What Your iPhone Case Says About You
Friday 2/3/12
*This post originally appeared at iPhone Life where Adam is a featured blogger.
Have you looked for an iPhone case lately, iPhone Life-ers? The choices are overwhelming. Just think of the poor new iPhone owner realizing that their new toy is gonna get scratched if they don’t get something to protect it, and they go online to find a case for it and find eight million mind boggling choices.
You were there once. You know what I’m talking about.
Just like me, you probably sat there scratching your head wondering what the perfect case would be. What would make you happy and proud to hold in your hand? What’s good enough to protect your precious piece of technology?
Eventually, you chose something that made sense to you, something that expressed your individuality the best or something that annoyed you the least. With so many choices out there, there’s a perfect iPhone case for everyone.
But what does your iPhone case say about you? This is a game my wife and I like to play when we’re out to dinner. We look around the room and try to determine what people are like based on their iPhone cases. We aren’t mental health professionals, so don’t think we’re psychoanalyzing you or whatever. We’re just entertaining ourselves before our salads arrive.
Blinged out
You and Snookie are soul sisters! I kid, I kid, but that crystal-encrusted phone of yours just screams GLAMOR! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Everyone loves sparkly things and if you yourself are a sparkly thing, more power to you! Shine on, sister!
Chunky and Utilitarian
This is the kind of iPhone case I imagine Mike Rowe has. It looks like a Hummer for your phone. If you need this level of protection for it, you’ve either got a serious Modern Warfare fantasy or you dangle from cliffs and wrestle crocodiles for a living.
Custom Design
You like to express yourself in everything you do! Or maybe you thought all the choices out there were stupid. Either way, you have discerning tastes and you like things the way you like them. Plus, you have an eye for design and you enjoy creating things that are fun and interesting. (My wife, the graphic designer, created hers at getuncommon.com, fyi)
Plain for the Purist
You’ve got a plain, solid color case. Not much of an adventurer, are you? Either that or you really don’t care what the darn thing looks like as long as your phone doesn’t get shaquaed. Whatever your reasons for liking this case, its understated and simple design does the trick without being ostentatious. My case is plain black, but it’s a battery case because I’m a power user like that.
Something from Etsy
It’s got an owl or a tree or a kitty on it, doesn’t it? You’ve got a strong sense of whimsy and you might even be a little bit of a hippie. Maybe you’re even someone who is Good With Crafts, or you can at least appreciate others who are and support their efforts.
Commando
Perhaps you just couldn’t pick something. Maybe you weren’t comfortable with any of the choices so you decided to just say the heck with it and not get a case. Maybe you really don’t care if you get scratches on your phone. Whatever your reasons, it’s all good. I bet you don’t wear underpants either, do you?
Anyway, that’s the game we like to play when we’re waiting for our food to arrive.
So tell me, iPhone Life-ers…
What does your iPhone case say about YOU?
How A Website is Made: A Very Special GLAD WORKS Production
Tuesday 1/24/12We talk a lot on our blog about what we do, but we realized that we never talk about how we do what we do. So today, and maybe every so often from now on, we’ll give you a glimpse of what it’s like behind the scenes here at GLAD WORKS during the “doing” phases of your projects.
First, let’s talk about what happens when we design a website. It seems magical, doesn’t it? You come in here, you tell us what you want, and POOF! There’s a website.
“Whoa! That was AWESOME!” you say. “You guys are mmmmmaagical!”
While this is completely true and we are indeed quite magical, there’s a lot of steps in between the kickoff of a project and the launch of a beautiful, brand-y new website.
Here’s the 411 with a very special GLAD WORKS twist.
Kickoff
First we have the kickoff meeting where we sit down with you and talk about what you have in mind. Depending on what we’ve gathered about your needs from our initial contact with you, we’ll assemble our team accordingly. There will certainly be a designer, a web developer (aka Techie), and a project manager. Oh, and you’ll be there too, of course!
Maybe there will also be a photographer and a copywriter if you’re really doing it up nicely. We’d show you a picture of them but they’re both too unattractive looking to make an appearance here today, the poor creatures.
