David Herrold

Disposable iPhone apps

Posted by Dave | Filed under Apple, Mobile, Software

I’ve recently noticed several conventions, festivals and movies spending their marketing dollars on iPhone development.  This is an interesting trend that we will see more of in the near future.

iPhone applications built for specific events have brief windows of time where their content is relevant and useful to the customer.  Syfy’s San Diego ComicCon (iTunes) and the Lollapalooza music festival (iTunes) apps contain extremely useful features for time sensitive events.  Schedules, maps, personalized calendars, photo galleries and photo sharing features are contained within these apps, making them very handy for a short period of time.

The ComicCon app was released July 12th, only 11 days before the convention; and the Lollapalooza app was released July 19th, only 20 days before the music festival.

At first, I thought this was a waste of advertising dollars. Why go to the trouble of building an iPhone application that would only be useful for a short period of time? That’s silly, isn’t it?

Well, not really.  There are three excellent reasons for these “disposable” iPhone apps.

1. Usage window

Pinch Media released a report earlier this year revealing statistics they collected from 30 million downloads at the iTunes App Store.  They discovered only 5% of apps were used 3 weeks after they were downloaded (slides 12 & 13). This timing seems like a good match for event marketing. Right?

2. Engagement

Smart phones make up only 12% of the phone market worldwide. However, that small percentage of users generates the majority of engagement in the mobile world.  They are constantly downloading mobile applications, surfing the mobile web, sending emails, snapping photos, recording video, etc.

iPhone users, in particular, are extremely engaged in the mobile experience.

3. Understanding your audience

What if you could discover information about your audience that helped make your product or event better the next time? Did your concert audience enjoy the venue?  What did your convention attendees think of the hotel or the food?  A mobile application can collect that feedback from your audience and help make your product better.

If you compare these to traditional advertising vehicles like TV, radio and newspapers you’ll see why iPhone apps look like a great option for event promotion.  You can build several iPhone apps for the cost of a single minute of TV advertising.  Also, traditional advertising platforms are typically a one-way communication to the audience, while mobile applications offer an easy dialog of feedback and communication.

I’m curious.  Have you or would you ever consider downloading a “disposable iPhone app” for a specific event?  Let me know in the comments.

Tags: applications, apps, Blackberry, iPhone, Mobile, Software

Google Doc your grocery list

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Mobile, Productivity

I discovered a great way to use Google Docs as a mobile grocery list last week.  All you need is a Gmail account and a mobile phone with WAP access.

Justine and I both have Gmail accounts, so that part was easy.  You simply create a document in Google Docs and share that document with your partner.  You can now update this document over and over for new lists whenever you need them (and even access the revision history to see what your shopping lists looked like last month).

You can now access that document on any mobile device in read-only format (presumably while you’re walking down the aisles in a grocery store).

So a simple phone call while I’m at work “Honey, I updated the list” is all I need to know exactly what she wants me to bring home from the grocery store.

I find technology fascinating when it intersects with everyday life to make things a bit easier.

Do you have any technology tricks like this?  Feel free to share them in the comments.

Tags: Blackberry, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Productivity

Google, Internet 2 and powdered soap

Posted by Dave | Filed under Google, Mobile, Technology

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, posted an interesting article on their blog today speculating what the “next internet” will look like. It’s no real surprise that they touch upon mobile web and location-based services.

“In the next decade, around 70% of the human population will have fixed or mobile access to the Internet at increasingly high speeds, up to gigabits per second. We can reliably expect that mobile devices will become a major component of the Internet, as will appliances and sensors of all kinds. Many of the things on the Internet, whether mobile or fixed, will know where they are, both geographically and logically.”

I’m glad to see Google mention the importance of mobile devices in the future (which is already here). I’m fascinated by the prospects that truly “smart” phones will offer us within the next year or two (I think their estimate of 10 years is a bit high. I think the web, mobile or otherwise, is evolving far faster than that.)

Although, I’m not convinced I want the internet involved with my dirty socks.

“A box of washing machine soap will become part of a service as Internet-enabled washing machines are managed by Web-based services that can configure and activate your washing machine.”

Regardless the post is worth reading.

- Dave

Tags: future, Google, internet, Mobile, Technology

Mobile search

Posted by Dave | Filed under Apple, Hardware, Mobile, Software, Usability

We’ve gotten very good at finding what we’re looking for online. Ever since the early days of AltaVista, Lycos and DogPile we’ve become experts at finding Thai restaurants in Hoboken, NJ and singing telegrams in Anchorage, AK. Just type a few keywords into the search box and click the go button. Your best result will be on the first page, right? Pretty easy.

