Blog

1. Wrapp

Thanks to Facebook, I never forget a birthday (except for when they briefly moved the events section). I have been able to wish people I haven't seen or spoken to in months, or even years, many happy returns. This convenience can spawn laziness and apathy, as saying happy birthday to a friend becomes a part of the daily routine. It has become even easier now you don't even have to leave your news feed to post on their timeline.

Happy Birthday (enter friend's name). Have a good one x

Happy Birthday (enter other friend's name). Wish I was with you x

These are just two of many templates of saying happy birthday to a friend. It's a nice thought but ultimately, it's just robotic and mechanical. Birthdays used to be about giving to a friend or loved one. It didn't even matter how much you spent, because it was the "thought that counts". Now, however, we don't even think when typing away at our friends wall.

This is all about to change as (free) social gift app, Wrapp, on iOS [iTunes] and Android [Google Play], allows you to post gift cards, many being free, to peoples Facebook walls which they can then redeem at the store using their smartphone, like a voucher. This means that for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries or even just wanting to celebrate a loved one, you can specialise and give them something they can actually enjoy.

The Swedish company are currently having a lot of success, being a huge hit in their home country, the App has now launched in the UK and has received over $10million in backing [CrunchBase]. The first instalment was for $5.5million in Series A funding led by Atomico. The venture capital firm's backing, formed by Niklas Zennström, has led the Skype co-founder to join Wrapp's board of directors. He was later joined by LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, who became Wrapp's second investor, with $5million, through Greylock Partners.

However, there are more experts behind the scenes as well as the co-founders, which consist of Hjalmar Winbladh (Rebtel and SendIt) and Spotify founding CTO Andreas Ehn. This experience will be vital as the company gets ready to launch in the U.S, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Asia and more.

Not only is this exciting for social media users as they are able to share gifts with friends, using either the set amount from the voucher or adding more, it's particulary attractive for the companies themselves as Wrapp offers businesses a chance to engage with friend to friend marketing.

1. Arqball Spin

Shopping online can be simple (sometimes), cheap and enjoyable – or it can test the most patient of digital shoppers.

Images are important to the success of most e-commerce sites. Customers want to see what something looks like before they buy. Even so, many online retailers don't take advantage of the digital space; with users viewing images they can't engage with during the purchase cycle.

Which is where Arqball Spin comes in...

Arqball Spin lets you easily capture, author, annotate, and share 3D visualizations of objects using your phone or tablet. Our technology enables novel applications in online commerce, marketing/advertising, education, and scholarship. Think: YouTube for 3D!

Arqball Spin offers a cheap answer for producing quality, interactive 3D models. The (free) iOS [iTunes] app enables users to create an interactive image by recording a spinning object with the iPhone/ iPad camera, with the first 5 "spins" on the house. For users wanting more, there will be a tiered pricing plan introduced very soon.

The one obvious downside is that users require a spinning platter to record their images with – but Arqball have released their own (which retails for $80-$100). The other downside of Arqball's offering is that their spinning plate is only large enough to accommodate objects not much bigger than an apple (the fruit).

Despite these drawbacks, Arqball was named "the coolest app at SXSW" by former Editor In Chief of TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld. The software is all their own work as well with the six person team headed by founders Jason Lawrence and Abhi Shelat, both computer science professors at the University of Virginia.

We contacted Lawrence about the company's recent exposure and what they hope to create with the app.

SXSW and AppStore placement have given us a great burst of exposure. We are certainly still in the "early-adopter" phase and are doing everything we can to get stages to our customers as soon as possible.

We will be launching a blog and discussion forum soon with the goal of cultivating a community of users/hackers/sellers/etc. who all bring different goals and perspectives to our product. It's a very exciting time for us and we think we're on the cusp of revolutionizing user-generated 3D content by making tools for capturing/authoring/sharing easy to use, inexpensive, and widely available.

The market's going mobile and businesses need to catch up. Fast.

But should your business develop a native app (i.e. an app that needs to be installed on a mobile operating system) or a web app (i.e. a mobile-optimised site that's accessible on any operating system)?

You could follow e-commerce giants eBay or Amazon's lead and do both. They both have a fully functioning website, as well as a native app for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile devices. Amazon and eBay users are already using both platforms for purchase; in January eBay reported almost $2bn of the $53bn profit made from marketplace business was from mobile. Last month, Amazon announced that its customers had ordered more than $1bn worth of products on mobile devices.

But if you've not got the development or financial might to match the e-commerce powerhouses like eBay or Amazon, you'll have to decide which route to take. We recently had this discussion at Hoop HQ, so we thought we'd compile a list of reasons to go down either road. Which route you take entirely depends on what your app needs to do – as we've tried to explain below.

Web

Web apps operate through a phone's browser, allowing the app to function on devices running any operating system (i.e. Apple's iOS, Google's Android, Blackberry, Windows WP7, HP's WebOS etc). A web app, as it is accessible on any smartphone with a web browser, effectively has a larger reach than a native app. Developing a web app (rather than native) can be cheaper, as you're not developing multiple OS versions of the same app and can develop using standard HTML or JavaScript skills. A web app also allows you to release and update the app as and when you see fit (a process sometimes limited by native app stores).

With the rapid evolution of technology, web apps are becoming almost as fast as native apps. For example, Apple's latest Safari 5 mobile browser (released in 2010) was developed with a new JavaScript engine (Nitro) enabling it to run JavaScript 30% faster than the previous browser iteration.

Building a web app can (should) utilise web standards, which in time could unlock previously inaccessible features on the mobile device like the camera or address book (which currently only native apps can do). Web apps are subject to tracking and data gathering as with any website (using, for example, Google Analytics) and allow the developer to have complete control over monetisation (something that is limited through native app stores). Because you're on the web, your app's content is accessible and can be shared using the standard social share buttons. This social share function needs to be built into a native app and content (because it's locked into the native app) isn't searchable. Another plus point to web apps!

