If you’re developing an application for the masses, there are several things to consider when road-mapping it’s functionality and features.

It’s a common mindset to think you have to offer more than your competitors in order to be better. People want more right? Wrong. People (most of them) don’t know what they want. Psychologist and Author of The Paradox of Choice says that people, confronted with a large pool of options will be less satisfied with a decision. The more options there are, the higher their expectation. So even if they have made the best possible choice, their satisfaction level has by default, dropped.

We can apply this same rationale to our application design at an early stage. We’re not talking about eliminating core functionality, or even dropping the “bells and whistles” but taking a step back and asking whether or not the, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” is worth the added complexity to what the end user is going to actually use.

Too Many Chefs In The Kitchen

Another reason your application will die a fiery death is that most of us (designers and developers) need approvals. More often than not these approvals come from people who are either ignorant, afraid, or stubborn. Ignorant of what’s been proven or possible, afraid of failure or too stubborn to think that there might be someone who knows more than them. I’m sure most of you are thinking of someone right now aren’t you?

If you are one of said chefs, and you aren’t open to listening to and considering input from your peers, your product is doomed to fail and my suggestion to you is to either open your mind, or find a new profession. Perhaps a prison warden or a S&M phone sex operator. That way you either have a captive audience that has no choice but to do what you say, or you have people paying you to belittle them.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

Some of us have the luxury of not being burdened by deadlines. However a vast majority are perpetually cognizant of launch dates. Sometimes these time frames are so tight, that we are forced to cut corners. These sacrifices can range from clean coding, UI design and even usability testing. We’re not saying that we can’t iterate after the fact, but first impressions are crucial and a bad initial experience can crush even the most brilliant project.

Conclusion

The next time you end up at one of these roadblocks, consider the actions you’re taking to remedy the situation? If all you are doing is complaining about the hurdles, to see the failure you need look no further than a mirror.

We are hard-coded with the desire to do the best we can. No one sets out to fail. We need to continually educate ourselves with facts and information to consider success, but even then there is no guarantee.

There’s nothing wrong with launching a great product that can get better. By taking careful consideration to avoid these potential pitfalls, we bring ourselves one step closer to making sure your next app doesn’t fail.

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Why Your Next App Will Fail

How To: Dark Background with Noise

This is a simple tutorial to show how many sites now are using a “noise” background to add a nice texture. This is very simple tutorial that requires Photoshop. The source files are not for download because this tut is only a few steps long to show you, the idea of making a noise background.

1. Open a new document. For this tut I am using a 600×200px doc. Make sure your color space is setup for RGB.

2. Fill the canvas with your select color. For this tut we are using #343434 which is a nice dark grey that would show up well in a browser.

3. Go to Edit > Fill or Shift + F5 to fill the canvas. This just filled the canvas with the color that we had chosen in the step before.

4. We are now going to go to Filter > Add Noise This will pull up a dialog box which then you can send the amount of noise you want.

5. The point of adding noise is not to go overboard but give it a nice subtle pattern where, we can make a nice background image. The amount is very small set at 99%. Make sure the distribution is Gaussian and also make sure Monochromatic is checked. If it is not the noise will be in color and will overpower your backgound instead  of being in the black and white.

6. I then like to add a tiny bit of gaussian blur. This makes the noise a bit “blended” into the background color. I do this so you can’t focus on the edges of the pixels because its pretty distracting if left 100% in focus.

That wraps up how to make a dark noise background. You can experiment with different colors, blurs and noise levels.

**NOTE: **I also would recommend putting a dark gradient or a nice layer mask that makes the noise layer fade in from one side to another. This again makes another subtle background statement. You can also try making a repeating background by making a square pattern and then defining that pattern and using fill again to “fill with pattern” instead of just filling with color.

