These numbers indicate how bloated and unusable the App Store has become for product marketers. It is so crowded that it has become impossible for companies to get their apps noticed, unless they have the resources for an expensive promotional campaign through traditional channels. In other words, if you release an app just “to have an app”, you’d be better off spending your resources elsewhere. In fact, the only thing this release tells me is that Apple will continue to build the hype because they get 30% of the proceeds from paid app downloads. They are highly motivated to promote the App Store.

So if you want your brand to go mobile, how do you do it?
Simple – develop for the mobile internet.

Our position on the mobile internet versus applications has been well documented. I would encourage you to take a look at some of our previous articles on the subject. And for companies, I would urge them to beware the hype. The siren song of Apple’s marketing machine is powerful, but the companies who resist it and embrace the mobile internet will be the ones whose brand will have the lead in the mobile environment going forward. According to Google, they believe “the mobile Web will be vital in future app development because it is becoming too expensive to support and create programs for a wide variety of mobile platforms.”

See these articles from Aumnia for related information:
The App Store model is broken
Mobile web or app? – The Great Mobile Debate (a 5-part series)
Are Smartphone applications technology progression or regression

1. The Price of Protection
In order to keep the phone safe from things like viruses, crashing, and resource contention, all the apps in the App Store have to go through a stringent approval process. During this same approval process, content is also reviewed to make sure it is appropriate for the phone. The problem is a very subjective approval process. For example, Google Voice and an app for a book with proceeds going to charity get rejected, yet a “booty-shaking” app is approved. Go figure.

2. A Needle in a Haystack
Think 65,000 apps is a good thing? Then think again. If you release an app, how does anyone find it. This has led to people writing stories on what you have to do to promote your app in order to get noticed. People often put it on their website so one can find it. Hmm, that makes sense – I’ll put the app on my website so people can find and download it. Shouldn’t I just create a mobile website to begin with? At least your mobile website will benefit from any SEO efforts that you use on your online website. For an app, you’re on your own. An app has to have its own promotion strategy since the search engines don’t index the App Stores.

3. Everyone has an iPhone, don’t they?
Based on the hype, you would think that everyone has an iPhone. The answer is that around 3% of the mobile users in the US have an iPhone – that’s how much exposure you get with an iPhone app, provided people can find it AND download it. What? You want to increase the reach of your app? Then you need to redesign it for BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Palm, Nokia, and Samsung, with more App Stores planned. Or you can design a web-based app once and cover every platform all at once. It’s not hard to figure out which model is more efficient.

4. The Elephant in the Room
Ah, the thing no one wants to talk about: upgrading. What happens when the iPhone gets upgraded? Is Apple testing each of the 65,000 apps to make sure they still work – I don’t think so. What about BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile? Yes, the hardware and operating systems of the phones change, and there is no guarantee that your app will still work when it does. Plus, when users change their handset, there is no guarantee that they will redownload your app. Given that the average user upgrade cycle is 18-24 months, there is a pretty good chance that your app will not survive the user upgrade cycle., resulting in a very short-term effect.

So what is one to do. Well, as I’ve discussed before, apps won’t die, but they will get relegated to specialized functions. If I have a cool app that takes advantages of specific features on a particular phone, such as advanced graphics for a game, or shaking to transfer content from one device to another, sure I’d do an app, and I’d even charge for it. On the other hand, if I’m a business trying to promote my brand and product or have an app that does not access to specialized phone resources or features, then I am doing a mobile website, or what I would call a web-app (an application that runs over the web for all mobile phones). Why should I limit myself to one platform, submit to the unknown powers that control its App Store, and risk not surviving the upgrade cycle?

Ultimately, the misgivings of the App Store will cause apps to lose their glow, resulting in a lot less hype. It can’t happen soon enough so I can go back to watching Sunday sports in peace.

The biggest question in the mobile web vs app debate is who will win?

