Tag Archives: iPhone

iOS apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad are in strong demand right now, but not everyone knows how to make one, or even how to find someone to make one for them.

A friend of mine pointed me towards Mobile Roadie, which has made apps for “the world’s top publishers and brands,” like Taylor Swift and the Miami Dolphins. Their main selling point is that they make making an iOS app easy using templates. The trade-off is that you may end up getting an app that looks like a template – or worse, just like someone else’s app. But this is how web design got started once it became more accessible and popular to make your own web sites. Not everyone could code their own web sites and not everyone can code their own iOS apps, so then, like now, template businesses are helping users create things that they couldn’t otherwise do.

Other sites like Appiction will make an app for you using their designers and coders, but the price is higher. Expect to pay in the thousands for a custom-developed web app, much like you would for a custom-designed web site. Remember, the app is going to be used by hundreds, if not thousands of people – and if you’re lucky – millions. So you want your app to work well, be pleasing to the eye, and have a good interface – basic rules of design there. To compare different iPhone app developers and get a quote, visit iphoneappquotes.com.

If you’re interested in developing your own iOS app, The Daleisphere has an article about how to start. He goes over the hardware, software, and knowledge you’ll need to get started. Basically, it takes a Mac (you can’t write iOS apps on a PC*), an Objective-C (Cocoa) writer, and an iOS app compiler. He references several books and guides to help you get started and has several key links you’ll need like where to get signed up to become a developer. The most popular iPhone development book on Amazon.com is Beginning iPhone 4 Development: Exploring the iOS SDK so that is something to get you started.

*You can write iOS apps on a PC, but it violates the EULA with Apple (because you have to jailbreak an iPhone), however for those willing to accept that risk, there are programs like DragonFireSDK that will help you write iOS apps on a PC as long as you know C/C++.

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Google is now bringing it’s search engine and the Android operating system to televisions.

In response to this move by Google to TV. Rishi Chandra, one of the product managers at Google, announced at their I/O 2010 conference, Google TV, which will bring the best of the web and TV together, integrating them into one platform. Google touts, “Less time finding, more time watching,” “Control and personalize what you watch,” “Make your TV content more interesting” and “more than just a TV”. There are two points from this that I’d like to discuss in relation to Internet Marketing and SEO, which may lead my to other topics, but I digress:

1. Apps as marketing (SEO) techniques – creating a WordPress, Android, or iPhone app creates backlinks to your site.
2. Video as promotional tool (and primary content) – it’s not just making sure your site looks good on a TV, it has to be something people want to view on a tv, and it has to be something they can find in Google.

From what I’ve learned about SEO, I’ve created a set of tenets for Internet Marketing, which center around the Clinton-esque phrase, “It’s the backlinks, stupid.”

A. Update-able Web Design (Blog Area), On-Page SEO, and Directory (at least the ODP, but Yahoo if you can afford it) and Search Engine Submissions are foundations.

B. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Myspace, [+Space of your choice], Youtube, Relevant Forums, and Relevant Blog Comments should all be pinged in equal measure. Don’t rely too much on the most popular (Twitter and Facebook) for two reasons:
1. Heavy re-posting could damage brand with followers who actually care about the product/service
2. It doesn’t spread the backlinks around to different IP addresses. Consider that there is a saturation point, if you will.
C. Now that the low-hanging fruit is gone, it’s time to hit Squidoo and Hubpages to create lenses and create distributable content like ebooks, Ezine articles, and any app you can (ex. WordPress plugins or themes, Android apps, or iPhone apps). Youtube videos can also fall in this category.

Forums, Forums, Forums

The power of forums is that once you get a signature file, every post you’ve ever made, every comment you’ve ever made on the forum creates a backlink to your site of choice and changing it in the future will retro-actively change all your old posts in the past. Just know that if you intend for the backlinks you create with your signature file to stay powerful, you’ll need to leave your signature alone or start a new account. Most forums require that you post ten times and wait ten days before being able to add hyperlinks to your signature. This is because they almost all use the same forum platform, which also makes it nice when learning how to navigate.

News Mentions of Tumblr over Time

Tumblr is Nice, and Growing – I stumbled upon tumblr through Ping.FM. I was looking for ways to expand the use of Ping.FM and browsed a couple of the choices. Tumblr seemed like it had a very clean design and was simple to use. It’s kind of setup like Twitter should have been. Each post can be a blog, a picture, a video, a link, or a quote. You can re-post another person’s work (like Twitter’s retweet function) and follow other users, just like Twitter. Tumblr can even go out and pull blog posts then blast the links to that post out to Twitter and Facebook, a Ping.fm-like feature. Very nice. I see Tumblr growing over time (even John Mayer has left Twitter for Tumblr). If you use Alexa as a ranking tool, here are where the sites I’ve mentioned fall:

Tumblr Alexa Rank over time

2 – Facebook
3 – Youtube
11 – Twitter
18 – Myspace
130 – Ezinearticles
149 – Tumbr
230 – Hubpages
235 – Squidoo

But consider that LinkedIn ranks at 29 and allows you to have 3 customized backlinks per person, but like forum signatures, once it is changed, it is no longer a back-link.

Android Apps

Mobile Devices reports that Android beat out the iPhone OS for the 2nd place spot in the US smartphone market, but the iPhone OS still outranks Android globally. This could change though. ZDnet says, “The time to build Android apps is now,” and I would have to agree. If you can get in at this stage of the game, you will be better positioned for success, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

Growm your business. Need help?

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