customers get informed about new goods, discounts, promotions and events at first hand and in one click. You can even offer special discounts to the users of your mobile app that they will surely appreciate.

And finally, if you still aren’t sure that creating a mobile app is a worthy thing for your business, have a look at one famous company’s experience. Domino’s pizza made a mobile app for ordering their food and in half a year their profit increased by 28 % in the UK only. At present ordering via mobile devices is making more than 50% of all their online orders.

Considering all this, creating a mobile application is not a waste of money. It won’t save your business but will definitely put it on a new level.

Mobile Web Apps Versus Native Apps – Which Is Better?

Background

Browser based mobile apps versus native apps. It’s a serious debate about as old as three years. And pretty much since the beginning of that debate, there has been a general underlying current among the Internet community that browser based is good and native is bad. But Native is dominating despite the serious disadvantages, and browser based applications need to do a catch up.

Clearly organizations are realizing the growing importance of the mobile Web channel as a way to build brand awareness and customer loyalty, yet many are unaware that there are new, innovative approaches to the native mobile app which leverage the browser and make it considerably easier to engage consumers across the exponential number of mobile devices war.

The NATIVE way.

Mobile applications are nothing new. Hundreds of thousands of productivity, gaming, utility and entertainment apps abound in stores such as Apple’s iTunes or Salesforce.com’s AppExchange, available for free but mostly paying applications, through a variety of models. Apps redefined usability and interaction on mobile phones – especially touchscreen devices, and nowadays, tablets. But the native way comes at a price: serious development costs plus maintenance and distribution costs. Not to speak of the dependence on app stores and the continual install and update cycle. So for commercial mobile apps the disadvantages might be offset by the business model, for informational mobile apps, that come essentially free, the disadvantages are paid cash.

One of the pre-requisites with this native approach is the extensive infrastructure that is required for basic distribution and maintenance updates. And beyond the distribution infrastructure, organizations need to create customized versions of the app for each of the mobile platforms on which it will run (Android, Mac O/S, RIM, Windows Mobile, Symbian etc.), which in turn also requires individual updates for end-users to install and refresh. For commercial apps not a big hurdle to take, for informational apps and for businesses with a limited amount of resources to deploy, not an obvious choice.

Native has its advantages; the apps works off line, particularly interesting for games and native apps can benefit from the proprietary features of the native platform – on the iPhone apps you can benefit from the tilt angle or the motion of device, provided of course your apps need that capability. For media and entertainment, native apps can be an extra revenue stream as the apps can incur a new recurring revenue stream. But for most companies the apps will be given Free so that extra incentive to build native apps will not be available.

The Mobile browser way

The technical and financial barriers to overcome in the native apps approach are for most companies and their marketing staff to high to take. They need to look for an alternative way to enter the mobile web market and the mobile devices market. Small to medium size organizations are still struggling getting a third generation website or Web Presence going, let alone that they could deal now with three to four different content management, distribution and maintenance platforms.

Taking a look from a different angle, we could look at providing the customers with a mobile web experience rather then an apps experience. And that approach is possible through newly developed standards like HTML5 and CSS3, combined with Javascripts that optimize the content of a website for a first class mobile user experience. Applications can be easily replicated via the browser, without the need of a new and different underlying platform. Bottom line, you are leveraging the content of your existing web site to a mobile platform, accessible from any mobile device or tablet and independently from the operating system and mobile browser used on the device or tablet.

The Benefits of Mobile Web Applications

For the mobile apps provider

The most obvious advantages for the apps provider are the ability to leverage it’s existing investment in a web site or a content management system in to the mobile platform. No need to create new content, no new distribution platform, no hardware and software investments, just an optimization of the content for a solid mobile experience. And some content management platforms are providing this now as an add-on to their existing platform for building non-mobile websites.

Other big advantage is that the approach is technology agnostic, and that with a browser based mobile apps you are covering the entire mobile devices and tablet market, independent of manufacturer and underlying operating systems used. IOS covers about 52% of the mobile market, and as such that is an extra-ordinary figure, but it leaves 48% to the others. Building a native apps on Apple so gives you a coverage of 52% of the market, building a browser based mobile apps gives you a 100% coverage and you do not need to worry what percentage of your customers will be covered by creating a native Apple apps.

Third and probably biggest advantage for a small to medium sized business, is the fact that your update and maintenance cost will be shared with the cost of updating and maintaining your main site. So one investment cost for both the main site and the mobile site, one URL or domain, and one cost for updating and maintaining both platforms.

For the users or customers

For users, they don’t have to download an application or any maintenance updates, but instead “call up” a URL via their mobile browser which instantly delivers the most up-to-date application to their device. The URL can then be bookmarked like a local app on their device desktop for repeat use. In cases where users just want a one-off interaction with an app, they receive immediate access without a download, while organizations capitalize on a one-time opportunity to excite their audience.

