So, what is the difference between a mobile web app and a native app?

In its simplest form, a Mobile Web App (also known as a “web app”) runs with all or parts of its software downloaded from somewhere on the internet each time the app executes.

A native app, on the other hand, is designed to run on a specific device’s operating system and firmware. (think iPhone app) In order to run on other devices a native app will either have to be completely rebuilt or some adaptations will need to be made.

Web apps, however, don’t tend to be as popular as native apps, and there are two primary reasons why:

• Because of the “cool” factor of native apps, vendors are more interested in promoting native apps than web apps
• You can take more advantage of Native phone functions with a Native app, i.e. Push notifications, access to native functions (take a photo/choose existing photo)

Why might you use mobile apps instead of native apps?

Each type of app has its own distinct advantages.  The strengths of Mobile Web Apps mostly benefit application developers.  Here are some of the advantages they enjoy:

• Total control over distribution of the app
• Web apps are typically cheaper and faster to create
• They take advantage of existing web technologies like JavaScript and CSS (and HTML5), making the technical barriers to create a web app lower than Native.
• Skilled web app developers are easier to find than programmers who know the iPhone’s Objective-C
• Web apps are run on browsers, making device-specific customization much less difficult
• W3C is heading an effort involving browser vendors and handset manufacturers and operators to allow Web apps access to a variety of device capabilities

While web apps have many distinct advantages, they do have one drawback. The user needs to download most, if not all, of the data for the Mobile Web App. (Roaming data charges apply). With a Native App you are able to package the information into the phone for seamless access and playback.

Two Very Alluring Features of Web Apps

Not only do web apps have some of the benefits listed above, but they also have three distinct features businesses love.

The first is that, for simple applications, you can pretty easily wrap up a HTML5 web app into a native app ‘wrapper’, so you still have the ability to push it Native.

The second, and probably the most significant feature, lies in the fact web apps aren’t sold through an app store.  Apple’s app store is notorious for taking 30% of a company’s app sales and withholding important consumer data.

Thirdly, you reach a wider audience versus limiting yourself to one platform, or having to develop for multiple platforms. (i.e. iOS, Android, WP7/8)

Since web apps run through your browser, companies who would rather not lose this revenue and consumer data, such as fashion magazine Marie Claire (who optimized its site for the iPad) and London’s Financial Times paper (who launched its site as an HTML 5 web app), have found their own ways of working around the drawbacks of native apps. And the word on the street is that a Jivaldi client, Mountain Mikes Pizza, is going to release something soon here?

So, are native apps or web apps better?

While native apps are ‘sexy’ to build and promote, they still need to provide something useful for potential customers.  Many times companies will often become so wound up with the “cool” factor that they forget to make the app useful and build it for their customer. The result? Very few people actually download the app.

While there are obvious instances of why certain apps should be native (i.e. games) this article was written to highlight the potential advantages of Mobile Web Apps. The truth is that either option works well in the right set of circumstances.  If you take the time to consider the following questions, you’ll come up with the right solution to your problem:

• Who is my audience?
• Do the reasons for going native outweigh the need to reach beyond, say, iPhone users?
• What is the goal of my app?
• What is my budget?
• Will there be a need to create the app for additional platforms beyond iOS (Android and WP7)?

In the end,  the decision to go Native or not will depend on several different factors. So it’s not such a simple answer to determine which direction to move in. Keeping things simple is a good place to start.

Hopefully we’ve shed some light on why a Native app should be part of the decision making process.

In order to create a call to action that really works, it is important to follow a few basic guidelines:

