Jeff Sonderman wrote a post on the Ponyter blog today about this post from Technology Review – “Why Publishers Don’t Like Apps.” In the post, Jason Pontin from Technology Review takes a look at what worked and really what didn’t work when publishing companies tried to create apps. In summary – part of the issue was that publishers spent alot of money on building apps, and in the end they weren’t able to make that money back through app sales. The Technology Review is redesigning TechnologyReview.com in HTML 5 so that it works on both the web and mobile platforms.
I can see how for of some of the larger blogs and media outlets it might make sense to have an app. I have used the Huffington Post app on my ipad but I usually just read from HuffingtonPost.com instead.
But what about local bloggers? Should we have apps?
I think of a mobile app in the same way that I think about video blogs – a lot of work for a smaller audience. A few years ago – everyone was talking about video blogging. If you have a blog, why not video blog? I even took a summer class in video production. I learned that producing a video blog – is a lot more work than just typing out a text post. And at the end of the day – I rarely watch online videos, so why would others watch my videos.
What do you think about apps for mostly text blogs? Do you have an app for your blog? Do you want one? Have you done anything to make your blog mobile friendly? Why or why not?
