Are Apps The Future Of The Social Web?
I have a simple request for the powers that be at Facebook…please put the people who designed and built your iPhone application in touch with the people who build your website. I use Facebook on a regular basis for work and clients and I have to say I find it an incredibly frustrating experience at times on the web. In contrast when I use it on my iPhone it is one of the most enjoyable experiences and I can navigate to the places I want to be and achieve the tasks I want to accomplish in a matter of seconds. We spend most of our time on the go these days and people are busy, accessing the Internet on the go is a key strand of social media and we are already seeing services like Foursquare and Gowalla gain traction and all of that traction is coming 100% through apps. Now I don’t have enough of a technical background to tell you about apps and how they are built but increasingly they form an important part of the technology that we use in social media and to get a quick definition I turned to one of my favorite apps (Tweetdeck) and asked the simple question…What is the difference between an app and a website?
What Is The Difference Between An App And A Website?
Just Look At Twitter
Many of us still visit the Twitter web page on a regular basis but Twitter would not be the success that it is today had it not been for their API and the apps. More and more people update their status through services like Tweetdeck, Tweetie and Seesmic. A website that allowed you to browse other people’s status updates has limited appeal and if that had been the extent of Twitter we would never have heard about it. Nobody would fire up their browser on a mobile and go through the process of signing in and updating their status while squinting to see the screen but a simple app that can be accessed when on the go is priceless and is why Twitter is what it is today.
Computing Is Changing
We are only just over 10 days away from the new Apple Tablet which is set to launch worldwide amid much speculation but one thing that can be taken for granted is that apps will play a key role no matter what shape or size it turns out to be. Even Apple themselves admit they were blown away by the iPhone App Store’s success and there is no doubt that a whole new market will open up with a new more powerful device with a larger screen. I speculated in the past about the types of apps that would work best on the tablet but you don’t need to be a genius to figure out that is will take rich media like photos and video to a new level and will hopefully see new social media tools (particularly around social TV) come of age just as the iPhone help accelerate the growth of Twitter. I get excited just thinking about a Facebook app for the new tablet.
Why Apps For Social Media?
As we can see web apps are something that generally get a task completed. With social media I generally want to get something done. There is always some sort of action. I might want to upload a video, share a photo with friends, talk to my colleagues or search for info. There is so much information on the web at the moment and so much noise that we need tools that can distill that noise down to the parts that we are interested in. I have no doubt that the next year will see more and more social apps appearing and the focus will be on finding the good quality information and separating it from all the noise. The reason I personally like the Facebook iPhone app so much is because it is easy to use and lets me carry out the tasks I want to very quickly, that is the future. Just have a look at how simple Facebook is here on the iPhone, bet you never thought it would be as simple as this compared to the site itself…
One Size Does Not Fit All
Although I use apps for a range of activities including Twitter, Facebook, Blogging (Tumblr) and news I still need more extensive services on the web for many things. I could never write this blog on an iPhone for example or build Facebook pages for clients without the Facebook interface so I see apps sitting alongside what we currently do online. You also have to remember that a certain amount of us are submerged in this culture and live and breath it every day of the week but would I recommend a brand target customer through an iPhone app or run ads on Foursquare to reach mass numbers? Absolutely not. The main stream value is not there yet but there is no doubt that apps are the future.
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