In 1999 the human population surpassed six billion, Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France, The Matrix came out and the dot-com bubble was approaching its climax.

The Internet began to take off several years earlier with the introduction of Mosaic, the first Web browser with mass appeal. In 1994, the same founders formed a new company and released Netscape Navigator. Only a year later, Microsoft launched the first version of Internet Explorer and soon everyone was moving to the Web.

Flash forward to this century:

• January 2007, Apple announces the iPhone

• In June of the same year at WWDC 2007, Apple announces it will support third-party “web applications”

• In October, an open letter from Steve Jobs announces a software development kit (SDK) will be available to third-party developers

• November 2007, Google unveils the Android platform

• July 2008, Apple’s App Store officially opens with downloads topping 1.5 billion in first year
• April 2009, Blackberry App World launched

• June 2009, Apple vice president Phil Schiller announces there are 50,000 applications available in the App Store

• June 2009, Palm launches the Pre

• July 2009, Motorola, Huawei, Archos, Lenovo and HTC have already built or have confirmed plans to release a phone with Google’s Android platform

• July 2009, non-tech companies Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Burger King , Coca-Cola, Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, D&G, Dior, BMW, Ferrari, Whole Foods, Kraft, and AAA all have iPhone applications

What’s going on? For some business owners, this might send shivers down their back. Is this for real? You bet it is, and you won’t want to be the last to know for the same reason you didn’t want to be the last to know about the Internet. Movement to mobile will be fast and as always, it’s the first to cross the finish line that counts, not the second.

Just as quickly as we turned into a culture with a computer in every home, we’re turning into a culture with one in every pocket. Not only are people walking around with little computers attached to their bodies, they are connected to them in a myriad of ways via online social networking, maps, news, games, video, music and chat.

This July at the VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference, the BBC reported that the big prediction is that the mobile applications market will be as big as the Internet in 2020. It’s no surprise that they are also predicting the market will grow to 100,000 apps by the end of 2009. Ilja Laurs, CEO of GetJar commented, “The full blossom will come in ten years and mobile apps will become as popular as websites are today with consumers.”

Here are some reasons why you’ll want a mobile app for your business sooner rather than later:

If you’re not on the web already, then you’re dead. The same will hold true for mobile.

Just as it’s a requirement for most businesses to have a web presence, it will soon be one to have a mobile presence. For many businesses having no web presence would be death and holds true to the saying “out of site, out of mind” when it comes to staying connected with your customers. Not providing online content to your customers is a dead-end for them and with the price of advertising, no business can afford to throw away customer-generated interest. Mobile is no exception. It’s another extension to your customers. It’s 1999 all over again and you’re going to need a good mobile presence.

Mobile apps are an extension of your company’s brand

It’s no accident that brick and mortar companies like Taco Bell, Lacoste and Whole Foods have mobile apps. Mobile apps are another “touchpoint” for their brand where they can interact with their audience. Marty Neumeier in his book Zag writes, “Traditional advertising is in a death spiral”…”But the root causes for the death spiral are twofold: 1) People don’t like one-way conversations, and 2) People don’t trust advertising.”

So how do you extend your brand and not use advertising? One idea is to build a utility that your customers find useful…like a mobile app.

Sherwin-Williams designed ColorSnap for the iPhone to help their customers match colors they like with Sherwin-Williams paint color. Pizza Hut launched their iPhone app that lets their customers order their favorite pepperoni pizza in seconds. Pizza Hut promotes their app with words like “easy”, “fast” and “fun”. In short, they’re making it easy for their customers, and promoting their brand in a way that doesn’t come off as being intrusive or forceful. Best of all, their icon gets to live on the customer’s mobile device helping to establish a connection between Pizza Hut and their customers.

You will want to be connected to your customers wherever they go

Companies have found a multitude of ways to stay connected with their customers via TV, billboards, print ads, sponsorships, etc. Unfortunately for them, these mediums take on a static relationship with their customers when compared with mobile. Unless you have a logo tattooed to your body (I hope not), no medium goes everywhere your customer goes like a branded mobile application does.