Fast forward to 2008 – and the proliferation of mobile phones, PDAs and palmtop computers that can access the web. Things become much more interesting.

There is an increased sense of immediacy based upon our physical location and actions. In the old world, we designed sites for users who were typically sitting at a desk with a keyboard and mouse. Today we design sites for people who are surfing the internet while walking the dog, boarding a plane, driving to work and cheering for the home team during the playoffs.  Mobile devices are with us all the time.

Good-bye keyboard.  Good-bye mouse.  We’ll miss you.

We are using our thumbs to type now. We are scrolling down our tiny screens with trackballs, slide-wheels and pencil-thin styli. We are clicking with phone keys, tiny buttons, pens and our fingers. We need results need to be simple, easy to read, accurate and light weight. And we need it now.

Mobile platforms need to distill web content down to the bare essentials, trimming away unnecessary page clutter while pushing relevant content to the top of the page.

John Markoff’s New York Times article sums this up more eloquently than I.

“The small screen forces you to be even more ruthless and focus on usability almost like a haiku,” said Barney Pell, Powerset’s founder and chief executive. “That’s what happens with design for the small screen. You have to think about what the most important thing the user is doing is.”

There are currently only a few methods of searching the web on a mobile device (although, there SHOULD be more, in my opinion*.)

The first method is the one we’re most familiar with.  We type search terms into a little box and hit submit for results. As long as the web server produces valid XHTML and mobile friendly CSS, most phones will display results without too much trouble. Many mobile sites that offer search, offer this method.

Another method uses SMS and allows users to search via text message instead of using web forms. This can be a faster way of getting results in some cases if you have little or no access to a strong mobile signal for WAP searches. Depending upon your carrier’s packages, SMS can also be used without a data plan (which is usually much cheaper than a full data plan).

A good example of this is Google’s SMS service. If you happen to have a text message plan for your mobile device, try this. Send a text message to 466453 (GOOGLE) with the message of “pizza and [your zipcode]“. You should get a text message back from Google with 3-4 of the highest ranking listings along with click-to-call links to contact the restaurant.

You can also send links to your users within the text message. A good example of this is our own classified ad platform on the Houston Chronicle’s mobile site. For another interesting test, try sending a text message to 24766 (CHRON) with a message of “ford mustang”. You will get a text message back informing you how many results this search produced and a link to the mobile search results (if you have a WAP access).

This is pretty useful, but still not perfect.

Within the last year location-based services have grown quickly in popularity. Mobile platforms like Brightkite, Google Maps and Fire Eagle are gaining ground with many mobile users. Using a mobile device’s internal GPS (or triangulation from cell towers if your device doesn’t have a GPS), the device determines your location and allows you to simply search for the word “pizza” to produce local results for you (since it already knows your location).

We will begin to see more of these services over the next few years. However, I think we can do even better than that.

As I’ve said in the past, our mobile phones are audio devices first and foremost. Let’s put that audio technology to good use.

* Allow me to speak “Find Starbucks” into my phone to trigger a Google Maps search or speak “Browse CNN” to auto-dial a browser bookmark. Surfing the internet hands-free might be extremely useful if I were driving a car, walking the dog or even peddling a bicycle.

With devices like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s upcoming Android platform the possibilities are nearly endless.

Let’s push the limits.

————————

Some resources that can help you get started with mobile web development:

Dev.Mobi – A website dedicated to mobile web development
Blue Flavor’s web development guide is a good start – and they’re nice folks too.
Mobile Web Development – by Nirav Mehta a more in-depth look at mobile development
Mobile Web Design – by Cameron Moll – a great introduction to the mobile web

Tags: Google, iPhone, Mobile, search, sms

The walking hazards of text messaging

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Mobile, Productivity

The instances of people doing bodily harm to themselves while walking the streets of London and sending text messages with their phones has increased to the point that the city of London has installed padding around lamp posts in certain parts of town.

The Daily Express says:

Six million Britons were injured last year bumping into lamp posts, bollards and litter bins while trying to walk and text on mobile phones at the same time.

New figures reveal that more than one in ten needed treatment for injuries including broken noses, cheekbones and even in one case a fractured skull.

Research among 1,055 adults discovered that 63 per cent concentrate so hard when they are texting that they become “blind” to objects around them.

Mobile phone users are now being advised to use template messages to speed up texting and look up every five seconds to avoid hazards.

I find this both funny and serious at the same time. This is very thoughtful of London politicians. It is also useful during the weekends for bar patrons who have a few too many to walk straight. I can appreciate that.

I would love to see the statistics for driving accidents caused by text messaging while driving. I suspect it happens more than we’d care to admit (I’m guilty of it, myself).

Isn’t this a bit like padding the highways with giant pillows so drunk drivers don’t hurt themselves?