It’s okay if you have no idea what you want your site to be like. We have lots of experience with this sort of thing and we’re not afraid of the likes of you unless you look like this:
Even then, we are still not afraid; we’d just prefer to do the kickoff meeting by phone.
At this meeting, we’ll ask you questions designed to help us understand your needs. We’ll discuss your target audience, goals for your site, your overall branding, and what deadlines you might have. We’ll look at stuff you do and do not like and also make sure you’re getting all the extra stuff you need like eCommerce or a new logo.
And then you go home and you wait ever so patiently while we get our creative on.
Research
We start by researching your business and your competitor’s sites. We look to see who comes up first in a Google search and try to determine why they come up first, and then we dream of all the ways in which your website can be amazing in its own right. We also start thinking about fonts and colors that might look nice on your website.
Sketching
Sometimes our designers start by sketching things out on paper. Sometimes they start with an etch a sketch or a wireframe, but whatever they use, it helps them determine the layout and structure of the site and what the navigation will be like. Once they’re done, you get to see the initial concepts and give them some feedback. It’s ok if you don’t like what they come up with. It doesn’t need to be the big, pink elephant in the room.
After all, this is your website and you need to dig it.
Design
Once everyone agrees on how your website is going to look and how it’s going to function, the designer goes to town on the home page and sub pages of your site. They put in the content and the images and send it off to you again for some feedback.
Make sure you’re happy with everything because once it’s coded, it can be time consuming to make changes. It makes the techies’ heads explode and it’s so gross.
Coding
Now the techies get to have their fun! The site goes into the coding phase where they wave some kind of wizardry over the design and POOF! There’s a real live working website!
Testing
And then they test it to make sure it behaves the way they intended and that it’s fast and functional as can be. Believe it or not, they actually try to break it. Yup. They try to break what they worked so hard to create because if they can’t break it, hopefully your customers can’t either.
Launch
And then it’s time for the big moment—the launch! Your website is finally ready to go live. Sadly, nobody breaks open a bottle of champagne and smashes it over the computer screen or anything, like they do with a ship. But it’s still a big moment—it’s the culmination of our collaborative efforts. It was just you and all of us, working together to create something magical and amazing, something that will (hopefully) make you lots of money.
After that it’s all Zen, baby!
This is clearly just a broad overview of what goes on. There are a gazillion team meetings and internal deadlines happening in between the major phases of a project. And we didn’t even tell you about this part:
We wanted to protect you.
You’re welcome.
A couple of weeks ago, we suggested a few things that we think are going to be important to think about for your business over the coming year. This week, we have a few predictions to make about what we’re going to see more or less of as 2012 progresses. And before you even ask, we don’t belong to the psychic friends network and we cannot hook you up with some lottery numbers. We just keep our eyes peeled for the new hotness so we can bring you the 411! Also, if the Mayans were right, none of this will matter; so let’s just assume they ran out of stone to chisel on.
Brands creating content
We’ve said it a few times before that frequently updated content is really important. This year, brands are going to start realizing that having something like a company blog or an e-newsletter is very valuable when it comes to getting their message out to their customers.
Say buh-bye to punch cards and hello to digital coupons!
Remember your Captain Wilfred’s Scrod of the Month Club card? Every time you made a purchase you’d get a hole punched in it, and after ten holes, you’d get a free scrod? Those days are over! Or almost, anyway. We’re sure there will be a few hold outs whose demographic is still going punch card speed, so they’ll continue to have their place in the universe. But for businesses whose customers are joining the quickly growing mobile market, those loyalty reward programs are going to transfer into the digital space. Small businesses are also going to want to offer their loyal customers deals without having to get involved with things like daily deal sites. Speaking of Groupon…
Groupons schmoopons
Not that we don’t love us some Groupon and LivingSocial or what have you. We do love daily deal sites—a lot. However, if you’re a small business owner, sometimes it’s not worth it to run daily deals. When you’re dealing with low margins, you have to be incredibly careful. A great daily deal can bring scads of customers into your place, but most of them probably won’t come back. So, we think that many businesses that have experienced mixed success with daily deal sites are going to start experimenting with their own stuff. See above re: creating content and digital coupons.
Mobile, mobile, mobile!
