Monday, March 25, 2013

App-in-a-Can

Have you been annoyed by the recent proliferation of web-site specific applications that you can now download for your Android or IOS device?  It seems as if everywhere I go, I have to stop and tell the website I'm directed too to skip the App download.

No.  I do not want your site-specific application to put your website in front of me every day.  That's why I use aggregator Apps and/or RSS feeds.

Today I was appalled to see yet another example of this: Now being pushed on physicians.  For a fee, it seems, some organization (whom I won't even bother linking to) will allow you to create a one or four page referral "App" from a template, where one page is a referral form, and the others could be any content you want to display.

Really?  Really.

In the HTML world, we used to call those things: A web-site in-a-can, and the end result was as bland and boring as most canned vegetables.

In fact, anyone considering having an App created like this, pay attention.  Ask yourselves, why would someone use your "App".  What value does it bring them, other than being able to refer patients to you?  Do you have really great content?  Some cool tools?  Something else?

If the value proposition for the the App just leads towards you, the App supplier, it's not an App that your customers will consider worth having.

And if it looks like it came from a can, I know what can they'll put it in.

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