Based on the items that I have discussed throughout this series, the winner will be the mobile web. The power of flexibility, the ability to design once for multiple handsets, the open nature of the web, the control over content, and the reduced costs of maintenance and promotion will lead developers to push more and more functionality to the mobile web. For users, the ability to freely move between handsets and carriers, as well as to have a seamless experience between their desktop and mobile device, will also lead users to favor the mobile web over apps.

However, the road to mobile web victory will not occur without a few hiccups. Clearly, there are issues with the mobile internet today that have enabled mobile apps to take the early lead in this contest. A recent study on mobile web usability highlighted the issues with the current state of the mobile internet. It was no surprise that small screens, awkward input, download delays, and poorly designed sites are the primary issues. All of these things, though, are being addressed. Download delays are being addressed by improvements in the carriers’ networks. Awkward input is being addressed by new handsets with user interfaces that simplify navigation. Small screens and poorly designed sites are being addressed by companies optimizing their sites for mobile – either on their own or with the help of outside products and services. As these issues with the mobile internet fade, the mobile web will gain momentum and move ahead of apps as the primary means of mobile interaction.

I do not expect apps to go quietly though. As pointed out in an earlier article in the series, the manufacturers and carriers do not want the app gravy train to end. Apps provide an income source for these groups as well as reduce their burden of building new, faster networks or better, more usable handsets. They will fight the inevitable, putting more resources into marketing programs that sing the praises of apps and play down the mobile internet.

But history has taught us a valuable lesson, and all one has to do is look at the desktop PC market to see it. Web-based apps have clearly won against local apps on the desktop. Sure many companies fought the transition, but the lower costs of web-based applications, the ability to access your data wherever you need it, the security of data back-up on enterprise-class servers, and the flexibility to change hardware without impacting data and apps won out. The consumer chose the better option, and the companies that fought it were forced to follow. I don’t see any reasons why the mobile environment won’t play out the same way – the consumers will speak and the companies will need to follow.

So does this means that apps are dead? No, it does not. Apps will still have a role in the mobile environment. Just as on the desktop, there is certain functionality in the mobile environment that is best served through an app. For example, to do intensive gaming, where the capabilities and specifications of the hardware matter, an app makes more sense. Apps will fill a niche in the mobile environment going forward, and one that could be a potentially lucrative niche as gaming has proven on the PC. However, for the vast majority of interactions in the mobile environment, the mobile web will dominate.

Today there is a great debate between the mobile web and apps, but as the mobile web matures, the next  couple of years will be the transition period when the mobile web overtakes apps as the dominant method of interation in the mobile environment.

When planning your mobile presence, the type of content is something that needs to be considered, at least today. An app can have significant advantages when using dynamic content - things like video, audio and motion graphics. When using content that is static in nature, like photos and text, the mobile web shines. Let’s take a deeper look at how the content affects the mobile web and apps.

Dynamic content - video, audio, and motion graphics
Apps have the advantage when it comes to dynamic content. In fact, one of the key reasons apps were developed was to enable dynamic content on mobile devices. Here are the three key reasons why apps beat the mobile web on dynamic content:

1. Access to local resources
The graphics and imaging used in games is a great example of dynamic content that needs access to the local resources. Furthermore, when designing graphic intensive apps like games, the developer often needs to know the specific hardware specifications and designs the content (and app) around them. Generally, it is not possible, or very difficult, to pull-off these types of games on a desktop PC connected to the web, let alone a mobile device connected to the mobile internet.

2. Instant response
Games are another great example of an app that needs instant response. If user interaction is subject to the delays of the mobile internet, the game may be unplayable. Content where instant response to user input is required are better served with an app than the mobile web, although upcoming improvements in mobile network speeds will effectively negate this advantage.

3. Browser technology
Unlike the internet, browser technology in the mobile internet is far from standard. Some browsers are great at displaying dynamic content, some are not. This issue will pass as mobile browsers become more standard, but for now, apps permit the developer to make sure the user can view dynamic content properly.