Not to beat a dead horse here (that’s a horrible expression, isn’t it?) but if mobile isn’t on your radar, you’re going to be begging us to create a mobile friendly site for you by this time next year. BEGGING. We’ve said it a thousand times: make your website mobile friendly because Smartphone and tablet use is on the rise. If you don’t believe it, you need to look at your numbers (or we can look at them for you) to find out where your website traffic is coming from. You’ll most likely see a big rise in the number of people connecting from mobile devices. Analytics can also tell you what type of devices they’re using so that when you do finally give in and go mobile, you’ll choose the best thing for your customers. And since we’re on the topic of mobile, we should talk about mobile payments.
Mobile payments
Did you know that you can turn your smartphone into a credit card terminal? Oh yes, GLAD WORKS friends! You can! This started in 2011, but it’s going to start spreading rapidly this year. More people are going to start using their phones to pay for stuff, and more businesses are going to be able to process payments on their phones or tablets wherever, whenever. We think this is pretty cool because it opens up a whole new land of possibilities for your business. You can literally do business anywhere.
We’re looking forward to seeing how all of this pans out and to find out what else 2012 has in store for us, you know, assuming the world isn’t going to end or anything.
Start Your New Year Off On the Go!
Tuesday 1/3/12
Before the holidays we talked about a few things that are going to be important to think about over the coming year as you formulate your business strategies. Perhaps the most important thing out of everything we discussed is going mobile. So now that we’ve eaten all our gingerbread cookies and sucked down the last of the eggnog, it’s time to think about all the ways you can generate some sales using mobile.
Mobile is on the upswing! The latest mobile statistics done by comScore reveal that over 70% of American mobile subscribers send texts, and over 40% use apps and/or browse the mobile web. As of August, 84.5 million people in the U.S. own smartphones—keep in mind that that number pre-dates the release of the latest iPhone from Apple. It also pre-dates the holidays that just passed. We’re sure that number has risen substantially since then, so the rise of smartphone usage cannot and should not be ignored by any business owner hoping to grow in the coming year.
This is one bus you cannot afford to miss, people.
But what the heck do we mean when we say “you should go mobile!” Well, it can take the form of lots of things. We’ve discussed with you the possibilities to be found with QR Codes and the absolute necessity of Responsive Web Design. We’ve also tempted you with the idea of creating an app, but there are other things you can do with mobile as well.
Text Message Subscription Campaigns
If you’ve been doing email marketing campaigns, here’s a cool new take on that same idea. In addition to collecting your customer’s email addresses, see if you can get their phone numbers along with permission to send them offers and notifications via text message. People read their text messages very soon after they’ve been received, so you can be sure that your customers are getting your message almost right away. Just think about your own behavior. If you’re as attached to your phone as most people are, you read texts almost immediately, don’t you?
But with a text message comes much responsibility. It’s a very intimate way to connect with people and you have to be very careful not to use it too much. If you’re as considerate as possible with your messages and only text folks when you have something truly wonderful to share with them, you’ll do very well and you won’t be a pest.
Mobile Coupons
People LOVE coupons! Mobile coupons can be sent to a targeted group of your customers to help you lure them in to your business. For example, let’s say you own a ski shop that’s particularly quiet on certain nights of the week. You text a discount coupon to your customers that’s only good on those quiet nights and BAM! Thursdays become so busy you have to hire an extra ski bum to help you take care of your customers.
Hang ten, dude!
Wait. That’s surfing…
Mobile Ad Networks
A great way to get some attention is through mobile ads. The mobile ad industry is exploding right now because mobile advertising is amazing in two major ways:
- Mobile ads are highly targetable because there’s a lot of information out there about smartphone users. This makes it easy to figure out the demographic you need to target.
- You can reach out to customers while they’re making purchasing decisions. Clearly, this is incredible as it gives you a chance to influence their decision while they have a product in hand.
Mobile is still brand new and there’s a lot of uncharted territory, but rest assured, it’s taking off in a big way and there could very well be some amazing new mobile advertising methods taking shape over the coming year. We’re pretty excited to explore the possibilities ahead.
Whatever you choose to go with for your mobile strategy, make sure it’s the best choice for your demographic so you get the best ROI possible. If you’re unsure about how to even start thinking about a mobile strategy, that’s okay! That’s why you have us!