Conclusion

The debate on native apps versus mobile web apps, is not so much one of which is better, but rather one of which fits best the needs of your organization and your customers. Commercial apps are better served through native applications, but for most organizations that view a mobile web presence as an extension of their main web presence, browser based mobile apps is a an alternative that is technically and financially much easier to implement and that will give customers the mobile experience they are looking for, browsing your website.

10 Key Steps to Turn Your Mobile App Idea Into Reality

Many people and companies are coming up with new mobile app ideas to make it big in their field. They either want to reach a new audience or better serve their existing customers.However, people are relatively unaware of the steps or process needed to turn a mobile app idea into reality. Due to lack of ability and information among startups and established companies, most of them don’t know how to go about shaping the app idea.

I have helped several companies build their mobile app. Here are the 10 key steps I have followed in my 6 years of experience. I believe that my list can help anyone from any industry get their mobile app idea turned into reality.

Step 1: Write down your feature list

Conceptualize your idea begins by taking some notes. Before doing anything, you should write whatever comes to your mind. Writing down the feature list on a piece of paper helps you focus on your idea and expand on it. I recommend writing your idea several times and in many ways. This list also will be helpful when you are discussing with your co-founders, designers, investors or developers; they all are going to ask for it. Note that you should have them sign an NDA before you share your feature list. Your feature list should be clean and easy to understand. Also make sure it has popular and unique features, which will play the major role in success of your product.

Step 2: Do the market research

After writing your strong list of features, you want to do market research to find the competition, trends and market needs. Make sure there are no similar apps in the market. If there are, find out their reviews, ratings, feedback, and what is missing in them. Add features in your app that would make it unique and more attractive to the audience. After doing market research, you should update your feature list.

Step 3: Identify the users/audience

It is very important to find who would use your app and who the audience would be for your product. Your users are from a particular industry, gender, region, age group, existing customers, income group, specific profession, or any other group. Once you identify some demographics about the audience, you can find out what people from these demographics prefer or like. Knowing your audience helps you re-engineer your app and the features in it to cater to them. Your whole project moves around user engagement. You can also conduct focus group studies to find out what your audience may like or dislike. Your audience will decide your product’s success, and this insight from focus study can go a long way in defining product success.

Step 4: Identify the monetization strategy

Making money is the biggest reward and energizes for your idea. You can make money from your app idea in several ways: subscription fee, in-app buy, in-app ads, user data, sponsorship. You want to know which one works for your app, audience and market. Launching a paid app does not work these days, but you can make the app free with in-app purchase option for more functions. In-app ads are also losing their shine these days due to user experience. Having user data is becoming a big monetization technique, as you can use it to make indirect money. You can find sponsorship for the app; this works for an app with a social mission. It is important for you to select 1 or 2 techniques that would give you good return on investment.

Step 5: Create a rough sketch/wire frame

You may not have done it before, or may not know how to do it. However, the rough sketch or wire frame helps you define the concept and refine the requirements of your product. You can draw a rough sketch using paper and pencil, while a wire frame can be created using online tools. When you start doing the sketch/wire frame, you will be able to polish your app idea and features list further. Also, this helps you decide the proper navigation of the application. You don’t need technical skills for this step, but you need to have a common-sense understanding of how navigation works. Your wire frames, along with your feature list, will create very good specifications for you to build the mobile app.

Step 6: Approach local mobile app developers and get estimates

Once you have your first version of the feature list and wire frame, you want to start identifying vendors who can build your mobile app in a high-quality, cost-effective way. You should search for local vendors and some global vendors and reach out to them. Once you shortlist 5 to 6 good vendors, have them sign the NDA and send them the project details. A good vendor should check your details and ask you lots of questions. You should make sure to answer them in detail so that your idea is fully communicated. A good vendor should also be able to give you some suggestions to improve your idea. You should get proposals from multiple vendors, with time and cost for development, and compare them. You should check the vendors on past performance, process, price, time, testimonial and their eagerness to work for you. Finally, you should be able to select one vendor and start working with them.

Step 7: Complete the UI/UX

Once you have selected the company, you should work with them to create the UI/UX of the app. You should have them first create the detailed wire frame of the application so that you can visualize each screen, function and flow of the application. After review, you can decide to add or remove features. Once the wire frame is complete, you want them to create the visual design of the application. It should give the color, theme, fonts and visual appeal for your idea. This step will give you a near-final picture of what your mobile app would look like and how it would flow. After completing it, have your vendor reevaluate the development plan, time and cost. If the first estimate of time/cost has increased, get more funding or cut some of the features. You want to pay the right value to your mobile app developer.

Step 8: Get the app developed and tested

Have your app developer start building the app for you. They should be able to send you the app (in progress) every week and you should be able to test and give them feedback. It is very essential for you to QA the app as they develop it, as this helps you control the quality, cost and timeline, and learn whether the mobile app needs some tweaks. You can involve your friends in the testing as well. If you come up with new sets of features during the development, discuss those with your app developer and get the time and cost estimate. If it fits your budget, get it done right away. If not, wait for the next phase.

