July 2014 - Digital Marketing Devon

App Frenzy – Are some apps over-valued?

apps
Apps have never been so popular, with some attracting hundreds of thousands of downloads in a matter of days and offering growth that you just can’t achieve with a website.

Growth attracts investors; hunger for a quick return on their cash and this is initially what led up to the dotcom crash back in 2000. Is the same fate on the horizon for the app ecosystem?

The answer is we don’t know, investors don’t know and app developers don’t know. If we look back to the dotcom bubble, it was caused by a combination of market confidence that the companies would EVENTUALLY return future profits that would be significant. Venture capital companies got greedy, started to speculate (which inflated stock prices higher) and with so many people caught up in the hype, traditional metrics for valuing a company were overlooked.

Is this happening with some apps? The most difficult aspect for any app developer driving significant downloads – making money from it then comes second as they hope that they will find a way to make money from their huge user-base. Many turn to in-app ads and the freemium model – essentially providing a free version, which can then be upgraded.

Others turn to subscription models, whilst others try native advertising (including relevant adds and text links within the content).

In many cases it works, returning huge returns for the venture capitalists prepared to take a risk and invest, as well as for the app developer who’s spent month’s of their life on 4 hours sleep a night.

In other cases though, hype starts to drop, downloads remain static and it becomes pretty clear that the userbase can’t be used to make money. The investors then have nowhere to turn, but to their healthier investments to prop-up the bank balance.

Yo App Valued at $1 million

Yo App

This article was written because of a recent article about a potential security flaw with the increasingly popular ‘Yo’ app, which within months of launch has received investment and is now valued at $1 million. The app is simple to say the least, simply sending a ‘Yo’ message (text and voice recording) to a user.

Arbel, the founder, claimed it took him eight hours to create – not bad going if you can create such value in the space of a day and something millions of us can only dream of.

Unsurprisingly, Arbel has big plans for future development of the Yo app, with Yo’s already being sent as alerts for each World Cup goal scored.

It’s a simple, clever idea – but is an app like this that can be duplicated and copied so quickly worth $1m? We’d be really interested to get your thoughts below by adding a comment

article by https://www.appnews.co.uk/

‘Weave App’ – new way to search for a job

weave app

Swipe to get some networking face time

The Tinder app has unquestionably revolutionised the concept of online dating with its swipe-to-like interface. However, if you’re a more career-focused smartphone user you may want to check out Weave.

The new iOS and Android app for professionals allows users to log in through their LinkedIn accounts and see a list of nearby people who’re willing to meet up for face-to-face networking meetings.

When users encounter a profile, they simply swipe ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to register interest; just like Tinder. Swiping right for yes will enable the chat portion of the app where meetings can be arranged.

According to the makers of Weave, 100 people are day are already meeting through the application, which launched in January for iOS and a month later for Android.

Five Arrested Over Fake Government Websites

Five people have been arrested over fake Government websites created to con people out of money.

People trying to order official documents such as passports and car tax discs have fallen victim to fraudsters who have mocked up sites.

Almost 6,000 complaints about the sites have been made to Citizens Advice – now five people have been arrested under the Fraud Act and consumer protection laws.

They are now on police bail.

Lord Harris, chairman of the National Trading Standards Board (NTSB), said his team is “making it as difficult as possible for these online hoaxers to operate”.

Lord Harris said: “We have been working with search engines such as Google and Bing to remove adverts from online search results and we continue to gather intelligence across the country to help tackle this issue.

“We urge you to avoid unofficial websites which could leave you out of pocket or at risk of identity theft. Only use the GOV.UK website to find Government services. If you come across copycat websites, report them to Citizens Advice.”

The fraudsters use URLs with words such as govuk and directgov in them, to appear similar to the official sites.

Martin Lewis, creator of the consumer financial advice site MoneySavingExpert, urged people to go directly to the official Government site, rather than using search engines.

He said: “Copycat websites disguise themselves as the real thing, but charge you for a useless service. I’ve lost count of the number of people who contact me upset and want to know how to get their cash back.”

Consumer Affairs minister Jo Swinson said: “It’s great that it’s becoming easier and more common to use the internet to order official documents such as passports or tax discs, but people should be aware of rogue websites that are out there trying to exploit them.”