Can’t we simply invest in hats and t-shirts warning our fellow pedestrians to “Stop texting and just walk!?”

Photo by mindshare

Tags: Mobile, sms, text messaging

Mobile sites: a few of my favorites

Posted by Dave | Filed under Mobile, Technology, Usability, Web design

Mobile LinkedIn is fantastic.

I just noticed today that LinkedIn (my work-related social networking site of choice) has launched an amazing mobile site. It feels nearly as robust as their full-featured site for searching and sending invitations.

I’m always shocked at how some mobile sites can tailor their user experience to give the perception of full functionality (even if that’s not the case).

Google and Yahoo offer many of their mobile applications & searches (calendar, maps, docs, email, etc). Mobile Google Maps has been the most impressive of the lot, in my opinion.

Bank of America allows you to check balances, pay bills, transfer money, etc. with your mobile browser.

Netflix allows you to search for movies and add them to your queue. This seems exceptionally handy if you are chatting with friends and someone mentions a movie you should see. You can immediately add it to your queue while you’re thinking of it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t pimp our very own mobile.chron.com in this blog post. I think we do a decent job of presenting diverse content (weather, news, sports, obituaries, etc) content in a very small space.

Mobile news sites such as the New York Times, CNN, Chicago Tribune, etc. offer some great mobile news user interfaces.

One of my favorite search tools is called Wapepedia. It is a simple mobile interface for Wikipedia.

You can find a lot more great mobile sites at cantoni.mobi.

Do you have any favorite mobile sites you find yourself using on a regular basis?

Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, linkedin, Mobile, Treo, WAP, wireless

Mobile presentation for BarCampNOLA

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Mobile, Usability

I put together a mobile presentation for BarCamp NOLA this weekend. Since I’ve been working on our mobile platform recently I’ve been taking some notes and reading about the industry’s best practices with WAP and mobile technology in general.

Let me know what you think.

- Dave

Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, Mobile, Treo, WAP, wireless

FireFox user agent switcher

Posted by Dave | Filed under Browsers, Productivity, Software, Usability

I’ve been working on our mobile site a lot lately and found this great FireFox plugin that has helped me a great deal. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at how newspaper sites present their mobile-friendly WAP sites. WAP usability and interface designs are wildly different in comparison to their full-featured main websites.

The tricky thing about investigating mobile sites is that many of them sniff out your user agent and redirect you to the mobile site only if they detect you are using a mobile browser. Several actually filter in the other direction as well.

Try this little test and you will see exactly what I mean. Try going to mobile.nytimes.com (new window) in your browser right now. If you are using a normal browser (IE, FireFox, Safari, Opera, etc) you will be redirected to the New York Times’ main site. This redirect forces you to use an actual wireless device to surf the New York Times’ mobile version.

This, my friends, is a tad annoying when trying to investigate mobile sites.

To get around this I installed a great FireFox addon by Chris Pederick that enables me to set my user agent to any browser I’d like (including mobile browsers like the Blackberry, Iphone, Treo, etc). I found a few user agents for mobile browsers here to configure the addon and I was good to go.

Now I can simply tell FireFox to act like an iPhone and it will render those automatically redirecting sites without any trouble. Fantasitc.

I told a co-worker about this cool addon to FireFox and he responded “Oh yeah, Safari has a user agent switcher built in. Check it out.”

He’s absolutely right.  Looks like Safari includes the ability to render pages as an iPhone if you want. Pretty cool, although I still use the FireFox addon to spoof Blackberries, Treos, and any other mobile browser I can find. Here are the links you’ll need to make this happen:

FireFox user agent switcher addon
Resource for user agents (not just mobile)

Hope you found this useful.

Tags: add-ons, FireFox, Mobile, user agent

Alerts with Yahoo pipes

Posted by Dave | Filed under Mobile, Software, Usability

I’m not sure if I simply missed this when I originally set up my Yahoo Pipes page or if it is a recent addition. I was a little shocked to see the Google RSS chicklette in the header of my pipe output page. There are several other options (Bloglines, Netvibes, Newsgator, etc) in the “more options” link. All I have to say is, kudos to you, Yahoo, for recognizing the usefulness of having your competitors’ feed links in your product.

The other thing I noticed recently is the mobile alert system Yahoo offers for Pipes. This seems very useful. Imagine you are searching for a Ford F-150 in Houston. You could build a pipe combining search result feeds for F-150 on Craig’s list or Yahoo autos. (You can use other search engines like cars.com or auto trader, but results without RSS feeds are a bit trickier…but still possible).

Click here to read more…

Tags: alerts, Mobile, RSS, search engines, yahoo pipes