Static content – text and images
While both the mobile web and an app can handle static content such as text and images, the mobile web is the better choice. Since static content does not require heavy interaction with local resources on the mobile device and the bandwidth requirements are low, the mobile web is more than capable of providing a robust experience to the user. The three key benefits of using the mobile web to display static content:

1. Flexibility
The mobile web allows you to update content in real-time with no restrictions placed on your content (i.e. approval requirements). Updating an app requires going through the release and approval process, creating delays in access to new content. Plus, apps are subject to approval criteria, and it is not unheard of for apps to be removed from a store after they have been approved.

2. Simplified support and maintenance
The mobile web does not require you to support multiple versions of content since users always access the latest content when using your site. With an app, when you change or update content, you have to support multiple versions of the app as not all users will upgrade.

3. Availability
The mobile web extends to all phones that have access to the mobile internet, which is not limited to smartphones. Apps only reach those phones where the app is installed and those phones for which you have designed an app. For example, if you design your app only for the iPhone, you will reach less than 10% of the US mobile audience. Even if you design for every smartphone platform, you will only reach about a third of the mobile user population, and that requires that every smartphone user download your app.

In summary, an app is a better choice if the mobile presence you are designing requires dedicated, direct access to specific system resources, such as specialized graphics resources on the device. Otherwise, the mobile web is a better choice regardless of the content. Granted, there are some limitations with browser standards and bandwidth speeds today, but these issues are being addressed meaning dynamic content will only get better on the mobile web. So while there are clear advantages to each type of mobile presence based on content type today, the mobile web will win out in the long run making it the choice for a mobile presence for all but a few select applications.

Tomorrow, I will wrap-up the series by taking a look at what the future holds for the mobile web and apps.

Using new technologies to promote a brand provides it with a trendy, cutting edge image. The new technology today is mobile, and mobile apps are clearly the trendiest way to go mobile. While a well thought out and well designed mobile web presence can achieve the same effect, it doesn’t nearly have the same sex appeal of an app. So if both means lead to the same ends, why are apps the hot ticket, and who bears the burden of each technology?

To be clear, apps are more popular because manufacturers and carriers are pushing them through advertising and marketing messages. Why? Because apps place no burden on them whatsoever, but place all the work squarely on the shoulders of developers and consumers. The only thing the manufacturers are doing is hosting a store for the apps, and for that service, many are skimming up to 30% of the proceeds that go through their stores. Carriers, if they are not hosting an app store, carry no burden whatsoever. Furthermore, apps have the effect of locking a consumer to a handset and carrier. If a consumer changes handsets, or changes carriers, access to apps are lost. By buying into apps, consumers are implicitly locking themselves into a handset and carrier solution.

On the other hand, there is significant burden on manufacturers and carriers to support the mobile web. Manufacturers have to design handsets that can handle the varying demands of the web since they cannot control the design and functionality of the sites as they do with apps. Carriers have to design networks that can handle the mobile traffic generated from the mobile web. To top it off, a mobile web presence does not lock a consumer to a manufacturer/carrier solution. With the mobile web, consumers are free to switch among handsets and carriers without a penalty in functionality. This flexibility puts the power in the hands of the consumer and does not benefit the carriers or manufacturers.

The fact of the matter is that manufacturers and carriers love apps because they lock us, the consumers, in. Why would they want to promote a device and carrier/handset agnostic solution so when something better comes along, you can up and leave and move to the next best deal. Carriers and manufacturers makes apps look appealing, because they benefit.