• Relevance. Either inform your visitors how your product can be useful for them, or discuss their problem in detail and offer your solution. Before you actually make a call to action, it is first important for your visitors to understand why it’s important they take action.
• Be concise. Don’t offer your visitors multiple different actions to take – lead them to one specific action and show them exactly how to do it. If there is any difficulty whatsoever, your visitors know they can always find someone else to solve their problem, and that’s something you don’t want to happen.
• Be urgent. Inform your users why they need to take action now. Will there be dramatically different results in their lives as a result of their using your product or service? Does this offer expire soon? Can your users get something for free by acting fast? The answers to these questions will help you to develop a stronger sense of urgency.
• Create a Personal Connection. Simply describing the benefits of your product or service to your potential customers is a trap many companies unfortunately fall into. In order to really be effective, you have to show how your products or services can make a powerful impact on your customers. When talking about a problem your product or service can solve, your readers should think, “Oh my gosh, that’s me! I have that problem!” By developing an emotional connection, you dramatically increase the likelihood people will purchase from you.
• Position your call to action properly. The best placement for a call to action is high and in the center of your page. Additionally, keeping a fair amount of white space around your call to action makes it more noticeable. If you keep in mind the mantra, “It can never be too obvious,” then you are on the way to making your call to action unmistakable to your audience.
• Place a call to action on every page. If you don’t have a call to action on every single one of your pages, the chances a user leaves your site never to return are dramatic. You can try experimenting with different calls to action on different pages. Alternatively, you can use multiple small calls to action to lead up to a final large call to action.
• Use statistics to build your authority. People on the web are looking for precise information. Using precise numbers makes you look like you’ve done your homework. Talk about what percentage of your customers are satisfied, or describe in numbers what improvements your product or service can bring to your customers. Using precise statistics makes you an authority in the eyes of others, and other people will buy from an authoritative source.

There you have it! While this isn’t certainly every imaginable aspect of creating an effective call to action and only scratches the surface, it’s a good list for getting started and garnering initial success. Like this post? Be sure to tell your friends about the Jivaldi blog.

Our objective is to dramatically increase the quality of information in the world, via the feedback loop of crowd-sourced peer review. Think: Inverting Wikipedia and taking it out to the rest of the Internet (but with a better reputation model.)

We think this is humanity’s biggest challenge and that solving it is within our collective grasp.

The model of Hypothes.is is further explained in Dan’s intro video.

Note how Hypothes.is differentiates themselves from WikiPedia which Dan refers to as a, “Top-down editorial Bureaucracy”. Separating themselves from WikiPedia will naturally be a challenge for them – even if what they are doing is fundamentally different. Perception is still reality.

Nevertheless, Dan is an experienced Silicon Valley elite. He booked the first travel reservation in his living room – the software he built would eventually become a part of GetThere – a company that was purchased by Sabre Corporation in August of 2000, for 757 MM.  Why do I know all this you ask? Well, that’s where ‘yours truly’ had his start. In fact, GetThere is the reason that I was able to start my own business.  Do I have faith in Dan the man? Absolutely, as he – by way of fate and circumstance – allowed me to start Jivaldi.

So what does a startup do when it needs money and doesn’t want to be tied into Venture Capital right away? Well, it uses a service like Kickstarter. Kickstarter describes itself as the, “World’s largest funding platform for creative projects”.

Kickstarter allows companies to move away from investment or lending – allowing project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Sounds nice eh? I guess it then just boils down to having a good idea – one that will get family, friends and beyond to make a donation.

How can anyone argue Free money?

Good luck Dan & Team!

Probably one of the more amusing ads we’ve seen in a long time.  An ad from John Nolan films that went viral in Europe in 2010 but is making its way throughout the US now.

Apparently Nolan trained said mouse for the opening shots but used animatronics for the rest. “The rat was actually a robot I made covered in silicon. It still had its real hair and nails of a dead rat, but I had to punch this in individually into the synthetic skin, a bit like how hair transplants work.”

Craig Newmark - Craigslist, Photo: PLATON (wired mag)

The memory of sitting at a small presentation from Craig Newmark stands out to me because it was not only a lesson in how to build community, but it is a lesson that pertains to all things web. For instance, there is still a very pervasive and unrealistic mindset that if you have a Facebook and Twitter account, send out and email a few times a month to your database – that you are thus executing a good digital marketing plan. There is a lot of talk about there about tactics this, strategy that.

Building community means going beyond one-way communication.

If we look around the web it’s very evident that many companies consider social media marketing as putting a post or two up on your Facebook page about something going on at your business or a special you are having. “15% off your next purchase if you mention Facebook”. It’s not that there is anything wrong with this – offering a special on Facebook is fine. But if you look closely you’ll realize that the conversation is going only 1 way. There is not a lot of effort to reach out to people on social media or other and have one on one communication. And this is exactly what Craig Newmark was talking about when he brought up this concept of building online community over a decade ago.

Find a way to create back and forth communication between you and your customer, you’ve broken a barrier. Find a way to get your customers talking to each other under your foot, you’ve created community. Golden.