* This article was originallly written for and appeared in iPhone Life Magazine.
Well.
How about the Holiday Feeding Frenzy, huh?
I’ve managed to pack away enough holiday food to keep me at the gym for months, just sweating little droplets of fruitcake and chocolate truffles. I think I speak for most of us when I say it’s time to Stop The Insanity!
And what better way to do that than with some apps that will help you stay fit and active despite the holiday season’s offerings. And if you’re not ready to jump on the wagon yet, you will be. New Years is on its way and just about everybody has either “start flossing” or “get more exercise” at the top of their list of resolutions.
Many a gym membership has been purchased in January!
And you know what else? Lots of apps too!
Here’s a list of some of my favorites:
I admit that I don’t really use this one as much as my wife does. She loves it because she can keep track of how much water she’s drinking, how many calories she’s consumed, her weight, her calorie goals, her physical activity, and she can see where she stands nutritionally for the day. What’s pretty cool is that you can scan bar codes to get the nutrition facts for many foods so that you don’t have to put them in yourself. It saves a lot of time! You can even set it up so that every time you make an entry, that information is shared with your friends! If you’re the competitive type, this will totally turn your crank! It will also keep you from eating things that are off limits if the whole world is gonna know about it!
This one requires the special equipment of a wristband that helps you track your activities and your sleep. The wristband can also track your steps, distance traveled, your pace and intensity level and GPS routes. It even vibrates to tell you to wake up for the day or even to get up off your lazy behind and move if you’ve been inactive for too long. I have to say it’s pretty cool! I can join health challenges, compete with friends, or collaborate with a team to help keep me motivated and engaged. The thing I like the best though is that I can take quick photos to create a journal of what I eat, and follow prompts to record how each meal makes me feel:
Blue cheese encrusted steak at Ruth’s Chris Steak House: made me feel AWESOME!
Ahem…you see why fitness apps are a good idea for me…
I hate drinking water. If you’ve been paying attention, you know what my favorite beverage is, and that ain’t it!
But Waterlogged has helped me get on board the hydration train. All I have to do is take a picture of the fancy water bottle my wife bought me, and record my water intake. I can set reminders throughout the day so I don’t forget to drink, and I can take pictures of all the different cups and glasses I use, which makes it really easy to select a size. It even records partial servings! Not that I need that because I always finish all my water like a good boy. There’s water in coffee, right?
I’m just going to admit right now that I love this mostly because I can outrun my friends playing Nike+ Tag. But it’s also great for mapping my runs, recording my pace, distance and run route thorough my iPhone’s GPS and accelerometer. It’s also great to help me stay motivated while I’m running because it comes with my very own cheering section! Nike + GPS also gives me voice feedback while I’m running. And then when I’ve had a totally kick butt run; I get to brag about it to the rest of the Nike_ fans. In. Your. Face! Nobody has to know I went home and collapsed from exhaustion
So that’s it! Apps that can help you stay active-- even while Auntie Mabel’s triple chocolate fudge cake’s a callin.’
Thank you for Thinking Differently, Mr. Jobs
Thursday 10/6/11 
As you all know by now, Steve Jobs, the ultimate design-team leader and CEO at Apple, passed away yesterday at the young age of 56, leaving a tremendous legacy of countless innovations that have changed our lives forever.
Here at GLAD WORKS, we use Apple products every day. In fact, our work would not be possible without the power and efficiency of our beloved Macs. We frequently design and develop apps for both iPhone and iPad, and many of us are also owners of and devotees to those technologies. Through his products we feel intimately connected to Mr. Jobs as they have all come about as a result of his deep personal involvement in their fruition.
And today, we are very sad to say goodbye to this incredible man who has done so much in his short life. His courage, creativity, innovation, and ability to “think different” has been, and will always be, an inspiration to us all. We will always remember the remarkable contributions he has made, and he is an example of what can be done, what is achievable, if you’re willing to push boundaries and explore the possibilities.
Thank you, Mr. Jobs.
Is Your Website Still Sporting a Mullet?
