Mobile Wap vs. App – what is a marketer to do?
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!
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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.
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.
[...] conferentie. Een van de sprekers met een interessant verhaal op het gebied van mobile marketing is Phil Barret. Hij hield een betoog over het mobile web en applicaties zoals op de iPhone en de Android. Zeker [...]
Very interesting presentation, especially the statistics. I used some of your sheets to wrote a post on my weblog.
[...] week’s Carnival also features a link and reference to the Wap vs. App blog I wrote last week. This is my second feature with the Carnival of the Mobilists. One more [...]
Thanks for comments – here is a link to a review by mobile marketer:
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/3511.html
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
Here’s a review from Marketing Mag on the day:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090618_172627_10068
[...] Marketing Association, Incentive Works and many others. His most recent presentation on “Wap vs App” was given recently as part of Marketing Magazine’s mobile marketing 2.0 conference. [...]
[...] From burning the bacon by Phil Barret: Mobile Wap vs. App – what is a marketer to do? [...]
[...] company. Most recently, Phil Barrett of B-Street Communications had an interesting blog post about this very debate, and he’s certainly right – there’s room for both provided that companies know what their [...]
[...] my presentation at marketing magazine’s mobile 2.0 conference, my point of view had been shifting towards Wap – or the mobile web. My reasoning [...]
Hi Phil,
I watched the video of your presentation on mobile wap vs app and it's pretty cool.
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