Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost?

Great article touching on our brief discussion last week. The issue I think companies are facing is that it is not just one App to develop but several across Droid, Blackberry and soon Windows 7. So in the end mobile web, while not as user friendly, ends up winning.

Is Developing a Mobile App Worth the Cost?

2 comments:

Liz Bayer said...

This is an interesting issue, especially, I would think, for non-profits, who have very limited funds to be begin with. $30,000 seems like a lot of money to spend to only reach 7% of phone users, many of whom won't download your app anyway.

I think it'll be interesting to see how companies deal with this question, and how mobile users respond. I know that I, personally, often just go to the website, even if I do have an app on my phone. I think it's just habit from using my smartphone's web browser for so many other things, so that's where I automatically go when I'm looking up information, looking for store locations, or looking for info on a particular product or company.

delphine said...

I think organizations should be thinking mobile communication strategy, but whether that be in the form of a mobile Web site or an app is, of course, dependent on which best fits the organization’s needs. Just as now a Web presence is necessary for an organization, a mobile presence will also soon be. Although I haven’t come across any stats about how many people use apps as part of their smartphone use, a February 3, 2011 Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that the Millennial generation (ages 18-34) use their cell phones mostly to take a picture, text and access the Internet. Based on this finding, if your target audience happens to be Millennials, then a mobile Web site would seem a good choice at the moment. But if the preference is to pursue a mobile presence via apps, I think those that generate income could prove to be the most used.