For developers, an analysis of the iPhone App Store reveals the high risk they face when creating a mobile app. There are currently around 60,000 apps available, and recent reports indicate that there have been over 1.5 billion downloads. A quick analysis reveals that the average download number for an app is around 25,000. So for every app that has 250,000 or more downloads, there are at least 10 apps that have few, if any, downloads to maintain the average. In other words, less than 10% of the apps in the store see any significant success. Even then, no one is reporting how many apps are deleted or forgotten about after the initial download, or how many apps fail to make the upgrade transition across handsets and carriers. A developer has the huge burden of developing an engaging, long-lasting app in order to get the most exposure for the brand and return on investment from their app development cost. The mobile web places a similar burden on the developer of creating an engaging site, but with a mobile web presence, a developer can quickly incorporate feedback from users to change content, update functionality, and change messaging to maintain an engaging site. In summary, a mobile web presence gives a developer room to maneuver and react to feedback and change, whereas an app has very little margin for error.

In addition to placing burden on the developer, apps place a great deal of burden on the consumer. Consumers are responsible for sifting through the app stores to find apps they want, making sure apps are compatible with their handset, evaluating apps, and staying current with the latest versions. Should a consumer decide to switch handsets or, worse yet, lose or break an existing handset, they are responsible for remembering which apps were on their phone, finding them (again), and reloading them. Does having a mobile web presence relieve all the burden from the consumer? No, not all of it, but it definitely reduces it significantly since the developer, handset manufacturer and carrier are responsible for providing the user with a great experience, rather than pushing that responsibility to the consumer. In an era where consumers are expecting more from their technology and looking to brands that provide outstanding service, making consumers rely on apps to interact with your brand in the mobile environment seems to be a risky endeavor and more regression rather than progression in marketing.

Bottom line, beware the lure of apps. Sure, a well designed app can have a huge impact on the power of your brand. However, a mediocre or poorly designed app can have an equally damaging effect on your brand. On the other hand, while a mobile web presence is a safer choice by relieving burden from the developer and consumer, the rewards may not be as high. Your choice of mobile presence is definitely a game of risk/reward. So the real question becomes, how much of your brand’s image are you willing to risk in the mobile environment?

Tomorrow I will look at how the type of content, static or dynamic, affects the decision to choose the mobile web or an app for your mobile presence.

Developing a mobile presence, whether it is for the mobile web or whether it is an app, is not free. There are the obvious costs associated with developing and maintaining a mobile presence, such as paying developers, but there are also other explicit and implicit costs. The four major cost areas can be broken down into creation, release, promotion, and maintenance. Let’s take a look at these costs and see if the mobile web or an app has the advantage.

Creation
Creating a presence for the mobile web or an app requires developers to implement. In the case of the mobile web, the development can be leveraged from an existing web presence, but the site still must be optimized for the mobile environment due to screen sizes and multimedia capabilities on mobile devices. Creating a strong mobile site requires optimization for the numerous handsets that exist. While handset requirements can be bundled or limited to the most popular models, it is still a large task. 

A mobile app also requires development across multiple platforms and operating systems. By developing an app for one platform, such as the iPhone, you risk leaving out and alienating a large segment of your addressable audience. To develop an effective app, you need to develop for at least 5 platforms – iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Android – with more app stores either already released or close to launch.

Advantage: A draw. Depending on the complexity, the up front costs of a mobile web presence and an app are very similar.

Release
Releasing your mobile web presence is as easy as releasing a new website. The entire process is under your control. Once you are happy with your design, implementation and content, you are free to release your site.

Mobile apps, on the other hand, require that you release the app into the official store for each platform, if you want the best chance of your app being found. In some cases, such as with the iPhone App Store, the requirements for an app are very strict with respect to content and functionality, and release of the app can sometimes appear to be subjective as documented in our most recent weekly market wrap-up. Additionally, an app has an approval time that requires you to keep the developers engaged longer in case changes are required. The iPhone app approval process, for example, can take up to four weeks, or more!

Advantage: Mobile web. There are no secret gates or controls to release a presence on the mobile web, an app on the other hand has variable, and sometimes costly, explicit and implicit costs.

