The document provides 6 reasons to rethink creating a mobile app for conferences and events. Only 28% of users have smartphones, making app discovery difficult with thousands submitted daily. Nearly 3/4 of apps are used less than 10 times, with 1/4 only used once. App features tend to be more than attendees need. Developing apps for different platforms is more expensive than assumed. Notifications require additional steps unlike text messaging, which is available on 99% of phones. The document suggests using text messaging or the mobile web instead of an app.

1. 6 Reasons to Rethink Creating a Mobile App for
Your Conference, Event, Meeting or Convention
(Not exactly the best way to engage attendees, is it?)
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2. 1. Only 28% of mobile users in the
U.S. have smart phones.
What if 72% of your attendees couldn’t access your website
or marketing materials. Would creating them be an
acceptable use of time and money at your organization?
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3. 2. With literally hundreds of
thousands of apps in the app stores,
mobile app discovery is growing
more difficult daily.
Even with developer confidence
declining because of the
fragmentation of mobile operating
systems, there are about 2,000
apps submitted to the Android
and iPhone app stores every day.
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4. 3. Nearly 3/4 of downloaded mobile
apps are used less than 10 times
and 1/4 of mobile apps are used
only once.
Quick Experiment: If you are a smart
phone user, take a quick look at your
phone. How many apps do you see on
there that you were excited to download
and then haven’t used again?
Maybe it’s no surprise to know free apps
are used less than paid ones, but worth
noting.
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5. 4. To justify the cost, mobile app
features for conferences tend to be
way more than anyone needs or
uses.
Attendees using smart phones are already using
many different apps to manage their travel, find local
places to eat and figure out what’s causing buzz at
the show via Twitter and Foursquare.
Do attendees really need GPS-enabled map
directions to exhibitor booths? Is there really a need
to pay for development and then promote another
service for them to do this on?
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6. 5. Developing mobile apps is more
expensive than you think.
We wrote a blog post about the
expense of creating an iPhone
app, so I won’t go into it here, but
people tend to think developing
mobile apps for 3-5 different
mobile operating systems is fairly
inexpensive and doesn’t take a
lot of time, even on providers
claiming to use pre-packaged
platforms. It’s really not.
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7. 6. Notifications for alerts,
announcements and changes on
mobile apps are not an automatic
function.
How much can you ask of your attendees?
After you ask them to download the app,
then you have to ask them to push
information or have to ask them to follow
their location. When you update or change
information on the app, attendees have to
perform what's basically a re-download to
see the new info. What else might you
have to ask of them after they download
your mobile app?
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8. So what is one to do?
Use text messaging and the mobile web. Or just use
text messaging. It’s available on 99% of all mobile
phones and 95% of all mobile phone subscribers in the
U.S. have it as part of their monthly plans.
If you love mobile apps or someone you work with
insists in them, we completely understand. We love
them too and everyone here is a smart phone user.
But we’re realistic about the fact that most mobile
users are not.
If you’re interested in hearing success stories our
clients have had using cost-effective and engaging
text messaging applications or mobile web solutions,
contact us, or check out our mobile solutions for
conferences, events and meetings, we can help.
www.mosio.com
Copyright Mosio, Inc. All rights reserved.

9. Contact Mosio
Web: www.mosio.com
Email: info@mosioproject.com
Phone: 877.667.4699
Text: ASKMO to 66746
Copyright Mosio, Inc. All rights reserved.