Mid-Year Trend Update

It's a bit early for our annual report card on our trends and predictions, but I wanted to take a look at one prediction: The battle between the iPad and the iPad Killers, the race for apps and the impact of tablet computing will be a main theme (you can find an extended discussion about this here).

We were right about the battle of iPad and iPad Killers -- every new tablet reviewed this year has been reviewed in terms of the iPad. The conclusion: a lot of good tries, a lot of misses, and no other tablet has killed off the iPad 2.


But there's one aspect to the iPad vs. iPad Killers that we missed. When it became clear that no other tablet would dethrone the iPad, the media shifted to another story angle: the iPhone vs. the iPhone Killer -- by which I mean, of course, Android. One of the first of these articles appeared in April's Wired, How the Android Ecosystem Threatens the iPhone. 

Other articles have appeared in other major outlets, including Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

It's a microtrend we overlooked, but an interesting lesson for those of us who pitch the media. The point is that the media often look for a backlash story, even if it's not a direct backlash. Even if the target is Apple, which generally gets very positive coverage.

Two Marketing Lessons for App Developers

Clearly there are more lessons to be learned about marketing apps, you have to start somewhere. Call this post App Lessons 1.0.

1. Much like anything else (except Apple technology), people don't like to buy version 1.0 because they know it's likely to have buggy features. Same goes for apps. Apparently, versions 1.0 don't do as well as later versions of the app. According to one app developer I spoke with, "It almost pays to launch as 1.0 and then upgrade even with a minor change to 1.1." In an era when perfect is the enemy of good because you need to get the product or service out the door and into the hands (or smartphones) of customers, that appears to be good advice. You don't want to release a product that still belongs in beta, but you don't want to wait until the app is perfect. Good enough is a good first step.
2. Keep a blog for your users so they can exchange ideas, tips, etc. In the age of social media, this helps build a community of users, which engenders loyalty and results in stronger brand awareness. As an example, check out the blog for Photo Shootout for iPhone. (Disclosure: I've worked with the developer, Paul Michaels, but not on the blog.)
   
   Please share other lessons you may have learned along the way.