Wednesday 9/7/11
Is your website starting to look like it was born in the 90’s? WAS your website born in the 90’s? If so, it’s definitely time to start thinking about a redesign. You didn’t think that site you had designed a millionty years ago was going to work for you forever, did you?
Every business that has any kind of web presence will need to update their website every few years to stay current with trends and new technology. The nature of your business may have evolved over the years, or your old design might be a little outdated. Think of it as being like changing your hairstyle every once in a while. Nobody should still be sporting a badass ‘87 mullet, for example. What was once awesome (arguably, mullets were never awesome but that’s beside the point) does not always stay awesome.
But before you call us, you need to get your ideas together first since redesigning your website can involve a lot of decision making. Today, we bring you a list of some of the things we’re going to talk to you about when you come to meet with us. Consider it a cheat sheet to make you super smart and savvy.
It’s good to be prepared, GLAD WORKS friends.
1. What are your goals for your new website?
Ask yourself what you want to accomplish with this redesign. Do you want better functionality, better design, improved SEO? Do you need new content that includes new services or products? You need to have clear goals as they will be what drives the whole project.
2. What does and doesn’t work about your existing site?
Go through your site and approach it from a user’s perspective. What works? What doesn’t work? Is it user friendly? There are bound to be some elements of your site that work really well and some that don’t. For example, you might have a totally rockin’ photo gallery that people enjoy looking through…IF they can find it. In that case, you want to keep that gallery, but make it easier to find. Keep looking back at your goals as you go through your site to make sure you have a clear picture of what’s going to help you meet them and what’s not. Try not to be emotionally attached to things. If they’re not working, no matter how cool you think they are, they have to go. Sorry.
3. Has your brand evolved since your last website?
Brands change over time. Maybe you’ve expanded your services and products, or maybe your image has changed a bit since you first set out. Now is the time to think about where you are today compared to when you last had your site designed. What has changed about you and how should your new site reflect that? You may be looking at a total re-branding, and now is the time to do it—a whole new you complete with a shiny new website! BAM! Check you out!
4. Are you still loving your color scheme and logo?
If your brand has changed, the image you want to project has probably changed too. That image is projected through the colors you choose and your logo (among other things). Maybe your logo just needs to be tweaked a little bit, or maybe your color scheme needs to reflect your new identity. Look back to your goals as you ponder aesthetics.
5. How is your site being used?
Are your customers mostly accessing your site from their phones? If that’s the case, you need to think about making your new design responsive. Do your customers like to interact with certain elements of your site? You might want to consider gamification to keep them coming back to you. Study your site analytics to help you understand how visitors are finding you and what they’re doing once they get there. This will give you a clear picture of how people are interacting with your site and what changes you need to make to enhance their experience. If you have no clue how to get site analytics, we can do that for you and help you interpret the results. No worries.
There are many other things to think about too, but these are a few of the big ones to help you get started. Remember that making the transition from the old site to the new one might be off-putting to some people, so you might want to include a blurb somewhere explaining that you’ve improved your site and encourage them to check out your new look!
Gamification: Make it Fun and they Will Come!
Wednesday 8/24/11
Gamification is the new hotness and everyone and their nerd is talking about it!
The term “gamification” refers to the use of elements found in video games that have been translated into web design. Normally, you find gamification in customer-oriented web and mobile sites being used as a tool to get people to engage with a site and do stuff like take surveys, shop or read articles. It’s a great tool for marketers to use and it takes advantage of people’s natural desire to do fun stuff and get rewards.
Cool, right?
The Internet would be way more exciting if every website was like a game, wouldn’t it?
Shopping for things like car insurance would be the Best! Thing! Ever! instead of a boring and annoying task. The good news is that this is actually happening and businesses are starting to realize that if they gamify their websites a little bit, people will come back.
Now this is not to say that when you shop for car insurance in the future you’ll have to shoot some police and beat up a virtual hooker (like you can do in the game Grand Theft Auto) to get a good rate. It’s also not about hand-eye coordination and arcade style gaming. Instead, it’s web designers starting to take notice of what makes games so enjoyable and easy to navigate, and they’re applying these same principles to the websites they’re creating.
For example, part of what makes games so enjoyable is their highly usable and intuitive interface. Life is a lot more fun when you don’t have to think too much about what you’re doing, isn’t it? We humans don’t like to mentally strain and concentrate unless we absolutely have to—especially when trying to get around a website.