Promotion
Both the mobile web and an app require spending time and money on promotion to get noticed. When developing for the mobile web, there are ways you can significantly reduce your promotion cost. For example, by implementing code on your website that directs mobile requests to your mobile web presence, you use the same web address for both your mobile web and internet presence. Using the same address lowers your promotion cost over the long-term since every time you promote your internet presence, you gain the benefit of promoting your mobile presence and vice-versa.

An app requires its own promotion program that has very little leverage, especially given how crowded places like the iPhone App Store have become. Relying on ratings and reviews in the App Store is not advised either, as others have pointed out. Even if your initial promotion is successful at generating hype and downloads, you will need to keep spending time and money on promoting the app, across all the various stores, to keep it in front of people. Otherwise, you risk significantly reducing the return on the up front investment in the development of the app.

Advantage: Mobile web. While the explicit costs of initial promotion are identical, the mobile web wins in the long-term because of the implicit cost savings you get by leveraging the promotion of your existing website.

Maintenance
Updating content, changing messaging, or changing functionality on the mobile web is the same as updating your website. The changes can be done quickly and released immediately, with the whole process under your control. While an app has similar maintenance costs, re-releasing an app to the app stores is not a slam dunk. You have to wait for your app to be approved, and there is no guarantee that functionality and content changes will be approved.

Advantage: Mobile web. There is not much difference in explicit maintenance costs, but the implicit costs associated with releasing changes in a timely, guaranteed manner give the advantage to the mobile web.

Flexibility
Okay, so I am cheating by inserting a fifth area. Flexibility, though, cannot be overlooked. With an app, you need to develop in all or nothing fashion. The app has to contain all of the functionality and messaging you want, otherwise, you need to re-release the app and hope that users will download the latest version. The mobile web, on the other hand, can be released in stages and evolve over time. It gives you the flexibility to grow over time in both functionality and messaging. Last but not least, you have the peace of mind that your mobile presence will not be removed if it is determined that your app suddenly violates the rules of the app store. Don’t believe it’s possible? Check out what happened to this popular Google Voice iPhone app.

Advantage: Mobile web. The ability to release a mobile presence in stages, grow it over time, fix bugs quickly, have no restrictions on functionality and content, update content as necessary, and have peace of mind are benefits that apps are hard-pressed to match.

While up front costs are not materially different for a mobile web or app development, the long-term costs are much higher for an app than the mobile web. If you are developing a mobile presence for a quick, one-off, boost to your product or brand, an app makes as much sense as a mobile web presence. But if you’re looking to engage customers over a long period of time, evolve your messaging, and grow your mobile presence with your product and brand, then the mobile web is the way to go.

Tomorrow I will look at were the burden lies for things like finding, updating content associated with, and maintaining your mobile presence. Is it the consumer, developer, manufacturer or carrier?

In some ways, there isn’t much of a debate today on whether you should develop a mobile app or a mobile website. With Apple heavily promoting the iPhone App Store, and nearly every other manufacturer joining in with their own version, why is there even a debate? In fact, the iPhone App Store has over 50,000 apps and has recorded over 1.5 billion (yes, billion!) downloads. In the marketing and hype realm, apps have won.

However, I would submit the evolution of the internet and web-based computing as a case study as to why mobile apps will falter and mobile web-based apps will win in the long run. In the old PC environment, applications had to be installed and run locally on your machine. Today, the PC has become nothing more than a thin client that is used to run apps that are on the internet. The mobile phone is an even thinner client that your PC, so why are we installing apps on our mobile devices? Apps are winning the battle today for two simple reasons:

Apps solve temporary problems with the mobile internet

In the early days of the internet, connectivity was expensive, speeds were slow, and browsers were primarily text-based. People talked about internet-based apps and e-commerce, but they were dreams at best given the technological problems. As the problems with the early internet faded, applications on the web became a reality. Web-based apps started slowly with applications such as e-mail but have migrated to all kinds of apps today including office productivity suites, CRM tools, multimedia editing programs, games and more.

