Congratulations to our friends at Eagles Cheerleading!

Quote: “Silicon Valley isn’t the only place where designing mobile apps for smart phones is a booming business.  A Charlottesville company is taking a bite out of the competition and creating apps for businesses in the community and around the country.”

See the full report as it was televised here and be sure to share it with your friends!

Schiff breaks down an excellent set of criteria put forth by Forrester Research by which to evaluate whether or not your company actually stands to benefit from a mobile solution:

• Does the organization currently have a website that is regularly used by customers?
• Do the people you are trying to reach use smartphones or tablets on a regular basis?
• Can mobile provide opportunities that a traditional web presence – or other channels – can’t or doesn’t do as well?
• Would customers (or employees or partners) benefit from having information at the moment of decision?

Allegedly, if the answer for your company is “yes” to at least two of these, you should be working to find a way to incorporate mobile into your company’s strategy.  I couldn’t agree more, and think that it’s probably only a matter of time – particularly for the second and third points – before the answer is going to be “yes” no matter what your company is.

Nevertheless, arguably the most insightful component of the article is Schiff’s assertion that the biggest mistakes companies make is to consider a mobile project to be a “standalone product” as opposed to simply another – though obviously new – content distribution channel.  There are some businesses that obviously center their entire product offering around mobile, hence such a proposition would make substantially more sense, such as in the case of Foursquare or Instagram, for those who have built their business around that medium.  However, for a newcomer to mobile, there is an obvious temptation to treat mobile as a sort of “holy grail” of cutting edge innovation to display your company’s proficiency in staying “hip” with new media.

Don’t be fooled – a good corporate mobile development strategy, in my opinion, rests upon analysis of one core set of scenarios: use cases.  If you were to sit down with an app idea for your company just to get your mobile presence out there, would you be able to honestly and wholeheartedly say that each of the features that you are electing to include (not to mention paying to include if you’re developing with a third party provider) is actually going to be used frequently?  In fact, take a step back – would you be able to honestly and wholeheartedly say that a substantial number of people are going to download the app in the first place in order to use those potentially superfluous features?  If you have a single doubt about either of those questions, I would 100% recommend that you follow Schiff’s advice and consider why you want to get your company into mobile.

Use cases are critical because they are the true assessment of your app’s value to the end user.  Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter Apps, for example, quite clearly demonstrate a thorough use case analysis as they were able to recognize that expecting women would, in fact, be thinking about their pregnancy every single day, and as such, would want to have push notifications, reminders, and social interactions with other expecting women at their fingertips.  It’s no surprise that the apps have had millions of downloads and was the fastest growing Android app ever upon its launch.

It is this kind of use case analysis that will propel your company into a smarter approach to mobile – nobody has ever attempted to conquer the world in a day and succeeded, and as much as I hate to dash your hopes, there are better uses of your money!  Corporate app development is about utilizing a scenario-based, get-your-feet-wet-first approach to mobile development that iterates and grows upon its own brilliance through feedback and post-release analysis.

WillowTree Apps‘ business is not about getting you to spend as much money as possible on a mobile solution that you will regret building – we want you to grow with us across all mobile platforms, expanding your company’s mobile presence gradually and intelligently in a way that helps you to take full advantage of such an exciting new medium.

Check out the full video here and be sure to check out Likes! for yourself.  WillowTree Apps is here for all your app development needs. :-)

Read the full article here.

Android Police: “Likes! is useful for finding the occasional restaurant, bar, or event in your area that some of your friends might like, but that they haven’t told you about yet.”

Addictive Tips: “[Likes!] is perhaps, the simplest and most ideal way to get a comprehensive overview of everything that’s running hot among your mates on the network.”

Read the full reviews here and here.

Sitter Sorter, an iPhone application developed by WillowTree Apps, designed to make finding and organizing your babysitting needs easier, is a must for any parent who wants to be able to find and manage their babysitters with ease.

Download it from the iTunes store here.

Quote: “Based on the theory that you’re likely to like what your friends like, WillowTree Apps has created Likes. It’s an iPhone and Android app that scans your Facebook friends’ “likes” of restaurants and bars as well as movies, TV shows and other things we spend time and money on and shows what your friends like. If it’s an establishment, it lists the ones nearest to you first, making it an excellent way to find a nearby eatery or drinking spot.”

Read the full article here.

The Likes! App is a great tool that showcases WillowTree’s proficiency in iPhone and Android app development.  Utilizing Facebook’s “likes”, you can quickly figure out what restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hotels, TV shows, movies, or just about anything “likeable” on Facebook that your friends like, giving you an instant, mobile opinion poll that is highly relevant to you.  Check out the app for iPhone, Android, or Facebook mobile web/desktop at www.willowtreeapps.com/likes.

Read the full review here, and as always, check out the app at www.willowtreeapps.com/likes

I quote: “I’m a Yelp user. I go to Yelp to check out just about any company I do business with. I also use Google of course, but Yelp is the first one I think of. The only bad thing about Yelp is that you are relying on the opinions of other users to gauge your assessment of a particular business or venue. How about something a little more personal and compact?”

See what she’s talking about at www.willowtreeapps.com/likes.