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The unbundling of Facebook and the evolution of mobile
Last week Facebook announced the new Paper app – an app that turns your Facebook news feed into your own personal newspaper. At the same time they announced Facebook Creative Labs and promised further small, single-purpose apps. This is all part of a growing trend from Facebook to un-bundle their core mobile product/service into smaller,…
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Location-Based Services in 2014
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of location-based services lately. The first thing that occurs to me: nobody talks about location-based services anymore. There are just ‘services’. It occurs to me that Location, in and of itself, is not an ‘experience’, per se. It is an enabler of experiences. Allow me to explain.…
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Mobile strategy in a rapidly evolving industry
Benedict Evans, the well-known mobile industry analyst, has posited that we actually have no idea what it will mean in five years to “install an app on my smartphone”. The market and the technology that powers it is changing and evolving so fast that there is no way to know how the industry will look…
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Why you should love your computer and your phone
My father, in his younger years, was an interstate trucker. As was common in those days, he owned his own truck, instead of leasing one or driving one that belongs to a company. His truck, the trailer, the tarps and ropes and chains, were all the tools of his trade. During the week he was…
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Are you in love with making software, or making products?
Software is a solution to a problem. Or rather, it is a part of a solution to a problem. A product is more than just the software, and it’s more than the solution. A complete product encompasses an entire product business: a consumer value proposition, a profit model, resources, processes and tools. Marketing and channels.…
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Validation of the freemium model for mobile apps
Here’s an interesting statistic. The top 20 grossing apps in the iOS App Store are all free apps, according to online app analytics platform Distimo. In fact, from the top 100 grossing apps, only 9 of them are paid apps, with prices ranging from $0.99 to $8.99, but most hovering around the $2.99 mark. Source:…
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When good enough is… good enough (and the power of convenience and platform lock-in)
The Guardian published a very eye-opening piece yesterday on the usage of the Google Maps app on iOS devices. The summary is: despite the massive consumer backlash when Apple ousted Google and launched Apple Maps in iOS6, and the huge number of downloads the Google Maps iOS app attracted, usage of Google’s app has been…
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The evolution of the design discipline
I’m not a designer by trade (which means I have never been to design school or worked as a designer professionally), but I spend a lot of time designing things – websites, apps, experiences, presentations, flyers, posters and so on. The tools and resources needed to design beautiful things are more accessible than they have…
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On monetising consumer experiences
At this weekend’s Product Camp in Berlin I held an interesting session on Monetising Consumer Experiences. The discussion was good and we had great input and perspectives from everyone in the room. Here are my notes from the session: Why do we care? Every product manager needs to understand their business model. Remember, an idea…
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Your customers are not lucky to have you
You’re lucky to have them. Without your customers you have no sales, no revenue and no business. When the line at the post office stretches out of the door and into the street, I think: “How can I avoid doing my business here next time?” When my cable goes down and it takes 30 minutes…