[nfais-l] NFAIS Enotes, July 2011

Fri Jul 1 11:14:20 EDT 2011

NFAIS e-Notes, July 2011

Six Types of Apps You Can't Do Without

Written and Compiled by Jill O'Neill

On the 37Signals blog, Signal to Noise, there recently was a light-hearted
posting about the diverse apps that various members of their staff had on
their Apple iTouch/iPhone devices. If you click through at
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2913-the-home-screens-of-37signals, you can
look at the home screens of real users as a quick snapshot of what a
younger, tech-savvy crowd of programmers and UX designers depended on daily.
As a follow-up to that posting, two 37Signal staffers posted differing views
of the importance of apps on a platform. 

(1)     Ten Apps is All I Need
(http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2959-ten-apps-is-all-i-need)

(2)     Counterpoint: 200,000 Apps Is What They Want
(http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2962-counterpoint-200000-apps-is-what-they-w
ant)

The author of the first posting listed above wrote of Apple's intelligence
in creating some nine default functionalities in the iPhone (Safari browser,
camera, iPod, clock, weather, photos, voice messages, mail and maps). He did
not have any compelling need to download much else because Apple had
anticipated his basic requirements for a mobile device. The counter position
adopted by his colleague, was that it doesn't matter what is built into the
operating system as a default; what matters is how strongly the user
believes that the device they purchase will meet their current and future
needs during the contract term. Users want to be sure that whatever it is
they might care to do on or with their mobile device, there will be "an app
for that."  And with 200,000 apps available in the Apple store, user needs
are pretty much covered.

The postings came to my attention not long after an NFAIS conference call,
during which someone asked what it was that younger people were doing on
their mobile phones beyond the gaming and social networking that seemed to
dominate the space. My response was to go wander around in iTunes and in the
Amazon Android App store. Poke around a bit, and like me, you will see a
broad range of apps divided into equally broad categories that users are
encouraged to purchase and download. Lifestyle apps! Financial apps!
Productivity apps!  

Flurry Analytics, a tool that captures data about mobile apps usage,
published research findings in June that indicated that the use of mobile
apps was surpassing the use of the open Web (see: 

http://blog.flurry.com/bid/63907/Mobile-Apps-Put-the-Web-in-Their-Rear-view-
Mirror).

Specifically, "Flurry found that the average user now spends 9% more time
using mobile apps than the Internet.  This was not the case just 12 months
ago.  Last year, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using
mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet.
Growing at 91% over the last year, users now spend over 81 minutes on mobile
applications per day.  This growth has come primarily from more sessions per
user, per day rather than a large growth in average session lengths.  Time
spent on the Internet has grown at a much slower rate, 16% over the last
year, with users now spending 74 minutes on the Internet a day."

Flurry's sample size was 500 million daily usage sessions during May 2011.
Given that current Nielsen statistics presented at a recent mobile
conference  indicate that one third of the American public owns a smart
phone, while less than two percent of the same group surveyed own a tablet (
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/android-leads-u-s-in-smartphone
-market-share-and-data-usage/), it seems clear that for a sizeable segment
of the population, the functionality associated with apps on smaller
computing devices has become something they take for granted. Big or small,
these smaller computing devices are driving user expectations of everyone's
products and services - far more than laptops or PCs do. 

So what apps represent the basic tool kit for a rising group of knowledge
workers? Aside from the gaming and social networking apps that do seem to
dominate such environments, below are examples of some of the practical
tools I believe workers are looking for. (Note: These apps appear in no
particular order despite the numbering assigned.)