Today’s mobile internet suffers from the same problems as the early internet, but these problems are rapidly being addressed. The cost of connecting to the mobile internet is still high, but it gets cheaper every year as carriers compete for customers. Carriers are working on releasing new 4G networks that will offer further improvements in speed. Many companies are working on improved browsing technology for the mobile environment that will allow more functionality and multimedia on mobile websites. Within the next 2-3 years, the problems that apps are solving with the mobile internet will pass allowing for improved access and increased functionality from mobile web-based applications.

Manufacturers use apps to differentiate their hardware

When the PC first hit the market, there were many players and many operating systems. IBM, Apple, Commodore, Atari, Radio Shack and others had personal computer offerings. These manufacturers differentiated their machines based on the applications that were available to run on them. The machines that had the best applications resulted in the best sales. When IBM, Microsoft and Intel worked together to create an open system for developers to create applications, their model created the dominant force in the PC market.

With the emergence of the internet, the apps that your PC runs are no longer that important, so long as you can connect to the internet. What has become important when buying a PC are things like cost, ease of use, color, battery life, portability, and reliability. As a case in point, Apple has improved their PC market share by focusing on these issues, not by making more apps for the computer.

In today’s mobile market, handset manufacturers are following the old application model to grab market share and spending way too much time and effort on apps. As issues with the mobile internet disappear, the handset features will dominate, just as they do in the PC market. Companies that are listening to consumer needs and innovating in these areas over the long-term will win.

There are a lot of lessons from the PC market and the emergence of the internet that can be applied to the mobile market. Both manufacturers and consumers need to be careful not to get fooled by today’s marketing hype surrounding apps and recognize that just as web-based apps now dominate the PC environment, mobile web-based apps are the way of the future.

Tomorrow, part two of the mobile web vs app series looks at the true costs of developing applications for the mobile environment.

We get asked all the time by customers what’s the best way to reach mobile consumers – through the mobile internet or through a mobile application. With all the hype out there on applications, everyone thinks that apps are the way to go. We wholeheartedly disagree. While apps have all the hype and sex appeal, they are not the best way to promote your company and brand on mobile devices, especially over the long haul. While apps can provide some short-term bang, what happens when the novelty wears off? When a user changes phones or carriers, how do you keep your brand in front of the mobile consumer? In our view, developing a strong presence on the mobile internet provides a much better return on investment, more flexibility, and a longer lasting brand presence than applications.

We have already written an article or two on the subject (Smartphone apps are NOT the answer, Are smartphone applications technology progression or regression?), but over the next week we are going to get into more detail and run a series of articles that will explore the mobile web versus mobile application debate.

• Monday – Mobile apps: Why the hype?
• Tuesday – The hidden costs of mobile development
• Wednesday – Where the burden lies: consumer, developer, manufacturer, or carrier
• Thursday – Content matters: static or dynamic
• Friday – The future of the mobile web and apps

In preparation for next week, here’s some recommended readings so you can get up to speed and see what others have had to say about the topic. Do your homework, read the articles, and I look forward to your comments and engaging in a lively discussion next week!

• From burning the bacon by Phil Barret: Mobile Wap vs. App – what is a marketer to do?
• From Mobile Tech Today: Google, Apple: Two Mobile Software Versions
• From VentureBeat: Apps or browser? GetJar vs. Google on the future of mobile services
• From Trilibis Mobile: Mobile Web vs. Apps: Closing the Functionality Gap

• How does a smartphone app fit into your overall mobile strategy?

When you do any marketing without a plan, you amplify the risk of not getting any return on your investment. A mobile strategy needs to have a plan. Are you developing a mobile app to increase brand awareness, increase sales, collect user data, provide a service, drive traffic to a website, or to just fit in? The goals of your mobile strategy will help determine if you should develop an app, define what kind of functionality you want in it, and identify how you will market it to consumers. Just as a well developed app can increase sales and improve your brand, a poorly designed app can do just as much damage to a brand if it is not part of a well thought out plan.

