Social Media and Measurement of Mobile Applications

BY: BRENDAN BROWN

PurposeResearch the history of mobile applications

Research the sales revenue of mobile apps

Identify the top leading apps

Identify the correlation between social media and mobile apps

RQ 1- What is the history behind mobile apps?Mobile applications are defined as software applications developed specifically for use on small, wireless computing devices, such as smartphones and tablets, rather than desktop or laptop computers.

Mobile apps date back to the 20th century. They started out as games, ring tone editors, calculators, and calendars.

Early Apps

History of Mobile ApplicationsAs cell phone technology began to advance, so did the apps. After the development of smartphones and tablets, the development and variety of apps began to increase.

Some of the operating systems for smartphones, like Mac iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and RIM, have worked with and developed third-party software, beyond the typical software that cell phone suppliers carry.

RQ 2- How much have apps grossed?As of June 2014, Apple has sold over 70 billion apps since the creation of their app store and $4.6 billion worth of apps as well.

All Mac iOS devices account for 13% of the world’s smartphone users and the remaining 87% are Android users.

As of June 2014, both direct and indirect sales for mobile applications, in total, have grossed roughly about $25 billion.

Mobile Application RevenueThe Google App Store has the largest selection of apps, with about 1.3 million readily available for their users.

Apple is in second place will about 1.2 million.

Rounding out the top five is Windows Phone Store (300,000), Amazon Appstore (240,000), and Blackberry World (130,000).

Mobile App Revenue (cont.)Other popular mobile apps are: YouTube, Pandora Radio, Google Maps, and Yahoo Stocks

Mobile AnalyticsOrganizations and businesses create apps for a number of reasons.

For example, American Eagle Outfitters created a mobile app with the intent to display their clothing line and increase customer engagement through its digital channel.

RQ 3- What does developers measure?When developing mobile apps, developers take into consideration app metrics like the number of unique users, number of active users, visitor traffic, abandonment, social referrals, custom variables and more.

It should also capture performance-related metrics such as number of crashes, load time at launch, load time per view and the number of times deleted.

Social Media and the AppsCreate consistency!

Being consistent in the way an organization or business measures its analytics will provide a solid baseline for future analyses and will provide excellent context as the organization or business grows its digital facet.

Also, app developers want to help create brand consistency as well as interlinking between different social mediums.

References

Bhatia, N. (2014, May 12). Using Analytics to Measure Mobile App Success. Retrieved November 7, 2014.

Clark, J. (2014, January 1). History of Mobile Applications: Theory and Practice of Mobile Applications. Retrieved November 7, 2014, from http://www.uky.edu/~jclark/mas490apps/History of Mobile Apps.pdf

Number of apps available in leading app stores 2014 | Statistic. (2014, July 1). Retrieved November 8, 2014, from http://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/

Petronzio, M. (2014, April 3). The 10 Most Popular Smartphone Apps in the U.S. [CHART]. Retrieved November 7, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2014/04/03/popular-apps-chart/

Smith, D. (2014, July 23). APPLE'S SECRET WEAPON: App Store Sales. Retrieved November 7, 2014.

Rouse, M., & Wigmore, I. (2013, December 1). Mobile app. Retrieved November 7, 2014.