TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MOMBASA
A Centre of Excellence
INSTITUTE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
CCI4404: MOBILE APPLICATIO DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC III
Presented by GATIMU
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Mobile Application Development: Trends, Strategies, and Challenges, Lecture notes of Web Programming and Technologies
Continuation if mobile application development II
Typology: Lecture notes
2018/2019
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TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MOMBASA
A Centre of Excellence
INSTITUTE OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATICS
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
CCI4404: MOBILE APPLICATIO DEVELOPMENT
TOPIC III
Presented by GATIMU
Application models for mobile application frameworks
EIGHT APP MONETIZATION MODELS SUITABLE FOR MOBILE APPLICATION
1. ADVERTISING
Online advertisement is broad and growing gradually. Here are some facts:
According to Business Insider, 2016, United States Internet promotion income increased to $72.5 billion exceeding the previous $69 billion spent on ads. The world internet advertising costs hit more than $200 billion in 2017 In 2017, United States digital promotion exceeded a target of $83 Billion
There are many ways to implement mobile advertising. They include:
Display the third party ads on your iOS or Android app. Create your ad networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google If you want to operate the app as a marketplace like Craigslist or eBay, you can include a listing fee. Or/and On the ads, you can add job listings, similar to websites like Angel List and Stack Overflow.
The primary disadvantage of using advertising as mobile app monetization model is the fact that many users don‘t like ads. So says Hubspot, Business Insider, and Vieo Design Many users respond with dissatisfaction or even anger when they come across in-app ads. Especially when a business begins to use them at the early stage or startup process. This is also applicable to interstitial ads, pop-ups, and local advertisements. This can affect your client retention rates or adoption if you flood your users with many mobile ads too early or regularly. Also, it‘s not too smart to be aggressive with mobile advertising if you just launched a Minimum Viable Product. It can damage badly the reputation of your app, and the users won‘t return back. Recommended Reading: “6 reasons why startups fail and how to avoid them” Also, if your app revenue model depends on the monetizing advertisement, you will be convinced to forfeit more user experience to generate more significant ad dollars. Business
Selling leads to other interested parties, for example! Here‘s how Mint.com, the popular website, and the app, implements this:
Mint provides its users with free personal finance management services. They enable users to track their credit card, investment, bank transaction, loan balance and also provide financial goals and generate budgets. Mint gathers all the financial data and then sells this data to credit card companies, banks, and other interested parties for a reasonable price (the interested parties will mine and target leads with their products and services) Also, Mint generates revenue through affiliate programs that offer users the opportunity to sign up for credit cards through the app, or Mint.com website. This process will enable credit card application to be processed. Warning: If you are selling leads online or offline, most times it involves legal or ethical outcome to confirm that you are not violating any legal or moral principles that will affect your business operations or reputation. Also, this warning applies to the following app monetization model such as selling data.
3. SELLING DATA The third mobile app monetization model involves the selling of extensive data to interested third parties. If your app can generate a significant amount of data on client preferences or habits, then it is possible that these data would be useful for other businesses, whose products relied on knowing people want and need. For example, the famous free check-in-app Foursquare permits users to share their locations to the public (i.e., ―check-ins‖) with other parties. This data usually complies with huge databases; later Foursquare sells the data to interested third parties. Thus, Foursquare has gathered check-in data on more than 9 billion check-ins. This is a massive and valuable amount of data! For instance, the heat map from Japan, Tokyo contains check-in data that cover a week in 2012:
Urban Visualization – Foursquare check-ins in Tokyo
Which parties are in need of these data? Maybe, Starbucks is planning to open up two new coffee shops at the busiest routes in Tokyo. These data would enable Starbucks to make a decision where to site their new stores by visually evaluating the population in the regions. But keep in mind that if you want to go with this app monetization model, you have to be ready to invest a lot of money, to generate enough data to interest buyer.
4. TRANSACTION FEES
Here‘s fourth mobile app monetization strategy. If your business startup operates in the form of digital marketplace or platform that allows financial transactions to occur regularly (just like Kickstarter, the international crowd-funding platform work towards creativity), the transaction fees will represent the app monetization model.
Presently, the online payments processing startup, Stripe, is estimated to be $9.2 billion. The company generates revenue by charging users reasonable fees for every completed transaction. Airbnb, Uber, ebay, Amazon, Etsy and many others also work with this app monetization model.
Evernote Market. Sadly, Evernote was unable to generate much profit via its market. Due to this, the company doesn‘t continue with its e-commerce operations in 2016.
7. VIRTUAL GOODS One of the most popular mobile app monetization strategies for game apps is to create virtual goods. The world market for virtual goods ranging from avatars, stickers, weapons and unique levels is estimated to worth approximately $15B. Practically, any electronic good can provide monetizable virtual good including video games. Even more, they are the usual type of virtual goods. The super popular Pokémon Go provides users the opportunity to purchase different types of virtual goods such as ―PokéCoins.‖ 8. SUBSCRIPTION/SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SAAS) Software-as-a-Service is a subscription-based app monetization model that offers a good option for startups. As long as their services are well-matched to the subscription plan. Subscription permits your company to lure users into long-term payment approach to increase the lifetime value of clients. Also, the recurring revenues involve a subscription-based approach that represents a secured and predictable earnings stream on which you can rely. So, the two most common options among the different approaches to Saas-based revenue include:
- PAYG (Pay as you go) plan. You can charge your users based on each usage rate. Previously, this approach was the common among mobile phone plans. Many companies like Twilio and Amazon Web Services use this model to provide their users flexible pricing plans today. The downside to the PAYG model is intrinsically based on the number of services a client uses; it is usually difficult to maintain highly anticipated revenues (this can lead to uncertainty into your business).