•  What value does a smartphone app bring to the table?

After you have defined the goals for your app, you need to identify if an app is the right place to do it. An app takes time to develop and release to a store, and then people have to download it. You also need to spend effort to maintain the app, as functionality and usability of it will change as the handset manufacturer releases new models or updates old ones. It’s also possible you will need to modify the app if your marketing goals or brand image change. If you can provide the same functionality effectively over the mobile internet, it may be much cheaper to build and maintain and provide an overall better user experience. Plus, it’s possible you may have an easier time measuring the user interaction, controlling the interaction, and converting the users into customers using the mobile internet, or an SMS text application, rather than an app. Look at all your mobile options before just doing an app.

• Should you focus exclusively on Apple, or look at RIM, Nokia and other stores?

An important key to any marketing campaign is targeting the proper demographics. Before assuming that you have to have an iPhone app, you need to figure out if your target demographic really is an iPhone user. As Devesh has pointed out earlier, RIM led the smartphone market in sales during Q1. Just because you think the iPhone is the greatest thing ever, it is possible that not all of your customers have one. Do your homework, and determine if you should also launch an app in the RIM, Android, or Nokia store instead of, or in addition to, the iTunes store. Keep in mind that Microsoft will be launching a store for Windows Mobile devices this fall as well.

• How do you plan to promote the app?

So the iTunes store has more than 25,000 apps in it - how will users find the app you just released? Yes, you also need a strategy to promote it. Everyone always hears about how these apps get downloaded over 10,000 times a day – that is the exception, not the rule. Make sure you include a promotional campaign with your app, or you will spend a lot of effort on an app that no one will ever be able to find, let alone use.

In summary, be careful not to get drawn into the hype of the smartphone app. Now I am not saying that you shouldn’t ever develop an app, but before you spend the effort to create one, be sure to ask yourself how it fits into your mobile strategy, what value it brings to the table, and if you are willing to put in the time and effort to launch and support it. A great article that reinforces these points and provides some useful tips on what makes a compelling app can be found here.

Remember: Don’t be fooled by cool!

For all the users out there, what has your experience been with apps? Which apps are done well, which leave you wanting more, and which should have never been done? And if you have created an app for your business or website, has it generated the return you thought it would, and what would you have done differently?

Aumnia = automated mobile and interactive applications

Pretty cool, eh? (yes I’m Canadian but my accent only comes out when I type). And yes, I did say the current definition … that’s right, it changed over time.

When we were in the process of starting the company, picking a name proved to be quite a process. Like most technology startups, we could have named the company after a description of our technology (yawn… boring), our names (too complicated… who’s initial goes first), or after an animal or historical figure (possibly bad inferences that we can’t predict). So we decided to come up with something unique and original. Easy right? … wrong. Our challenge was that we only had a general sense of we were going to do, but didn’t really know what products or markets we would focus on, so the name had to be flexible but still relevant.

After a couple of weeks, we went on a road trip down to San Diego. While in the car on highway 5, it hit me. Whatever we build will be automated (or “au”) … we had our starting. We would also work with some sort of media… so we now we had “aum”. That wasn’t enough. At that time, we generally thought advertising might be involved (good buzz word which didn’t last for us) but it gave us “aum&a” which became “aumna”. Hmm… something just didn’t sound right. Then we thought, how about “Aumnia”? It sounded good, we all liked it, but we needed an “i” from something, and that’s when we came up with “interactive”. Aumnia became “automated media and interactive advertising”. Perfect.

But wait, isn’t there “mobile” and “applications” in our name? Well, over time as our company evolved, so did our products and along with it, our name. As we began to focus on mobile and mobile applications, we were (luckily) able to redefine our name to stand for “automated mobile and interactive applications”. Now it’s perfect.

As a final note, a few people struggle with the pronunciation of our name, so we just tell them to read it as it is written. If that doesn’t help, here is an easy mnemonic device … when you think of Aumnia, think automated.