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Mobile Wap vs. App – what is a marketer to do?

by Phil Barrett

Here’s  a copy of the presentation I gave at Marketing Magazine’s Mobile 2.0 conference in Toronto. Speaker notes are included – although what actually came out of my mouth was likely a bit different :)

The fonts are also a bit off here as I used fonts local to my machine for the presentation. Enjoy & comments welcome!

Wap Vs App – What is a marketer to do?

  • http://www.aumnia.com/blog Gregg

    Phil – thanks for posting the presentation. Very good, especially liked the view of the statistics.

    Overall, I agree with your conclusions and recommendations. Doing both does make the most sense provided they complement each other and the app provides some higher level of functionality or integration with the phones capabilities.

    A couple of items that bear mentioning regarding apps:
    1. Apps take a fair amount of on-going maintenance and support, particularly as phone models change (here is one example of how software changes in phone models can affect an app: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/06/10/iphone-3g-s-supports-opengl-es-2-0-but-3g-only-supports-1-1/).
    2. Apps need some kind of promotion strategy so they don’t get lost in some of the bigger app stores and your consumers can find them (iTunes is over 50K apps and growing).
    3. Marketers run the risk of “upgrade syndrome”. Given the frequency with which people update their phones (18-24 months), there is no guarantee that consumers will re-download an app to their new device. Not sure what the solution is except to make sure you have a mobile website which does not rely on the consumer redownloading content to their handheld device.

    Wish I could have been at the presentation – would have liked to have heard the words behind the slides and participated in the Q&A. I’m sure you generated a great discussion.

  • http://www.aumnia.com/blog Gregg

    Phil – thanks for posting the presentation. Very good, especially liked the view of the statistics.

    Overall, I agree with your conclusions and recommendations. Doing both does make the most sense provided they complement each other and the app provides some higher level of functionality or integration with the phones capabilities.

    A couple of items that bear mentioning regarding apps:
    1. Apps take a fair amount of on-going maintenance and support, particularly as phone models change (here is one example of how software changes in phone models can affect an app: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/06/10/iphone-3g-s-supports-opengl-es-2-0-but-3g-only-supports-1-1/).
    2. Apps need some kind of promotion strategy so they don’t get lost in some of the bigger app stores and your consumers can find them (iTunes is over 50K apps and growing).
    3. Marketers run the risk of “upgrade syndrome”. Given the frequency with which people update their phones (18-24 months), there is no guarantee that consumers will re-download an app to their new device. Not sure what the solution is except to make sure you have a mobile website which does not rely on the consumer redownloading content to their handheld device.

    Wish I could have been at the presentation – would have liked to have heard the words behind the slides and participated in the Q&A. I’m sure you generated a great discussion.

  • http://www.adlounge.ca/ Trina

    Thought of you today. Hope the presentation went well, Phil! Sorry I couldn’t be there. Looking forward to connecting in July – and thanks for coming out to Art from the Unexpected.

  • http://www.adlounge.ca Trina

    Thought of you today. Hope the presentation went well, Phil! Sorry I couldn’t be there. Looking forward to connecting in July – and thanks for coming out to Art from the Unexpected.

  • Pingback: Mobile web VS App | MobileThinking.nl

  • http://mobilethinking.nl/ Michel Brok

    Very interesting presentation, especially the statistics. I used some of your sheets to wrote a post on my weblog.

  • http://mobilethinking.nl Michel Brok

    Very interesting presentation, especially the statistics. I used some of your sheets to wrote a post on my weblog.

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  • http://www.burningthebacon.com/ Phil Barrett

    Thanks for comments – here is a link to a review by mobile marketer:
    http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3511.html

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com Phil Barrett

    Thanks for comments – here is a link to a review by mobile marketer:
    http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3511.html

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com/ Phil Barrett

    Gregg – thank for the comments & insight. You are bang on. One interesting note is that although Apple has been quick to promote the number of downloads (over 1 billion), they have not report on how many were deleted

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com Phil Barrett

    Gregg – thank for the comments & insight. You are bang on. One interesting note is that although Apple has been quick to promote the number of downloads (over 1 billion), they have not report on how many were deleted

  • http://www.burningthebacon.com/ Phil Barrett
  • http://www.burningthebacon.com Phil Barrett

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  • http://www.easyrecovery.ie data recovery

    Hi Phil,
    I watched the video of your presentation on mobile wap vs app and it's pretty cool.