- Tiered pricing. You can split your services into different levels according to the usage amounts and features that the clients require more and expand. Tiered pricing is the most popular model among Software-as-a-Service companies. There is one huge benefit of Subscription app monetization model. Users see that they can fulfill their necessities, either now or in the future, even if their needs change.
Congratulations! Now you are armed with information about all possible monetization models for mobile applications. With this info, you can understand what app monetization model would fit the best for your mobile application and make it successful. If you need any help to make a choice concerning app monetization model or any other question about creating high-quality mobile application contact us for free 60 minute Skype consultation. App development services that we provide.
Here we help you thumb through 10 different business models that you could think of adopting to your app revenue generation process.
E-Commerce Apps
Like it or not, eCommerce apps occupy the top position among all the revenue models, thanks to big eCommerce industry players such as Amazon, Target, Groupon and more luring customers the app way. And industry experts predict that the trend will continue, going forward, as more and more customers will be climbing onto the eCommerce app bandwagon. So, if you are planning to venture into this category, good for you. But then, don‘t forget to take into account the mandatory backend processes.
There are two ways of doing it. You can sell your own physical inventory or you can sell the physical inventory of others. The latter is comparatively less risky than the former. And, unmistakably, several e-commerce sites have adopted this method of functioning. But the profit margins are comparatively low in this approach and the kind of products that you‘d be selling, more or less, would be similar to what your competitors are selling.
Contract Work or Commissioned Apps
If you really fancy contract work or commissioned apps, go for it. This business model is a real golden goose for app developers. It would be worth your time and effort, in fact, and unsurprisingly, the developers are making the most of this model. To give you the exact
in the industry and all and have good connections and time and money, it would be really easy for you to close the deal in your favor.
Subscription
This is a lucrative revenue model, but then remember to target only tablet and bi g screen smartphone owners. For this model, you can consider music apps, movies apps, magazines apps, book apps and more. You can charge your users on a monthly or yearly basis. However, if you are intending to develop your own content, mind you, that would be a real big headache. As in you need to apply an extraordinary amount of elbow grease, much less money.
Try using 3rd^ party content, but then be prepared for low margins. And also sourcing 3rd^ party content won‘t be that easy in terms of closing licensing deals and all, given that it puts a strain on your time and budget. So, crowdsource free content as much as possible just like Youtube, Vine and others do.
Freemium
The Freemium model is equally popular among app publishers and app developers. Now, what basically a freemium model does is that a user is only allowed to download a stripped version of the app for free and then, okay that‘s it. To gain access to the premium feature of the app, or to remove ads, the user has to pay for it. The marketers call it the ‗foot - in-the- door‘ tactic that is to titillate the users my making them taste the app in the first place and then stirring them to taste a little or lot more of the app. Utility apps are perfect for this model. Utility apps solve pressing issues, so users, without a doubt, would download the premium version of it called ‗pro‘ after they have initially tested the feemium version. And the biggest plus point is that it‘s comparatively cheaper than in-app purchases.
In-app purchase
Even in-app purchase revenue model is worth milking. And the best bit of this model is that it works similar to freemium apps and users can buy new virtual goods over and over again. Games fit the bill in terms of in-app purchase. For instance, games such as Candy Crush, Clash of Titans, FarmVille made it big by employing this revenue model. However, the model comes attached with significant risks, as it may not perform as per the expectations and thereby making the developer go through bad times. But if you can manage to make your app a viral hit, then in that case the story would be different.
Cost per install ads
Cost per install ads is here to stay. Now, even App Install Ads have joined the gang. In fact, Facebook generates a significant portion of it from app install ads. So it goes without saying that app install ads are the safest bet. Developers can even rely on mobile ad networks for app install ads. If your app is able to capture the right kind of audience through these ads downloads are sure to explode.
In-app ads
Don‘t count on the in-app ads revenue model if you are really keen on driving revenues for your apps. Because, it is one of the worst performing business models according to VisionMobile. As in, only if you are able to sell million of impressions via these ads your app undertaking is considered worthwhile. Given that the Cost Per Mile (cost per thousand impressions) is quite low for these type of ads, the revenue generated via these ads may never match your expectations.
Top Mobile designs
- Overlapping effects
The overlapping of fonts, graphics and colors cannot only make UI designs more eye-catching and distinctive, but also create a sense of space. And that‘s also why overlapping of different mobile app UI design elements has been widely used by designers in recent years.
Moreover, in some cases, the overlapping of the same elements, combining with shadows, will also make the whole mobile app interface designs more fantasy and impressive.