Examples:

Scraplr

Spiffing Apps

Flowchat

Eddit – Snow Report

Simply Tweet

Tweetie

iPhone App Template Site

Go Squared

Parking App

Birdbrain App

Teehanlax Labs

Beak – Twitter Client

JQTouch

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App Trends: Dark App Site Design

The Review

First, let me just say that Loren did his homework; Tweetie 2 is everything one could want in a mobile Twitter app. Since he re-wrote the entire app from the ground up, Tweetie 2 is smaller, faster, and more sleek, than the original application. The user interface is a beautiful adaptation of a Twitter app that implements an easy-to-use design. For example, when viewing your time line or @mentions feed, you can refresh the feed by “pulling down” on the feed. You would normally scroll to the top of the app to see the most recent tweets anyway, so this is certainly convenient. Also, you now have the ability to double tap on direct messages and @mentions to mark them all as read. Additionally, all tweets in the replies/main time-line are able to be indexed and searched in real time. These are just a few examples of the unique features that make this app better than its predecessor.

The original Tweetie application won an Apple Design Award in 2009 for being cutting edge, and I strongly believe that Loren is in the running for another one. Tweetie 2 uses the iPhone platform to its full advantage and adds features that are not only simple to use, but are also 100% useful. Tweetie 2 is heavily designed to keep you focused on the task at hand, which is to send tweets. As seen on the “Compose” screen, there is a “down” arrow that allows you to hide the keyboard, as well as expose several other features, such as shortening links and adding an image.

The Price Debate

As previously mentioned, Loren has received some flack by not offering an upgrade price. Now, if you are buying this app for the first time, it’ll cost you $2.99, which is cheaper than a few of its top competitors. However, if you are upgrading, it’s a bit different. You paid for the first one at the price of $2.99, and the second is also $2.99. This brings you to a total of $5.98, which is about the price of a $5 Footlong from Subway with some tax. It is also just barely above its competitors:

• Echofon (formerly Twitterfon) – $4.99

• SimplyTweet – $4.99

• Birdfeed - $4.99

If you ask me, with all the research and functionality over gadgets and whistles that Tweetie 2 has, I would pay for each additional update to this app. My reasoning is that Loren literally thought about all sides of this app. The only negatives that I have seen or heard, is that there are no themes like there were in Tweetie 1.0, and it also doesn’t have a “Reply All” function (I know there is a way to reply to multiple people in one tweet, but I am talking about multiple people in a time line.)

Now, to the controversy (that I wasn’t going to talk about, *cough*.) Do I think that Loren has a good reason to charge original users to upgrade? Simply put, yes, I do . He completely re-wrote the app to be faster, kinda like Apple did with Snow Leopard (and their upgrade was $30.) He also added more features that impact your user experience everyday, like Adobe does with its products (except Tweetie doesn’t cost $700 for an upgrade.) Now, regardless if you agree with me that he has a reason to change or not, you should be able to agree that this app is stellar and there is not like anything else on the market.

Concluding Thoughts

The little details that have gone into this app separate it from all other Twitter apps. Once again, Tweetie 2 sets the bar high, through its speed, sleek new features, and its amazing user experience. Most importantly, though, you should purchase Tweetie 2 because it was created by a developer who pours his heart and soul into his work, and doesn’t settle for anything less than stellar. Tweetie is setting the trend for iPhone Twitter clients and I am deeply looking forward to seeing what the next step for Loren Brichter is.

Note: Do you need help using Tweetie while on your iPhone? Loren even thought of that too. He made an iPhone optimized help guide that gives you all the simple/advanced features for the app.

Screenshots

More Info

Full Feature list/Reveal Post

Twitter

iTunes Link

Site

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Tweetie 2: Beautiful on Your iPhone

Campaign Monitor

Simply Tweet

Webset Icons

GeeMail

Threadsy

Twitt App

Macristocracy

PayPal – Change How We Pay

Panelfly

CloudApp

GUIFX

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Good Ole App Site Inspiration

1. Zendesk

Zendesk is inspiring the help desk 2.0 movement through a focus on enlightened customer support. By leveraging the benefits of Web-based communications and social media, Zendesk extends good help desk karma to any company looking to offer professional-grade support service with very little effort. For nearly two years, Zendesk has helped companies large and small move their help desk and customer support operations to the Web.

Notable Clients

Twitter, MSNBC, Yammer, Books-A-Million, Scribd, DeviantArt, Viddler, Slide Rocket, and Fuel Brand Network.

