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Mobile and Libraries

Is your library building mobile apps and presence? Here’s some forecasts from ReadWriteWeb about how that space is changing in 2011:

2011 Mobile Trends, According to Developers

“Portland-based mobile services platform Urban Airship recently released the results of its year-end survey, which asked hundreds of developers about their current efforts and future plans, in order to measure trends in the mobile application development space.”

1. “iOS development is expected to drop slightly in to 2011, from 99.5% to 90%, while Android increases from 44% to 74%.”
2. “in-app purchases showed a huge jump in developer usage – from 8% in 2010 to 31% in 2011.”
3. “there was a clear developer preference for both the iOS (99.5%) and Android (43.8%) platforms this year. BlackBerry (11.0%), meanwhile, was a distant third.”
4. “90% said they would be developing for iOS, 73.8% said Android, and both BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 saw major increases, at 22.2% and 24.4%, respectively.”
5. “In 2010, the majority of revenue (47%) came from downloads of paid apps. The rest of the revenue was generated by ads (11%), in-app purchases (8%) and upgrades (0.3%). 33.3% of developers surveyed reported they did not monetize their app. However, in 2011, the revenue generated by downloads will decrease, although it will still be largest source at 38%. Other methods including ads (17%), in-app purchases (31%) and upgrades (2%) will increase. Only 13% of developers reported they would not monetize their apps.”
6. “Downloads are used as a measure of an app’s success, according to 64% of developers. Others measure success by app usage (60%), revenue earned (44%), app store ranking (34%) and the un-install rate (4%).”

You can read the report in its entirety here. (12 page PDF)

You can easily interpret this into the library setting. Sales transactions are roughly equal to circulation, e-book downloads, website hits, or reference queries, etc.

You can easily play with mobile access to your library with the free Gale iPhone and Droid apps for public, K-12, college/university libraries.

Stephen

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Posted on: January 18, 2011, 6:02 am Category: Uncategorized

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