That’s why we recently conducted a national survey of daily smartphone and tablet users to find out what mobile means to them now and what they want from mobile in the future.

In the 2017 Mobile Future Survey, we learned that daily mobile users are more—and more deeply—intertwined with their devices, with 82% reporting that having their phones with them makes them feel “safe and secure.” Three out of five admitted feeling anxious without their devices. And a few even admitted checking their phone during sex!

But it’s no real surprise that users are device-obsessed—on a daily basis, it’s likely that you unlock your own phone to interact with it tens (if not hundreds) of times. That’s why we used this survey to dig deeper into the types of apps daily mobile users turn to most often, what drives downloads and the truth about app dormancy. We also investigated what mobile’s biggest fans want from their devices moving forward. And finally, we explored the types of personal information daily mobile users will share with brands and app developers—and why.

As our CEO Alan Knitowski put it, “This study proves that mobile is no longer simply about competitive differentiation—it’s about survival.” Want to learn more? Download the full survey report and keep an eye on our blog and social media profiles in the coming weeks for a series of infographics featuring data from this survey.

DOWNLOAD THE SURVEY REPORT

The post Data Download: Phunware’s 2017 Mobile Future Survey appeared first on Phunware.

As a marketing tool, content is king—and video is increasingly one of content’s most powerful formats. For many brands, having a presence on YouTube is a no-brainer. But YouTube shouldn’t be the end of your video marketing strategy.

If you’re ignoring the power of a branded mobile app to serve video, you are missing a huge opportunity to own the narrative, block competitive messaging and increase revenue. Here are some of the pros and cons of the most common approaches to video content marketing, along with some ideas for expanding them into strategies.

Why YouTube Alone Isn’t Enough

Many big brands put video content on YouTube. The platform already exists; there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. It’s also free, which saves money on expensive hosting and storage fees. From a marketing perspective, YouTube has a huge built-in audience and big SEO advantages (it is owned by Google, after all). YouTube suggestions also make it easy to identify potential partner brands and competitors.

But YouTube isn’t a perfect video delivery solution. As soon as your content is live on YouTube, it becomes open real estate for advertisers using Google’s platform—including your direct competitors. They can—and will—create campaigns that run before or even during your video. These campaigns may even promote content channels like your competitor’s app, luring viewers away from your video—and YouTube altogether—by using offers and promotions.

Besides these competitive disadvantages, a YouTube-only strategy is higher-risk. What if the algorithms change? What if Google starts charging for the service? Diversifying is good—just ask your Financial Advisor. And speaking of finances, another YouTube limitation is that it doesn’t allow commerce to take place on-platform.

Branded Video Apps: Control the Spotlight

Unlike YouTube, an app gives you total ownership and control over your content. You can choose to enable or disable monetization (advertising) and select the partners whose brands align with yours. Want to open an additional revenue stream with subscription video on demand (SVOD)? Go for it! Want to leverage location services to make video campaigns more targeted and relevant for your users? Do it! A good app makes good video content marketing even better.

Owning your video channel through a mobile app gives you more power to influence the user path, redirect viewers to a product purchase page, engage with push messaging and harvest advanced analytics to better understand user behavior.

YouTube and Your Mobile App = Perfect Together

Even with an engaging and popular app, it is probably not wise to ignore YouTube altogether. Find creative ways to use YouTube to drive your audience to your app, where you can engage, manage and monetize them.

You can also make your app and YouTube work together to expand your audience. Your mobile app users might not realize you have a YouTube presence, and your YouTube fans may not realize you have a branded mobile app. Use compelling content to cross-pollinate between platforms and increase user engagement.

The trend is clear: mobile video consumption is on the rise, and you can’t afford to miss out. Keeping your brand marketing up-to-date and nimble is just as important as protecting and growing your bottom line. When it comes to video, pairing YouTube with your own mobile app is a smart way to create campaigns that are greater than the sum of their parts.

To learn more about how Phunware can upgrade your mobile video marketing initiatives, explore some of our ready-to-launch solutions by industry, or explore a more customized approach, contact us.