Since Fuel Brand Network uses Zendesk, I personally have had experience with it and I can tell you firsthand that the software is awesome. It organizes everything in an Inbox layout and sends you an e-mail when you are sent a request/bug/feature/contact. The best part of the app is that it allows you respond right from your original Inbox. This feature really comes in handy when you see a response that requires an immediate answer. Zendesk also recently integrated with Basecamp, which makes this program even more awesome.

Pricing

2. User Voice

Your customers have great ideas. Are you ready to listen?
Uservoice communities are the easiest way to turn customer feedback into action:

1. Share ideas.
2. Vote up the best.
3. Respond, implement & repeat!

Notable Clients

Nike, Microsoft, Mint(financing), AMC Theatres, PostitScience, Zappos

Pricing

3. Get Satisfaction

Get Satisfaction is a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships.
Get Satisfaction is open, transparent, and free. Tens of thousands of companies use this neutral space to support customers, exchange ideas, and get feedback about their products and services. Everyone is invited and encouraged to participate.

Notable Clients

12 Seconds, TechCrunch, MySpace, psdtuts, Sun Microsystems, Tweetdeck, Urban Dictionary, Zynga, Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

Pricing

What do you use?

This is just a slim selection of customer monitoring software. What do you use to track what your users are saying?

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3 Apps to Monitor Customer Feedback

Recently I have been scouring the web high and low to bring you the best app news, resources and information. Here is a list of some well designed app related sites from along the way. What are some of the sites you have run across this week? Put your thoughts in the comments!

Thermometer App

Typography App

Sifter

Notify

Mozilla Labs

Mobify

Meta Lab Design

Livestream

Teehan Lax | Labs

JUFTi

Firerift

Fileshare HQ

Convertbots

Bottle Rocket Apps

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Found: App Related Sites

Be Authentic

The key to cultivating your fan-base right from the start is being authentic. Now, if you are pushing your application, of course you’re going to want to highlight it with links or offers. However, this is NOT all that you should do. If you are using social media as a broadcast method, no one is going to come back for more information (unless you’re a news site, which you most likely are not). They know that you’re going tell them, “Hey, here is my great product.” If you properly engage your target market, fan-base, clients, etc. they will develop a genuine interest in what you are saying, and eventually return to hear more. Vin Diesel is a great example of how to interact with your fan-base on Facebook. He has built an enormous amount of fans (6,223,076) as a result of being authentic–engaging with them multiple times a day. (In depth breakdown by Mashable).

Provide Feedback/Communication

Twitter has proven to be an amazing platform for providing issue issue correspondence and information tracking, thereby allowing you to follow what people are saying about your app, in real time. If you haven’t joined Twitter and you’re launching an application, you should. Media Temple (web host) has done a really great job at using this as a tech support line. They have a correspondent ready to answer your questions and help you complete your help request faster. I have had several issues and, after DMing (Twitter-short for ‘Direct Message’) my support request number, they have been more than speedy at initiating the resolution process. Shaun Inman (creator of fever & mint) uses Twitter for tech support, but he uses it in a different way. He utilizes Twitter as a channel for updating consumers on the status of their pending emails, pertaining to his apps. This informs the user of Shaun’s progress with responding to emails and whether or not to expect an immediate response. A recent addition in this field that should be examined is TwelpForce, from BestBuy. They have recruited select professionals in certain areas of the company to manage their Twitter feed, resulting in an around-the-clock online customer service. With so many people driving the team, they have roared to 8,000+ updates (to put that in perspective: I have 13,000+ updates and have been on Twitter for more than a year) and are around to answer your tech questions. This is definitely a productive way for a business to embracing a medium to its full advantage.

Gain Momentum

When you are initially releasing your app into the wild, your goal is to build momentum and develop a fan-base. The quickest way to do that is through social media. Since most social media sites with mega users update in real-time, your product can literally spread to all surfaces of the globe overnight. Twitter has also been hailed as the “site killer”, due to the fact that if your tweet gains enough traction, and is RTed (’retweeted’, or reposting information you find useful to share to your followers,) it could crash your site due to an overload of traffic. It’s easy to believe that this could happen when people, who have over 1 million followers, target your site and retweet it.