Hence, the overlapping of different elements in mobile application UX design will also be a trend in 2018.
- Color Gradients
In last few years, rising numbers of designers adopt color gradients in their design works when they are trying to design logos, buttons and backgrounds for mobile app interfaces. Why? The answer is simple. Even when you have chosen a single color, you can also show a rich sense of hierarchy and draw a beautiful picture while combing it with color gradients and different graphics.
Therefore, the color gradients will not only be popular throughout 2017, but also will continue in
Opacity
Insights of the industry-leading UXers and PMs in China
UXer Talks
The same components can have different effects after you have adjusted or set their transparency. So, while designing phone app interfaces, setting the opacity of different components is a nice way to work out an excellent design work.
Moreover, the transparency settings for different colors or graphics can also create a colorful glass texture for app interface components. And that‘s why designers widely use this method into mobile app logo designs.
Overall, no matter how you will add opacity effects to UI design works for mobile apps, setting transparency of different components will have a definite rise in popularity for the next year.
- Strong color or font contrast for better readability
Strong color or font contrast could also help designers work out an excellent UI design to attract user attention. For example, adding fonts in different styles, types, sizes or orders can also deliver a sense of hierarchy and space. And color in different types and styles also create sharp contrasts and make entire designs more colorful and eye-catching.
- Custom illustration interfaces
In 2017, custom illustration also plays an important role in mobile app UI design and will also surely be popular in 2018. The mobile application interfaces with different styles of illustrations, like hand-drawing, simple style, paper-cut style and famous painting style illustrations, can not only make applications more interesting and distinctive, but also give mobile apps personalities and make them more impressive for app users.
- Functional animations and interactions
Adding animations or interactions to icons, fonts, photos and buttons of a mobile UI interface always has a positive impact on the app users and give users more pleasant experiences. And this trend will also continue in the following 2018.
Moreover, it is noteworthy that micro-interaction, which is initially introduced and highly recommended by Dan Saffer, will also be continuously developed and used by designers in the coming 2018.
Micro-interactions, which mean to add more interaction designs for some details of mobile app interfaces, allow users to communicate with apps easily and also get feedback soon. That is definitely a good trend which designers should follow to complete their mobile app UI design.
- Voice-activated interfaces
Mobile UI design best practices include the following:
The layout of the information, commands, and content in an app should echo those of the operating system in placement, composition and colors. While apps may diverge to some degree in style, consistency on most of these points allows users to intuit or at least quickly learn how use an interface.
Click points must be usable for touch-based selection with a finger. This means a click point can't be too small or narrow in any direction, to avoid unwanted selection of nearby items, sometimes referred to as fat fingering.
Maximize the content window size. On small screens, the UI should not unnecessarily dominate screen size. It‘s important to recognize that the object of a UI is to facilitate use of content and apps, not just use of the interface.
The number of controls or commands displayed at any given time should be appropriate to avoid overwhelming the user or making viewing/interacting with content confusing.
It can be challenging to strike a balance between attending to design considerations and dealing with the specific requirements of different apps. Furthermore, an app UI should be customized for each mobile OS, as that is the visual language the device user will be immersed in and typically most familiar with. To that end, mobile OS developers generally provide resources to familiarize UI designers with the way their OS does its interface.
Managing application data in mobile applications
This Android quick tip will introduce you to the various data storage options available on the Android platform. A brief practical overview with considerations for each storage option will also be provided.
When you develop Android applications, you have a number of options in terms of how you store and manage your data. Depending on the app, you may find yourself using more than one of these for different data tasks.
Mobile application management ( MAM ) describes software and services responsible for provisioning and controlling access to internally developed and commercially available mobile apps used in business settings on both company-provided and ―bring your own‖ smartphones and tablet computers.
Mobile application management provides granular controls at the application level that enable administrators to manage and secure app data.[1]^ MAM differs from mobile device management (MDM), which focuses on controlling the entire device and requires that users enroll their device and install a service agent.[2]
While some enterprise mobility management (EMM) suites include a MAM function, their capabilities may be limited in comparison to stand-alone MAM solutions because EMM suites require a device management profile in order to enable app management capabilities.[
Enterprise mobile application management has been driven by the widespread adoption and use of mobile applications in business settings. In 2010 International Data Corporationreported that smartphone use in the workplace will double between 2009 and 2014.[4]
The ―bring your own device‖ (BYOD) phenomenon is a factor behind mobile application management, with personal PC, smartphone and tablet use in business settings (vs. business- owned devices) rising from 31 percent in 2010 to 41 percent in 2011.[5]^ When an employee brings a personal device into an enterprise setting, mobile application management enables the corporate IT staff to download required applications, control access to business data, and remove locally cached business data from the device if it is lost, or when its owner no longer works with the company.[6][7]
Use of mobile devices in the workplace is also being driven from above. According to Forrester Research, businesses now see mobile as an opportunity to drive innovation across a wide range of business processes.[8]^ Forrester issued a forecast in August 2011 predicting that the ―mobile management services market‖ would reach $6.6 billion by 2015 – a 69 percent increase over a previous forecast issued six months earlier.[8]