(1) A Note-Taking App -- It's true that the default Apple operating system
offers a note-taking app, but its functionality is fairly minimal. I
personally use Evernote for accessing saved information and notes to myself
on my iTouch, but alternatively Springpad, a service from Spring Partners,
is an alternative option (see: http://www.springpadit.com
<http://www.springpadit.com/> ). Graphically appealing and supporting
drag-and-drop assembly of bits of information, Springpad may be of more
value to an iPad-driven working population. The service is free at this
point, because Spring Partners sells advertising to brands looking to reach
users. They make money through lead generation, for example, by partnering
with brands who buy targeted ads that show up alongside your notes in
Springpad.  If you save a blog entry about building a backyard deck, Lowes
and/or Black & Decker will want their advertisements to appear next to your
page. They will also amplify the content you save. Save a restaurant name
and number and Springpad serves up reviews from Yelp. Most of the key
interactive mechanisms for use are available (apps, browser extensions,
etc.) and one can share via Facebook or Twitter as necessary. The Wall
Street Journal gave Springpad a positive review in late 2010 (see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703376504575491750741385596.ht
ml). Because Springpad is integrated with the likes of Amazon, searching for
and creating a list of titles for your summer reading list is fairly easy. 

(2)  A Search App - Apps, such as Bing, further enable integrated discovery.
The most recent innovation by Bing is enabling discovery of relevant apps,
given that Apple's iTunes store is notoriously difficult for purposes of
finding new tools. The Bing blog describes the functionality this way "The
Bing search engine will surface apps in the context of normal web queries.
For example, Thor 3D, Facebook, and Hotels in Seattle are some of the
queries for which Bing automatically finds the right apps." That query for
Thor, for example, will return an entry from IMDB (owned by Amazon) and
should the user click on that entry, if the IMDB app is already on the
user's device, Bing will promptly launch IMDB (see:
(http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/06/09/iphone
-mobile-app-discovery-with-bing.aspx). Keeping up with that approach, Yahoo
released their Y! AppSpot application, that largely serves the same purpose
(see: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/y-appspot/id434682382?mt=8), and
TechCrunch loved it (see:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/15/yahoo-mobile-app-search/). 

If you would prefer to stick with Google for searching on mobile devices,
that is also manageable. Google announced at their Inside Search event in
June that they had enabled a feature for finding nearby services
(restaurants, coffee bars, ATM'S, gas, etc.) in their mobile app (see:
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-new-features-to-mobile_
14.html). At the same time, Google announced support for more complex
queries in their mobile app on both Android and Apple operating systems. If
you want to search via an image snapped with your mobile phone's camera,
Google has also enabled that as an option.  Finally, checking the weather
via Google is equally quick and simple. Type weather into the Google search
box on your mobile phone and Google brags that it serves up interactive
weather information that you can "play with."

And a very recent entry is Do at . The search app offers a form of federated
search for those using their mobile device as a look-up tool for questions
on music, film, television, sports, etc. Watch the video and see if you
agree with the press that called it a revolution in mobile search tools
(see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBKk2s9nnOg). I'm not sure that I
agree. 

(3) One or More Communication Apps.  Communication apps, such as Twitter or
Gmail, are a necessity. Twitter has released increasingly sophisticated
mobile capabilities, including their launch of a new mobile interface in
May. Here is what was said about it on a recent blog. "The app is fast - you
can quickly scroll through your timeline, move between tabs and compose
Tweets. It's rich - it takes advantage of capabilities that high-end device
browsers offer, such as touch gestures and a large screen. And it's simple -
it's easy-to-use and has the features you'd expect from a Twitter
application, including your timeline, @mentions, messages that you can read
in conversation view, search, trending topics, lists, and more." (see:
http://blog.twitter.com/2011/05/better-app-for-your-mobile-browser.html). 

Tech Crunch called the new version "slick" (see:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/11/twitter-rolls-out-slick-mobile-web-app-its-
like-twitter-for-iphone-but-upside-down/). Given the tight integration that
Twitter will have in Apple's forthcoming iOS5, one can assume that the
communication function that Twitter serves will be omnipresent (see:
http://blog.twitter.com/2011/06/ios-5-tweet-everywhere.html). Twitter is
already as much of a support for authentication sign-in as either Facebook
or Gmail. 

Again, if you're looking for an alternative interface, you can look at
Seesmic for either iPhone or Android.  For those in Europe, techradar has
assembled an extensive list of available apps in support of Twitter
(see:http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/17-best-twitter-apps-for-2011-93
0383).

(4) A Reading App. The Amazon Kindle app is a robust reading application
that encompasses a sizeable corpus of currently available content. It's not
print on demand, but it certainly facilitates on-demand reading across most,
if not all, e-reading platforms. 