But creating interaction doesn’t just happen. It takes a lot of leg work. One of Mr. Newmark’s more memorable comments was that ‘he’ (meaning, him alone) physically had to stimulate conversation and force interaction. For example, one guy wants to sell stuff from his apartment because he is moving, and Craig sees others that are looking to buy such and such. Mr. Newmark described how he had to work hard initially to put these types of people in touch because most people we’re reluctant to interact. So not only was he a constant presence in the community he was building – he was playing the host!

And I think this idea holds true in all aspects of online ommunication and a company being able to reach out to its customer base. It’s not always about you talking to them, it’s also about you creating conversation among your customers. Here are some key points to consider when you consider the idea of building community.

• It will not happen overnight.
• It will take a lot of time and effort.
• It is not something you leave alone, it is a moving vehicle that you have to steer.
• You can get good at it.
• The potential benefits are great.
• There are no shortcuts

Though things have changed quite a bit with social media, people will need a reason to come back to your site and continue to interact. How do you accomplish this?

Think of it this way, if you are able to get others to interact in your arena – be it Facebook, a forum or email newsletters, Twitter, your blog…etc – you are creating connections via your brand. People will remember this if you are providing value. By giving people a reason to hang out near your company online, you may just find that your intermitten sale or product offer doesn’t fizzle out as often. And better yet, the more you get to know your customers you may be able to more effectively target them based on their interests. Word of mouth is powerful. Offer something to a small group of people – they will tell their friends.

Seth Godin, another big name in the digital space has addressed this topic on several occasions. He refers to ‘tribes’ or groups of people that help build your brand. Though leaders. (More about this concept and book here.)

Though social media is often portrayed as a place where good things happen auto-magically for all businesses – especially the ones that know how to “leverage social media” (ughh). The truth of the matter is that it’s mostly a place where people hang out and talk about themselves or share things that interest them. It takes effort and clever campaigns and posts  to get people’s attention.

So breaking into this space and making it worth it for your business is no easy task. If you’re savvy enough to create a great campaign or hire an agency to help generate ideas and execute campaigns great! Buf if you are going to go it alone without prior experience, remember that it won’t happen overnight. Asking your receptionist to post to Facebook and Twitter once in a while is not the answer.

1. Cost = Advertising spend + Volume of work

You and your business partners have probably put in an enormous amount of time and effort into building your website or app. And utilizing good old-fashioned hard work, you may have accomplished a lot with minimal expenses.

So the first thing to understand here is that even though we’d all like to see the project go viral, the reality of the situation is that it will take a while to build up a user base. So if you are looking to build this user base with online marketing there will be costs associated with this.

And while the holy grail of marketing is when users start to share your application or service with their friends – reaching a mystical critical mass where ‘the people’ end up marketing the app for you – the fact of the matter is that you’ll need to work hard (and spend money) to get the first generation of users in your door.

So what does that cost?

Let’s just break it down simply. Here is a list of typical services that digital marketing agencies charge for:

1. Consulting
2. Creative Deliverables
3. Development Deliverables
4. Advertising Fees
5. Retainer

So keep in mind that there are different ways that an agency will get paid so it’s important to choose the right team to ensure that your spend creates a strong ROI. No one wants to spend money for the sake of spending; however, when you select the right agency (one that is well aligned with your goals) you will benefit greatly in the long run. Aside from their hourly or project rates, if there is advertising involved the agency will typically charge either a percentage of your advertising spend (plus any consulting or creative services they provide) or offer a monthly retainer.

It will help both parties if clear objectives are laid out and there is a solid understanding of what needs to be done, what will be charged, and the overall goals of the project. Maintaining focus on key objectives and measuring this performance will allow both sides to determine how the campaign is performing and make ongoing adjustments to the campaign.

2. Offering a Piece of Your Business

Some start-up clients want to offer a ‘piece of the pie’ – or the agency’s work in exchange for profit share. The agency may consider this if they think you are the next Facebook, but in most cases the firm you are speaking with have already been down this road before and will not be open to this scenario. Don’t be discouraged however when they look at your product objectively. They may not be jumping up and down screaming when you ‘reveal’ your product to them but if you have a good product and develop a solid relationship with the agency they will want to perform for you and make you come back for more.