When a site is hard to navigate, or if it’s just plain boring, we lose our patience and we’re likely to click away if we feel we’re wasting too much of our valuable brainpower on something. The site ends up with traffic, but few repeat visits.
Now take that same level of mental strain and concentration and it becomes a lot more attractive and fun if it’s wrapped in the context of a game.
Games are visually attractive and engaging, which is a huge element of game design that web designers can use to help hook people in. When you’re playing a game, the content is delivered in a way that maintains the narrative—it keeps you involved and invested because it doesn’t break away from the story you’re engaged in. Web designers can do the same thing to toss a little pizzaz into the mix. Add to that a streamlined user experience and you’ve got a gamified website, GLAD WORKS friends!
A great example of this can be seen in Nike+. With compatible personal GPS transceivers (iPhone, Nike SportWatch GPS, Nike SportBand, etc) the website will give real-time feedback through the device, as well as provide a database to store that info. You can save your routes for your complete run history, and set goals. You can then go back and compare your times from those routes over time, and track your progress. The website also provides guidance as to what the next step of progress might be for a training regime.
Most engaging however is Nike’s promotion of the social aspect of running. On the front page is a “What’s happening now” section that displays the most recent results and activity in your country. Not only that, but you can also compete against friends and contacts, essentially “racing” them virtually. Nike+ will also do “Facebook broadcasting,” making wall posts that show the details of your runs. So, just by using the app and linking it with Facebook, users will be doing bottom-up marketing every time they sync with Nike+.
Nike+ is just one example of what is rapidly emerging as a major trend in website design. Gamification can range from a simple points-based ranking system that leverages the desire for achievement, to using effective web navigation tools like lightboxes or carousels to reduce page clutter and end-user confusion. If you don’t know what those things are, that’s okay. We can explain it to you when you come in to have us gamify your website for you.
Far from being an untested tactic, gamification has been around since forever—way before the Internet was even a twinkle in our eyes. Remember the McDonald’s Monopoly game, for example? Or, how about when you were a little kid and you get a gold star on your chore chart because you finally dragged that moldy grilled cheese sandwich out from under your bed? Gamification works on those same old principals that people have been using to motivate each other for eons.
What is new, however, is applying these same mechanisms of positive reinforcement and interaction to what were previously very static and mundane one-way streets of information dissemination. With the right strategy, gamification can greatly improve the way users experience your website. Not only is a fun and rewarding user experience great for PR, it just might inspire people to do business with you again and again.
Responsive Web Design: It’s Mmmagical!
Wednesday 8/17/11
Why are we boring you guys with this topic?
Because if you’re thinking about having a website designed, this is definitely something you want to consider, so listen up peeps! Plus it’s wicked cool, so there’s that too.
Before we get into telling you what responsive web design is, go here and slowly make the desktop browser thinner and wider. Do you see how the layout magically changes to fit the new width of the browser? See how you can make it really small and skinny just like the screen on a smartphone?
Go ahead. Play around with it and try not to get distracted by all the cool apartments featured on that site.
We’ll wait…
This is most excellent in a flexible and fluid-y sort of way, isn’t it? It’s kind of like yoga for websites.
That’s the point behind this whole responsive design shebang. Here, let us explain.
As you’ve probably noticed, computers aren’t the only things with web browsers anymore. Many of us now have mobile devices and there’s a whole “mobile web” out there that web designers have to contend with. People expect to be able to look at a website from their phones with the same ease and clarity as they can on their desktop computers. If you’ve ever tried to look at a website from your phone, you know it doesn’t always turn out very well and it can be a supreme pain in the tookus.
In fact, you might even get frustrated and either go looking for a site you CAN see on your phone, or just forget the whole thing and go do something else.
In response to this problem, web designers started creating mobile versions of their websites. This meant that there were two different versions of these websites—a mobile one and a desktop one. And that was just ducky and it worked out fine until things started to get interesting when devices like iPads and netbooks started appearing in people’s hands. The heads of web designers everywhere collectively exploded.
It was gross.
AND THEN!