Businesses are starting to become more aware of the benefits of web apps – the Financial Times recently pulled their native apps from respective app stores and saw over 100,000 people access their web app in a little over a week post-launch. The FT may have created a web app to avoid Apple's 30% sales cut (their Head of Product Development told the Wall Street Journal that the benefit of developing a web app allows publishers to "un-tether ourselves from app stores"), to take complete control of their customers' data and to bypass app distributors to secure "a direct relationship with readers".

Advantages of a web app

• Accessible via the web, so can be used by anyone with a smartphone browser
• Cheaper to develop than a native app as it works on all operating systems
• No time delay on releasing the app or its updates
• Able to track user information via Analytics
• Content is searchable and shareable
• Developer fully controls monetisation
• Built with web standards

Native

Native apps are accessed via an app store but can also be sold via the web (iTunes has a web platform as well as a desktop program) and are therefore inherently more discoverable than web apps (which are limited to being found on the web). Selling an app (even for a nominal fee) through a store immediately starts generating revenue, which you can't easily do with a web app (users don't generally like paywalls, but in-app advertising and purchases seem to be acceptable).

Native apps can connect to a handset's hardware and sensors (like the camera, address book or calendar for example) allowing a richer and more immersed user experience than a web app can. Native apps are specific to the operating system of the handset it's running on – which requires native operating system-trained developers. Native apps also have a homescreen icon and so are a constant reminder of your content (although on iOS you can create a mobile browser bookmark that produces a homescreen icon to what Apple calls a "web clip" – but not everyone knows that).

Native apps lock users within the app, whereas on a web app one stray click will take users away from your content (and you'll probably not get them back). In a native app, this can't happen – increasing your connection with the native app's users. Native apps also support push notifications (if the user gives the app permission to send them), even if the app isn't open. Web apps are also capable of doing this - but it's just not as easy.

Currently, the biggest difference between a web app and a native app is that the latter does not need an internet connection to function (although if the native app requires data download then it will indeed need a connection). However, W3C are in the process of developing local storage capabilities in browsers using HTML5 - which would bring web and native apps level on this point.

Advantages of a native app

• Easier to find than a web app (sold via app stores and the web)
• Quick to generate revenue (in ways less likely to drive users away)
• Can connect to hardware and sensors giving a more immersive and connected experience
• Can send push notifications easily and has a homescreen icon
• Lock users into your content
• Generally doesn't require an internet connection

If you can't decide between native and web, fear not as there is a compromise.

Hybrid

[Watch the PhoneGap promo on YouTube here]

Companies like PhoneGap, Sencha and Worklight provide a development platform that wraps a standard web-based HTML and JavaScript codebase in an open source framework that gives your web app access to the native app's APIs for hardware and sensors, enabling it to act as a native app across multiple platforms. The best of both worlds!

There are definitely advantages and disadvantages (nicely summarised in the slide below from a presentation by Worklight) to developing an app on either platform, or both, but at the end of the day it entirely depends on your requirements and your resources.

Do you want to develop a mobile app or have you got any suggestions or points we may have missed? Feel free to leave us a comment below or let us know via email or Twitter.

When it comes to social media platforms, Facebook is arguably the biggest - pulling the most weight. The site has 500 million active users (at the last count) who spend 700 billion minutes a month logged on. It's therefore rather hard (and probably inadvisable) to ignore Facebook out of hand if you're looking to buy into social media advertising or looking for a new e-commerce platform.

e-commerce.

Earlier this year, popular online fashion webstore Asos announced they were to open a fully fledged store on the social networking site. The ambitious plan was to take the entire Asos catalogue and adding 1,300 products to the store every week.

James Hart, Asos e-commerce director, told Marketing Week why such a plan made sense:

"We have millions of visits and millions of pounds coming from Facebook to Asos. At the moment the Facebook shop doesn't have real targets as such but in theory fewer clicks and barriers to purchase should mean greater conversions. We'll have to see if it does lead to increased sales."

Whilst reviews have been mixed, I think we'll see many more online shops taking the jump. I recently noticed Fat Gold, a small, independent clothing company from Malta, have a Facebook store on their company fan page - so it's not just the big guys who can do it.

It's early days yet, but as Facebook's reach is so great it makes great business sense to combine social media and e-commerce. It's a fantastic traffic funnel so why not effectively cut out the middle man? Allow your customers to purchase direct from Facebook instead of directing them to your online store. Chances are they'll be on Facebook anyway.

Advertising.

More recently, Facebook have launched a new venture aimed at targeting potential advertisers.

Facebook Studio is a place to learn, share your work, and find inspiration. We created Facebook Studio as a way to showcase how agencies and marketers can make an impact by marketing with Facebook. Here you'll find great creative ideas from around the world, as well as the resources you need to find answers and create your own campaigns.

Facebook Studio both celebrates and rewards popular advertising campaigns. It provides tips on the marketing tools available on the social networking site and provides a library of current campaigns. The Facebook Studio 'Gallery' can be used to search for campaigns with the most likes, shares, comments, feedback or by region or agency.

The new Facebook Studio seems to be a great tool with which to base any foray into a Facebook advertising campaign. It should also act as a deterrent to campaigns of lower quality; these don't serve the interests of either Facebook or advertisers. It remains to be seen if Facebook Studio does the job but it's a commendable start from the biggest social networking site in the world.

If you'd like to develop a e-commerce platform or would like to start advertising on Facebook or would just like to have a chat about social media, why not try our Free Fridays offer?