Though you’ve poured your heart and soul into this project, it will come down to business when working with the advertising firm. They naturally will need to turn a profit and the ultimate goal is a win-win situation for both client and agency. There is another payment scenario referred to as, ‘Pay per Performance’, but that is a topic that goes beyond this blog post.

3. Who is the Expert Here?

Most companies will want to know whether the agency has ‘worked within their industry before?’ – and are concerned with how much experience the agency within this industry. Fair enough, but the agency will tend to view this from a different angle. Conversely, they agency will want to know if the company has worked with a marketing firm before and whether they have experience in this regard. This is equally as important to the agency.

The client knows that if the agency is familiar with their industry they won’t have to explain how things work and that this inside knowledge will help them be more effective when reaching out to prospective customers. This is a logical mindset, no doubt. But digital agencies feel that whether they are promoting a person, product, service or idea, the fundamentals of marketing remain the same. So to the agency, the idea and practices involved when promoting a financial product is very similar to, say a clothing line. The important part is knowing who to reach out to (the customer) and getting them to either purchase a product or fill out an interest form. Both sides are correct.

Education goes both ways.

The client needs to bring their expertise to the table as it pertains to their industry while the agency brings their specific knowledge and experience. When these two experiences are efficiently married, good things happen. It is important that both sides defer to the other when it comes to their specific body of knowledge.

4. “Willing to spend, but after we see results!”

Oftentimes, the client is seeking an agency after they’ve already built their site or application. After much work, they realize that they need traffic and users. Yet, the client is very hesitant to spend advertising dollars when they don’t know what the return will be. This mindset is perfectly understandable, but it won’t necessarily fly within the advertising world.

The first thing to understand here is that the process of driving traffic, leads and conversions is not a linear process. Think of an Internet advertising and marketing strategy as a fluid and dynamic game that changes constantly. The ability to make adjustments during the campaign is crucial. As the agency moves forward, the results will tend to get better over time, building and creating success. The company hiring the agency needs to understand that traction could take a few months. For example, Facebook advertising could be very effective, or not. PPC could yield positive results while display advertising falls flat (or vise versa).

It is during this period of time where the company (and agency) becomes more familiar with the target demographic, the competition, what it will cost to get the traffic and most importantly, how much it will take to convert the traffic. This takes time to understand and is typically why agencies will offer a test campaign.

The beauty of online advertising is that in many cases you can turn it on or off at any time. This is both a blessing and a curse. Turn it off too soon and you won’t have the data needed to make adjustments, learn patterns or tweak the campaign. So if the company is spending $xxxxx dollars the first month and bows out because of a mediocre performance in the first month, they could be missing out considerably on a natural rise in performance from fine-tuning that the agency can provide.

Understanding consumer behavior within a given market takes time and this is what we refer to as an absorption process for both the client and agency. Necessary adjustments, testing (a/b) and ability to course-correct throughout a campaign is crucial to performance. This means, that the client will need to be patient and watch closely for improving results even though they may not see the ROI they are looking for the first month. This is why test campaigns are set up to monitor performance so the client doesn’t feel locked in to a long term contract.

If the company is expecting to sell tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of product each month, a clear understanding and realistic ROI will need to be established. In other words, if you are trying to sell $30k of product each month, you may want to reconsider that budget of $1000/month you’ve been thinking about.

5. Preparation and natural project evolution

The project requirements, direction and scope will change over time. You can count on that. With this comes fluctuation in what you will need to spend to get the product out the door and market it. It can be difficult for an agency to forecast expenses until they have a clear understanding of what the finished product will be, especially if we are involved in the creative or development process.

Agencies will often field questions like, “We have a website and an iPad app that we want to build. How much will this cost?”. The agency then asks the client for a project overview document or detailed outline and they are told that nothing is on paper yet.

Do take the time to put your ideas down on paper even if they are in a bullet point format.

Not having any documentation or plan in writing is a red flag for an agency because it tells them that the client isn’t yet ready to hire an agency. It is important that the client has a clear understanding of who the app is for, how it will be built, the value that it brings to the consumer, the target market, how to get the user to keep coming back, the competition..etc. The agency can certainly provide consulting services as well to help create this project game plan, but it is important that some general information is provided to help the agency familiarize themselves with the project.