Step 9: Launch the app and market it

Once you are satisfied with the app, launch it in the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store. You should also start marketing the app. Get some consulting from experts on app marketing. You can also do self-marketing. Start on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as this is an easy way to spread the word about the app. You should also reach out to reporters and bloggers who may be interested in your app and write about it. A press release on free sites or a paid site can be very handy. If you have more in your budget, you can hire a PR or app marketing company.

Step 10: Gather market response and prepare for the next phase

After the first launch and marketing, you can collect user data, market response and demand. If you receive a good response, you can plan the next phase for the app. Repeat Step 1 through 9 for the next phase. This time, you should be able do them a lot faster and more efficiently. If the app is not received well in the market, find out what is hampering growth and have a plan of action.

Mistakes to Avoid While Hiring a Mobile Application Development Company

You are determined to make an impressive online presence by offering an impressive mobile app. Due to the high penetration of the Internet and handheld devices, it yields great business benefits. Hiring a mobile application development company is essential, but many times entrepreneurs make a mistake by choosing a wrong company. They hire it based on lucrative advertisements and discount offers. As a result, they end up with a frustrating mobile app that is not able to attract and retain customers. When there are millions of apps running on the Internet, your app has to be easy to use and eye-catching. A few common mistakes that may lead to frustration:

Entrepreneurs forget that it is a global business

It is not required to hire a local development company for mobile app development. Even if you hire a company that is located at the other end of the world, it doesn’t matter. Just make a list of requirements and hire the best company that has rich experience in developing similar applications. Experts say that when you limit the search due to inhibiting factors like localized developer, you may not get a great application.

Hiring a developer that starts coding without requirement analysis

When the developer starts coding your app immediately after preliminary requirement gathering, the result will be quite frustrating. A proper mobile app development company goes through preliminary and detailed requirement gathering, analysis, and design phases. It is a systematic way of application development. Many companies do not consider mobile app development an intricate task. However, in reality it is a tough job.

The development company doesn’t have relevant experience

Though mobile app development is a generic activity, it is equally important that the developers have a relevant experience of apps in the same niche. For example, if you are a restaurant owner hiring an app developer that has not developed a single application in the hotel or restaurant industry, then it may happen that you don’t get expected output.

Hiring an application based on price

Cost is an important aspect of hiring an app development company, but it is not a good thing to finalize a developer based on cost only. Low-cost developer may not give the good quality app that makes your presence on the Internet impressive. In fact, the money you spend doesn’t yield the desired business benefit.

Avoid these mistakes while hiring a company for mobile app development and utilize the Internet to the maximum extent.

Benefits of Mobile Application Development For Business

Every business knows the importance of reaching directly to the customers. Mobile technology has become an important part of our day to day life. The advent of various types of applications for smart phones has made life very simple for both business owners and customers. Businesses have acknowledged the importance of mobile application development in increasing their profitability. A mobile app gives a useful tool to the target of a business owner to fulfil its marketing and sales objective.

Mobile applications can do a lot of things, including giving you information about the new happenings in your area, calculating exchange rates, book movie tickets or cabs, providing entertainment info, improving social media interactions and letting you know about the special offers. The popularity of this form of marketing is growing at a fast pace with no signs of slowing down. There are many benefits of mobile application development for a business, some of which are listed below:

  • Increases Visibility – Statistics show that an average individual spends a lot of time on his mobile device. Mobile applications help in reinforcing a brand by increasing its visibility. When a customer downloads an app, it is always visible on his screen. Application stores help a business in reaching millions of potential customers who are likely to purchase its products or services. Applications are a constant reminder of a business to the customer.

  • Strengthens Brand’s Image – A strong brand image is essential in today’s competitive market. A brand with no mobile app will not be able to match the modern day trends. Mobile application development helps in improving a brand image as customers remain aware about the services it offers.

  • Provide value to customers – It is the goal of every business to provide maximum value to its customers. Every customer looks for a problem-free buying experience either while using an application or website. With a well designed application, you can offer ease and comfort to your customers.

  • Showcase Products and Services – An application provides a one stop access to a business. It is an excellent platform for a business to showcase its products and services and display discounts and offers. Many businesses today are selling only through applications.

  • Increases Customer Engagement – The purpose of mobile application development is to give a valuable tool to customers to connect and interact with the business. Applications allow a customer to quickly connect to the business they frequently need. The engagement level of applications is much higher than that of a website. They facilitate real-time engagement with the customers.

Mobile applications offer on the go services which provide a lot of convenience to the customers. They offer instant communication and helps in getting in-depth customer insights. Mobile application development is the best way to generate new revenues and sales at low cost.

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