Jonathan Stark

Maxine Sherrin of WebDirections fame contacted me the other day with an interesting question about how people find web apps. I thought you might be interested, so I decided to post our exchange here (with Maxine’s permission, of course).

Here’s Maxine’s original inquiry:

Hey Jonathan,

I know this might sound like a strange question, but, in your opinion, what are the names of a few mobile web apps worth talking about? ie, that are getting a bit of traction or press, or that are just plain good? Also – are there any sites that aggregate or review these? ie, iPhone apps people find out about via the app store, where would you find out about a mobile web app?

–
Maxine

And here’s my reply:

Hi Maxine -

All the mobile web apps that come to mind as the highest quality and most useful are from big name web players like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Flickr, and the like.

In terms of sites that aggregate web app listings, Apple’s directory is probably the best place:

http://www.apple.com/webapps/

But when I think about it, web app discovery seems somehow fundamentally different than native app discovery.

Personally, I tend to discover web apps as a side effect of using some other product or service. For example, at some point I visited the online banking site for Bank of America on my mobile phone and was delighted to discover that they had a mobile version available.

So the use case here is, “I’m trying to get something very specific accomplished.”

Conversely, the native app/app store model reminds me of the bad old days of VHS video tape rental. It was not uncommon for me to wander around a bricks and mortar video store for an hour on a Friday night looking for something I thought might strike my fancy.

Use case here is, “I’m bored and I want to watch a video, but I don’t know which one.”

What’s interesting to me about these two cases is that the first usually leaves me with a positive experience, and the second is very hit or miss; the need is vague (even I’m not sure what’s going to satisfy me) and I have to make a purchasing decision based on limited data (essentially, judging a book by its cover). The potential for “app buyer remorse” is particularly high in the iOS world because Apple doesn’t really allow returns.

Of course, this is just based on my personal behavior, which I know is not representative of the general public.

Best,
j

I’d be super interested to get your input on this because I know I’m not a typical case. If you have a sec, please leave a comment.