6. Function vs. Design

If the user needs instructions on how to use your app or website, it may need to be rebuilt. And while the site and or application doesn’t need to win any design awards, it needs to be intuitive and easy on the eyes. Design is way too often overlooked – cast off as being an unnecessary ‘bells and whistle’ approach to a good app.

Handing a poorly designed website or product off to an agency and then asking them to advertise and market it will put the agency in a bad position. They may be reluctant to tell the client that it needs to be redesigned. And even if they do, the client will simply think that they are trying to add $ to the project.

Beautiful, usable or both?

MySpace had the social networking world at its finger tips, and yet it was an utter mess from the start (both design and usability) which played a key role in its demise. Facebook on the other hand isn’t exactly beautifu, but it is usable. And Apple products?…well they seem to get it right all of the time. Beauty + Design + Usability = Apple products.

It’s not that a website or app has to be beautiful to be usable, but if it lacks in design and usability then it will be very challenging to keep people using it – even if we’ve gotten them to install it or try it out. This is an all-to-common scenario for businesses and start-ups that are entering into a new arena. They may have a good product and a market that has a need for said product, but they can’t get people to use and adopt it. And this is exactly the point where engineers (albeit reluctantly) must hand off their product to designers and usability experts.

Underneath the face of the application there are two very important attributes to design. They are User Interface (or GUI) as well as the User Experience (UX) – both of which are close in relationship to design. To an agency, the lines between design, development and user experience are very narrow. All must be working harmoniously together. Agencies will expect this and hence their push towards a good design. Remember the point above though, if you ask a marketing agency to advertise a poorly designed product it can make them look like the bad guys when they come back and suggest that you should re-think the structure, layout or look and feel of the app. So just remember, the agency wants the product to do well. Be sure and let them have their say.

7. Getting traffic, new users & keeping them.

This is probably the most common of all oversights that we see. Despite having seen the movie the ‘The Social Network’ and realizing the vast potential of the web, you’ll need to work hard to get users unless you have a lot of money to throw at this. Furthermore, you’ll need users that ‘continue’ to use your application. So you may want to devote some time to this strategy before you spend a lot of money building the app.

• To gain visibility you’ll need traffic.
• To gain market share, you’ll need users.
• To gain loyalty you need users to adopt your app.
• To make money, these users will need to tell their friends about it.

Outside of getting users to ‘try’ your app, the toughest part of all comes next. You’ll need them to *adopt* the service, application or tool that you have built. Having lots of initial users are great, but until they use your product on a regular basis and start telling their friends about it can be tough going and many months of work will be needed. It can take up to two years or more to acquire enough users to gain steam. Don’t let this discourage you – it’s just that it takes some time.

• First, if your site sucks and this is evident in the preview – you won’t be able to hide it.
• Design and Layout become even more important (First impression).
• Simple, clean layouts may be rewarded with this feature.
• A Landing Page will, in many cases, have an advantage over sending a user to a home page.
• Showing up #1 for your PPC ad may not mean as many clicks as before.
• Increases relevance of  PPC Advertising

On its Inside AdWords blog, Google says: “By allowing potential customers to preview your site before they arrive, Instant Previews helps you get even more highly qualified traffic to your site,”

Me wonders if this PPC Preview will remain FREE??

Facebook studio seems that it will be a site where advertising agencies can review and comment on the most effective Facebook ad campaigns, perhaps paving the way for different ad types. Facebook is looking past the idea of impressions and clicks and move more towards a concept of social advertising, which focuses on the consumer and what they have to say and less about what the advertiser wants to say.

“Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people,” said Zuckerberg. “It’s no longer just about messages that are broadcast out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. So we set out to use these social actions to build a new kind of ad system.”

Social media is widely being recognized as ‘no longer a fad’.  Assuming for a moment that we’ll eventually have more freedom when creating ads on Facebook in the future (without infuriating the social masses), everything will still boil down to metrics and performance. It’s not surprising that Facebook made their Facebook Insights | Product Guide more visible by sending it out in their recent newsletter.

Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Facebook’s director of engineering said, “No longer would agencies be able to sell a bad product with a clever campaign…But for ad agencies that are good at what they do – it’s Christmas,” he said. “Because people will be talking about what you do and sharing it with their friends.”

One thing is for certain, this is not the last we’ll hear from Facebook in their efforts to bring more advertising and business through Facebook. They are simply treading very lightly, and rightfully so, in their efforts to generate ad dollars.