Users don’t like to use their mobile web browser

Before Apple opened its App Store there was a lot of media coverage around increasing statistics showing the popularity of mobile internet usage.

That was then and this is now.

While having a web site optimized for mobile browsers is a good idea, it’s no longer a sufficient means of connecting with your mobile customers. Why? Because the experience doesn’t fit the medium. It’s slow and cumbersome and was originally designed for a PC experience, not your phone. For mobile users, speed is everything. Using a phone’s web browser is akin to using a knife instead of a Cuisenart to chop vegetables. One is automatic, one is not.

To use a browser on a mobile device the user opens it to a blank screen, types a long URL with their thumbs, zooms-in to be able to read the content and laboriously navigates via several zooms, pinches, swipes and taps. Basically, it’s a lot of work. Even optimized sites still require the user to type a URL and experience what is typically, a very generic, long and linear interface. In both scenarios, there’s also the frustration of waiting for long pages and big images to load. Why not make it easy for the customer to get the information they need within a few seconds?

When I want to read the New York Times I don’t go to their web site (which on my iPhone is little bit like reading a newspaper with a magnifying glass), I use my NYT app. When I want to track packages, I use an app for that. When I want to know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, I use an app for that… The point is the mobile web browser is a tool of last resort. It’s a manual experience versus the “automatic” experience of apps.
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Of course moving your brand and/or company to the web 15 years ago wasn’t easy, and neither will moving it to mobile now. The good news is that some of the most successful apps are light in content and need only a few screens. Apps are typically widget-like and don’t require outsourcing half of India to get the job done.

The bad news is that there are now several platforms to design and build for, and each one uses their own programming style, visual language and screen dimensions (for more about this topic and why “one size doesn’t fit all”, please view my previous blog post: 31 Flavors – Designing for iPhone, Android and Blackberry Platforms). While the iPhone seems to be leading the pack in regard to app usage, you cannot ignore Blackberry’s user base or the number of “Android phones” in the works.

The miniature size of apps compared to desktop applications and web sites has its advantage. A disadvantage is that users quickly lose interest. That’s why it’s important to continue to keep users and customers engaged via dynamic content, updates and new apps.

Another point to keep in mind is that despite an app’s limited number of screens, the time and cost it takes to launch a successful app isn’t cheap and takes several weeks. There are still, only a handful of good mobile app designers and developers out there. The ones that do exist are still learning on the job because the technology is still new and platform updates are frequent. In addition, the development might require two engineers if any animation outside of the SDK is used. An app, while deceptively small in size, can be extremely feature rich and challenge both designers and technologists to maintain a user experience that is efficient and at the same time, meaningful for the customer.
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If you’re shopping for an app team to help you, this is what you should look for:

Multidisciplinary team

While some single-person development teams have been successful building and launching their own apps, with over 50,000 apps in Apple’s App Store alone, the gold rush is over and it’s not recommended that you try to hire one person to do everything. It takes several people to launch a successful app including, in most cases, an interactive designer, a visual designer, an engineer and a project manager.

An understanding of the medium

Designing for the iPhone or Android platform is not the same as designing a web site. The designers should have intimate knowledge of the device or platform with a thorough understanding of its native elements and best practices. User interfaces should be designed to be intuitive and follow platform standards that the device’s users are accustomed to. For example, iPhone apps don’t use drop-downs. A good iPhone app designer will be able to provide an immediate solution for such a problem.

Documentation

Make sure the team has an iterative design process that includes documentation of user flows and screen details (i.e. wireframes). Paper is cheap. Make sure the team has worked out most of the design problems on paper before any coding begins. Apple’s UI Evangelist, Eric Hope recommends that at least ½ of an iPhone project’s time be spent on design.

Lastly, keep in mind that mobile apps are still a new medium, mobile platform updates are frequent and the rules of the game and its players are constantly changing.