Mobile application development is currently a hot thing to do. I can see a lot of people developing apps for the smart phone platforms like iPhone and Android (even school kids). I too want to and hope to do it some point in time (at least that is the excuse I gave when I bought these devices).
When I hunt for apps, I read of lot of review comments from other users. This is especially useful in the Android platform (it is useful in IOS too but it is less so) and I make decisions on whether to try it out based on these comments.
While these comments are very useful for peer users, I wonder what it does to developers. I have seen many developers mentioning in the description to send them emails if there are any issues instead of giving review comments. There is two fold advantage for developers in this. First of all they can avoid negative reviews coming in the market/app store which will affect their app download/usage. Secondly they can have meaningful conversation to get a better understanding of the problem. They might even be able to get new feature ideas from their customers. All in all better customer engagement which is something a developer should love to have.
Today I came across a news item which talked about Appbooster. A short description talks about how the sdk can allow developers to easily build an in-app feedback and notification mechanism. Direct engagement is what this is driving. While the feedback part seems to essentially talk about what is described above, the notification stuff is cool. You can send notifications to users based on geography, version etc. You could tell them about new features added or new features coming in etc. All of this is inside the app. This also could mean that developers need not push notifications to the common notification bar (it really annoys me sometimes) if they don't want to. Not sure whether they will not want to.
The platform also makes possible cross promotion of apps. This can have an advertisement angle - developers collaborating to provide ads for each others apps. They might even push ads for app related merchandise in due course of time. Now that won't please Google or Apple.
The sdk page says that it is available for iOS and Android. Appbooster is currently in beta. So interested developers please jump in and let others know how good (or bad) it is.
p.s.: While reading about Appbooster which is part of Appsfire, I realized Appsfire itself is app discovery engine (like chomp I guess). Will try it out and let you know.
When I hunt for apps, I read of lot of review comments from other users. This is especially useful in the Android platform (it is useful in IOS too but it is less so) and I make decisions on whether to try it out based on these comments.
While these comments are very useful for peer users, I wonder what it does to developers. I have seen many developers mentioning in the description to send them emails if there are any issues instead of giving review comments. There is two fold advantage for developers in this. First of all they can avoid negative reviews coming in the market/app store which will affect their app download/usage. Secondly they can have meaningful conversation to get a better understanding of the problem. They might even be able to get new feature ideas from their customers. All in all better customer engagement which is something a developer should love to have.
Today I came across a news item which talked about Appbooster. A short description talks about how the sdk can allow developers to easily build an in-app feedback and notification mechanism. Direct engagement is what this is driving. While the feedback part seems to essentially talk about what is described above, the notification stuff is cool. You can send notifications to users based on geography, version etc. You could tell them about new features added or new features coming in etc. All of this is inside the app. This also could mean that developers need not push notifications to the common notification bar (it really annoys me sometimes) if they don't want to. Not sure whether they will not want to.
The platform also makes possible cross promotion of apps. This can have an advertisement angle - developers collaborating to provide ads for each others apps. They might even push ads for app related merchandise in due course of time. Now that won't please Google or Apple.
The sdk page says that it is available for iOS and Android. Appbooster is currently in beta. So interested developers please jump in and let others know how good (or bad) it is.
p.s.: While reading about Appbooster which is part of Appsfire, I realized Appsfire itself is app discovery engine (like chomp I guess). Will try it out and let you know.
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