You’ve spent hours of time on the development of an iPhone or iPad application. You’ve spent time making sure your app works right and looks a certain way and now that it’s done, you’re convinced that your app is so good it’s just going to sell itself. Wrong, think again.
It’s not a secret that you need to do more than just throw your new application up on the app store and hope for the best. Not all apps are good enough to sell themselves, and in fact majority of them fall short from even attracting a modest number of users. The current structure of the app store is not designed to help developers promote their apps, even if you do create the most amazing app anyone has ever seen. With over 150,000 apps on the app store, good design alone isn’t going to skyrocket you to the top of the charts. An effective marketing plan combined with a well designed app however, can elevate all those hard spent efforts to the top of the pack in record time and make all your efforts worthwhile.
In order for people to download and use your app, they have to find it first and that can be difficult to achieve. The only way that large numbers of people are going to know that your app exists to download, is if an all out effort is made to get it out there in the public eye. You need to be social with it, be visible and talk about your app every you chance you get. The more public your app is, the more visibility it will have and the more downloads it will get.
Sounds simple, right? Well not exactly. If you’ve got the money you can hire an agency that understands your product and the audience you are targeting and let them drive the marketing efforts. However, if like most startups or indie developers or anyone else who’s on a budget then you need another more affordable alternative. Guess what, you’re in luck. You can successfully market your app with 1 or 2 people dedicated to the efforts. Ideally those people should have a background in marketing, but if you don’t have the budget to hire someone to help, you can accomplish a lot of it yourself with a little determination and focus. Continue Reading ->
What’s wrong with this new ad from Verizon & Google for the new Droid?
Looks remarkably similar to the iconic photograph of the first iPhone at Macworld 2007 that was shot by James Duncan Davidson and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t called ahead of time to consult on creative ideas.
Check out the original photo below
This is one instance where the creative team working on the Droid launch should take time to consider creativity.
I’ve become almost blind to my use of Google. Anytime I need to search for something, I use the built-in search tool in either Safari or Firefox that automatically defaults to Google without even thinking about it. Google had certainly succeeded in their search engine being the one and only thing I think about when I need to search.
Trouble is, lately the results in Google have been more of a frustration than anything. Granted the paid ads are sometimes relevant, and the results show mostly targeted sites for what I am searching on, but the breadth of results has narrowed greatly since I first started using Google and I just feel like I’m missing stuff.
Today, I was searching for travel options from Seattle. I have a few trips planned this summer and thinking about adding some more. Of course, the main travel websites all came back with similar offers. I wanted something different. I had a “Bing Moment” where I wondered if Microsoft’s new search engine Bing would give me something different. Continue Reading ->
Today, at Synology, we announced on the Synology world-wide blog the upcoming release of 2 new iPhone applications. These new iPhone applications work with the Synology Disk Station Manager firmware (DSM 2.2) to integrate into Disk Station features. The apps, named DS Audio and DS Photo are still under Apple’s approval process but we expect them to be released in the month of July. The public beta of DSM 2.2 will be launched mid July and we expect that the applications will be available shortly afterwards.
Now you can upload a photo you just took with your iPhone or use a photo already stored on your iPhone/iPod Touch to Synology’s Disk Station and instantly share it with anyone online. The photos can be viewed on Synology Photo Station or any web browser.
With DS Photo for the iPhone/iPod Touch, you will be able to;
Upload photos to an existing album on Synology Disk Station or create a new one
Enter title and descriptions for the photos
Browse photos on Synology Photo Station with Safari on iPhone, using the features of zooming in, zooming out, and rotating photos
DS Audio allows you to stream music stored on Synology’s Disk Station with your iPhone/iPod Touch where internet access is available. *We are working on allowing our applications to deliver streaming music over the 3G network.
With DS Audio for the iPhone/iPod Touch, you will be able to;
Play music stored on your Synology Disk Station with iPhone/iPod Touch
According to the May 2009 Mobile Metrics Report by AdMob, Apple is taking a big bite of the Smartphone market share. In their newly released study, they take a closer look at the iPhone apps within the AdMob network. “It is general knowledge that the top free apps are downloaded millions of times. But with an incredibly crowded App Store, one important question is what happens to the rest of the apps.” view the entire report on the AdMob website including more user statistics and breakdowns of demographics.
Google has launched their mobile version of Google AdSense, now available on the iPhone and Android platforms. Not surprising that Google was the first to implement full blow advertising in applications. What was once free, will now be a little less free as users of free apps will now be forced to sit through targeted advertising embedded into the application. Developers of the app do have the choice to decide what ads are shown, block certain ads and how they are shown. While users may be less than thrilled with the new addition of advertising be delivered through their apps, many marketing and advertising professionals are scrambling to buy ads. Continue Reading ->
I just finished attending a virtual online conference through B2B titled The Leading Edge; .
The benefits of being able to attend the conference from my desk were great, I was able to answer emails continue working in-between session breaks and download content immediately from the presentations. The keynotes were clear and came through with video and overall I thought Continue Reading ->
Heather Morford lives near Seattle and is passionate about technology (specifically iPhone/iPad), marketing, public relations, communications, traveling and decaf coffee. She consults on marketing and publicity for product launches, startups and small businesses.
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