Connect & Help the Community

One of the most effective ways to grow your product and your brand is often overlooked. Marketers are on Twitter and Facebook screaming about how amazing their new book is and why you should buy it. Self-promotion is fine every so often, but social media is a bit of a give and take. If you do not help others out by cross-promoting their material, you in-turn will be labeled as a broadcaster rather than a converser. If someone helps you out, help them out in return. As a result of this, you are making connections that could turn out to be incredibly valuable in the future; you never know where things may end up.

Resources

Here are some articles on the same topic that can provide you with some valuable insight on how to grow your fanbase on Social Media.

Ultimate How-To: Grow Your Social Media Network

In social media, who you know — or who knows you — can certainly make all the difference. That’s why figuring out who to connect with and taking the time to build relationships with these people is key to leveraging the power of social media.

6 services that help you find, follow friends on Twitter

Finding friends on Twitter was simple when the service was in its infancy, but today, Twitter is home to millions of users. In fact, 70 percent of the entire Twitter community is composed of people who signed up in 2008 and 5,000 to 10,000 new users sign up each day.

Eight Secrets of Effective Online Networking

Is your organization considering setting up a profile on a social networking site? Are you wondering what tasks are involved, how much time it will take, and how you might streamline your efforts? Maybe your organization has established a presence on MySpace and is now contemplating adding one to Facebook. Perhaps you are wondering how you can juggle multiple profiles and still have time left to do other work.

Why Social Networking

Your capabilities don’t matter much if you don’t have a robust enough network to get them out to where they can do the most good.

The pillars of social media site success

Why people choose to visit online social sites:

• Who likes me?
• Is everything okay?
• How can I become more popular?
• What’s new?
• I’m bored, let’s make some noise

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How To: Grow Your Fanbase

What’s the Deal?

For every $10 you donate to Jim’s Ride to Cure Diabetes during the first two weeks of September you get the chance to win one of two Mac software bundles worth almost $275 each! Two winners will be chosen at random very soon after entries close and they’ll be notified by email.

To be clear, donate $20 and you have two chances to win one of the bundles. The donation collecting website lists all donors and amounts so you know exactly how good your chances are. Also note that it’s 10 Australian dollars.

The Bundle

A suite of applications for any Mac user. Get things done with Things, enjoy blogging again with MarsEdit, challenge your mind with Black Ink, get creative with Scribbles, get the most out of Twitter with Tweetie, organise your home movie library with Clipstart, get your media on your Wii with Wii Transfer, stay on time with TimeBoxed, remember your passwords with 1Password and trace your history with Family.

It’s a great bunch of popular apps from reputable developers.

iTunes Bonus!

John Eddie of Zicron Software, makers of the iPhone app Years, is kindly donating a $10 iTunes gift voucher to each raffle winner. Use it to buy a copy of Years and other iPhone software to compliment your swag of new Mac apps.

The Fundraising Campaign

My goal is to raise $3500 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Australia. You can find out all about diabetes, JDRF and the ride at my fundraising website.

Due Date

You have until the 14th of September. So hope over to the Raffle now to buy a ticket and help a good cause.

More Specs

There is more specs on the site about how it started and the info behind the raffle. I suggest you go check out Jim’s Ride to Cure Diabetes

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Mac Software Raffle to Cure Diabetes

Photo by Miss Sandy

Define Your Goals:

When you decide to market your app, it is important for you to have a clear path to travel. Are you going to have a soft launch? Word of mouth? Twitter launch? A promo? All of these are things to consider when you start your marketing. Are you going to run teasers on your site somewhere, making your customers get more excited by the day until you launch? Or are you just going to blindside everyone and come out of nowhere?