People started buying all of these gigantic, high-resolution displays and web designers took to the streets in protest and threatened to break the Internet forever if somebody didn’t stop the insanity!
No they didn’t.
But clearly, something had to be done because these poor web designers couldn’t possibly design a site for every single stop on the now huge spectrum of screen sizes and resolutions. It’s getting bigger every day and it’s impossible to create different versions of a website that targets each and every kind of device on the market.
In response to this, web designers (specifically This Guy), have adopted this responsive web design thing so that no matter what kind of device a person might be using, the elements of the web layout can be squeezed or stretched as needed to fit the size of the screen, and everything will still be readable and look pretty.
Cool, right?
So why do you care about this? After all, you’re not a web designer. But you ARE (maybe) a business owner who could lose customers because your website might not work on their particular device.
Right?
You’re feeling where we’re going with this, aren’t you?
So, if you’re thinking of creating a website or updating your old one, this is something you should be thinking about doing because when you’re accessible from anywhere, you are accessible from anywhere.
I think we can all agree that is a very good thing.
PS: Our web designers’ heads remained intact during The Great Head Exploding Incident. They are unflappable!
Getting Frisky with Tablet Apps
Tuesday 7/19/11To continue a little bit with my topic from last time about how part of successful marketing is daring to be different, I wanted to tell you about an iPad app for cats that I came across recently.
Yes. I said an iPad app for cats.
Some people may think it sounds fishy (tuna delight, perhaps?), but from a marketing perspective, I think it’s a cool idea. Who would ever expect to see an iPad app that’s made for cats? Nobody, that’s who. So, while all the other cat food companies were cranking out the same old gimmicky stuff they’ve been making since forever, Friskies thought outside the litter box and came up with an app that entertains cats by displaying fast-moving objects on the iPad screen. The app takes advantage of the touch screen—as the cats bat at objects, the objects move frantically across the screen. Not only is this entertaining for the cat, but it’s a hoot to watch them go bonkers!
What I love about this app and the reason why I wanted to talk about it today is that it reaches far beyond the obvious market—iPad owning cat lovers. The news of this seemingly absurd app is all over the Internet! Friskies is standing out in a sea of similarity and that’s exactly what you want to do if you’re thinking about creating a tablet app. If you’re gonna go, go BIG and dare to be different!
But…should you be thinking about making a tablet app for your business?
The answer to this question is: “it depends.”
When thinking about developing a tablet app for your business, you have to ask yourself a few questions. Is your product or service one where having a tablet app makes sense?
Are your customers likely to have tablets and use them regularly enough so that your app helps either drive business to your company, make their lives easier, or provides entertainment in some way?
If the answer is “yes” to any of those questions, then read on. Even if it’s not, you should probably keep reading anyway because I wrote this for you.
Most companies contemplating creating a tablet app already have a smartphone app. If you’ve already got a smartphone app, you could have a tablet app too, since the leap from one platform to the other is relatively small. You could even pimp it out a little bit and add extra features and options. It’s also becoming standard for apps to be written so they’re compatible with both smartphones and tablets, at least within a given OS (ie Android, iOS). The portable device market software automatically recognizes the device you’re using and adjusts the available packages accordingly.
However, what people do with tablets is not the same as what they do with their smartphones, so assuming that the two are identical is a little misguided. People engage with content in different ways depending on what they’re using. For example, a person looking for a nearby magic shop while they’re out on the road probably won’t whip out an iPad to do that. They’ll use a smartphone, mostly because tablets are less portable than phones. A tablet is for less immediate utilitarian purposes.
Just think of all the advertisements for tablets that you see on television: they’re marketed as devices you use while staying in once place (your couch, your chair, etc) as opposed to on the go. Lots of folks use them to read newspapers and books. Other people use them for business because they’re great for taking notes, organizing stuff and pulling up files. Their convenience is in their larger screens. Conversely, smartphones are for people on the go, and for the most part, that’s when they’re used. Their convenience is in their portability and small size.
So, if your customers are the type to use a tablet, go for it with an app! The really great news here is that you can be pretty fun and creative with your tablet app. Set yourself apart from your competition and don’t be afraid to be a little frisky…after all, you want your app to be the cat’s meow!