Of particular interest is reading on one's iPad, even more than on the
smaller iTouch. In this light, suddenly the archives of the world's best
libraries become intriguingly accessible. For example, there is the British
Library's 19th century literature iPad app. For a quick glimpse, go to
http://britishlibrary19c.tumblr.com <http://britishlibrary19c.tumblr.com/> ,
or consider the British Library's app that is compatible with both iPhone
and iPad, the Treasures app (see:
http://pressandpolicy.bl.uk/Press-Releases/British-Library-Launches-First-Sm
artphone-App-483.aspx). 

If you choose not to use the Kindle app on your iPad, Jane Litte recommends
Bluefire as an alternative reading app, or if you are a Barnes and Noble
shopper, the Nook app will also be available to those using either iOS or
Android (see:
http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/ten-must-have-ipad-apps-for-readers-by-jan
e-litte/).

As a follow-up to a webinar that I listened in on, a host of approaches to
books on the iPad were supplied by consultant and author, Peter Meyers (see:
http://newkindofbook.com/2011/06/ipad-books-the-reader-experience-app-list/)
. His focus was on the reader's experience and he noted some of the
innovative interactivity built into "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr.
Morris Lessmore," a cinematic short that had been nicely transformed into an
iPad "book" experience. Meyers also praised the serial publication approach
of the Operation Ajax app.  Chapters 1-5 are currently available, with
Chapters 6-12 yet to be published. Other serial publication approaches have
been adapted by authors seeking to circumvent traditional publishing
approaches, such as the Mongoliad. But the Mongoliad is noteworthy for the
social environment and community that has grown up around the Web-based
tales by noted science fiction authors Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. It was
on that basis that the Mongoliad was recently featured at an O'Reilly Tools
of Change event. 

(5)  Your Social Network App. We can't completely ignore social networking
but we can look outside of Facebook and Twitter in this regard. The working
professional may want to grab the LinkedIn Mobile app
(http://www.linkedin.com/mobile) for some of that contact network, but
alternatively Bento for either iPhone or iPad can sync with your contact
list in email. (see: http://www.filemaker.com/products/bento/iphone.html).
Bento gets decent reviews, as can be seen at
http://www.macworld.com/appguide/app.html?id=64790. 

(6) Current Awareness App. Finally, there is all the news that is constantly
flowing to us throughout the day via Web apps. Personally, I favor MSNBC,
The Atlantic Wire, and the Huffington Post for my lunch break reads, but
these are quite frankly not the highest-rated or the hippest, particularly
in the context of more content-neutral interfaces available for the iPad
such as Pulse, Flipboard, and a recent entry, HitPad (http://www.hitpad.com
<http://www.hitpad.com/> ). The launch press release distinguishes HitPad
from its competitors on the basis of: 

*	Hitpad is a rich visual dashboard that tells you what the most
important things you should know today in your areas of interest.
*	Hitpad is instrumentation by measuring, analyzing and determining
what is important to consume in order to minimize reverb and improve
discovery
*	Hitpad is agnostic to the publishers that are providing the data
*	Hitpad is tuned and personalized based on your interests

In fact, the more I look at those must-have apps, the more I understand how
I use a mobile device. For me at least, it's for communication, a research
and memory aid, and a tool with which I keep up on the world around me. I
can do without video games such as Angry Birds, but I'm not sure I can do
without Evernote or Gmail if I'm to remain productive. 

***********************************************

2011 SPONSORS

Access Innovations, Inc.

Accessible Archives, Inc.

American Psychological Association/PsycINFO

American Theological Library Association

CAS

CrossRef

Data Conversion Laboratory

Defense Technical Information Center

Elsevier

Getty Research Institute

H. W. Wilson

Information Today, Inc.

International Food Information Services

Philosopher's Information Center

ProQuest

Really Strategies, Inc.

TEMIS, Inc.

Thomson Reuters IP & Science

Unlimited Priorities Corporation

Jill O'Neill

Director, Planning & Communication

NFAIS

(v) 215-893-1561

(email) jilloneill at nfais.org

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