When you think about the how, you also need to think about the cost. Are you going to design these ads yourself or is someone you know going to do it for you? Are you going to pay a designer for marketing? If you have internal resources, use them. Your staff designers are perfectly capable of creating some marketing materials.  After all, going cheap and bootstrapping is not too shabby. Now we’re not saying you have to go full-on and have a press kit, but you can make a teaser page, web page, twitter background or something like that to “announce” and market your app. If you are going to hire a designer, how do you decide how much to spend? This is something you need to decide upfront.

photo by James

What Makes You Unique:

What makes your app unique? Did you make your app because you needed a utility that no one else provides? Play off of that. If you are the first app to tell how many cows it takes to make a gallon of milk, play it up.  After all, that’s what makes your app unique. Defining your niche and what makes you stand out from the other apps can put you leaps above the competition. Maybe something about your app is that whoever purchases it will be entered into a raffle to win a new Ferrari. Find something unique and utilize it. You can do it. After all, you just came out with the next new kickass app.

Implementing your Strategies:

Remember that really cool and creative strategy that you came up with in the beginning? It’s time for you to implement it. Ask for favors from your friends when you launch. Ask them for tweets, have them blog about it or ask them to put you in touch with some of their key friends. Drawing on your connections when you launch something big is the whole point in having them. The reason you have their business card on your desk or in your wallet or their email floating around in your contact book is because you know them somehow and wanted to do something with them in the future. Ask politely and be sure to thank them for helping you out. Many people always “seem” busy, but you would be surprised how many would take the time to help someone when you ask nicely.

photo by lozzd

Monitoring Your Campaign:

Make sure that once you get your great app and your amazing marketing plan out the door that you keep tabs on it. If your app is great you will hear about it and if your app is horrible you will hear about it then as well. Use things like Twitter search and Google alerts to set up some monitoring tools. If you have a site they are visiting, you can always check out your analytics for the dates you have been marketing and trying to get people to your site.

While monitoring your campaign YOU WILL HEAR HORRIBLE COMPLAINTS! You are dealing with people. People are not easy to please especially when you try to please everyone. It’s important to remember NOT to let it get to you. Is it a valid complaint because something is not working? Fine. Log it and then move on. If it’s a nasty complaint, just let it roll off your shoulders. Learning to accept that not everyone will like you and your app will make your life a lot easier.

Updates:

It’s a good idea to have a blog or a Twitter stream. These tell people the company is being active in the public eye. These mediums give you a chance to address problems and a place for other people to come and read about them. If you are having bugs, you can tell the public you are having problems and you are working on it. The most important relationship you are going to have is with your consumer. Be open if something is not working correctly and try to fix it as soon as possible. Hiding behind excuses is not a good way to make your brand memorable or build a good relationship with the customer. Through your platform of choice, be it a blog or twitter, make sure that you keep them informed about things that are going on with the brand. If you are going to go to a conference, talk about that. If you are going to give a bunch of free apps out, talk about that. Being in the public eye and showing that you are indeed human is a great way to build brand loyalty.

Resources:

How to Build Massive Word of Mouth with Twitter Giveaways (The #SquareSpace Success Story)

How much is a twitter follower worth? With that kind of growth since June 8th, 36,000 new followers (and counting) at a cost of $6000, they have basically paid 17 cents per follower.

The Amount And Value Of Twitter Traffic

Jason Calacanis wants to pay $125,000 a year to have Twitter recommend him to other users, for example. He thinks that over time accounts with massive followings will somehow be able to pull in $1 million a year or more in incremental revenue, assuming they then have millions of followers.

Moonfruit’s Twitter Push Provides Cautionary Tale

Moonfruit, a U.K.-based company that offers free Web site building tools, saw a great opportunity to raise brand awareness on Twitter. The company last week kicked off a sweepstakes, giving away 10 MacBook Pro computers to Twitter users that include the #moonfruit tag in their tweets.

Convert App Stealth MacBook Pro Giveaway’s

Grab it now for a limited time at the introductory price of just 99¢. Be sure to check out the Convert promo video by MostlyLisa and screencast by Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline.

5 Social Media Lessons Learned From Whole Foods

As a company, Whole Foods has impressively embraced social media more than most, gathering over 1.2 million followers on Twitter and 123,000 fans on Facebook in the process.

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App Marketing Series: Your Groundwork For Success