LET’S TALK

The post Beyond YouTube: Get More out of Video Content appeared first on Phunware.

Businesses don’t ask for proposals for point solutions or products they can buy off the shelf. By their nature, RFPs are strategic—they’re for finding custom, long-term solutions that fit in with the soliciting company’s larger vision and goals. If you’re structuring an RFP, do it thoughtfully and carefully. The requirements you put forth can significantly impact the quality of the mobile solution (and partner) you end up with.

I have already discussed the importance of understanding mobile as an iterative cycle and suggested ways to structure your org and team for success across that cycle. Given that branded mobile application portfolios tailored to richly defined mobile application experiences have the power to drive enterprise-wide digital transformation, let’s discuss how your procurement group can structure RFPs to facilitate that transformation.

If you plan for the full mobile lifecycle at the RFP stage, you will be able to find a mobile partner who doesn’t just build your app, but can help you acquire, engage and monetize your mobile audience in line with your business goals.

Mobile RFP Requirements for the “Strategize” Phase

In the mobile application lifecycle, the “Strategize” phase involves defining the amazing experience you want users to have with your app, then outlining use cases and feature sets.

If your project is complex enough to necessitate an RFP, it’s important to select a partner with proven success in similar, equally complex projects.

To uncover indicators of a bidder’s experience and capabilities, ask for examples of:

• Custom flagship applications / application portfolios for known brands. This demonstrates credibility, along with creative and technical expertise.
• Live event applications supporting live-streaming video and other real-time content. This demonstrates that the bidder has robust, stable technology and the ability to integrate with third-party providers.
• Successful in-venue mobile experiences at stadiums, hospitals, etc. This demonstrates the technical capabilities required to integrate with a host of hardware providers to create a seamless, engaging mobile user experience. Bidders should be prepared to support location technologies including high- and low-density Wi-Fi and both physical and virtual beacons.

You will also want to define functionality and feature set requirements in this part of your mobile RFP. As applicable, request the following:

• Simple app content management
• Context-triggered user engagement via push notifications and mobile engagement
• Indoor wayfinding and navigation
• Video streaming
• Campaign and app analytics
• The flexibility to integrate with multiple third-party software providers (such as customer relationship management [CRM] platforms, electronic health record [EHR] systems, loyalty, commerce, etc.)

Mobile RFP Requirements for the “Create” Phase

During the “Create” phase of the mobile application lifecycle, you bring your app to life in the way that makes the most sense for your budget, timeline and in-house capabilities. Depending on your unique timeline and goals, you can expect a mobile solution to cost anywhere from $100K to $500K (if you’re licensing software), or $1M to $5M (if you’re building a completely custom application).

If these numbers seem high, think about how much you allocate to other channels (email marketing, field marketing, etc.). Now think about how much time your target customers spend in those channels relative to how much time they spend on mobile. This simple exercise in perspective will help you see how worthy of an investment you’re making.

A word to the wise: avoid the temptation to go with the cheapest technology option, which may come disguised as a so-called “write once, run anywhere” codebase. Non-native development is a shortsighted non-solution to a very real problem, and bidders who propose HTML-based or other non-native development will not be equipped to support you through the mobile lifecycle. Look for a bidder who proposes a native mobile solution, built to the design standards of each platform and leveraging the uniquely mobile capabilities of each operating system and device. (Here are those design standards, if you’re interested: Apple Human Interface Guidelines, tvOS Human Interface Guidelines, Google Material Design, Android TV Guidelines.)

Mobile RFP Requirements for the “Launch” Phase

During the “Launch” phase of the mobile app lifecycle, you work to get your app noticed and build the audience that will use it. This requires a partner with robust performance marketing and data science capabilities. Make sure that your RFP requests detailed information on how the bidder will support app discovery and user acquisition, backed by real-world examples of launch and audience building success with other apps.

Also make sure to request a thorough explanation of the bidder’s customer support approach during and after the launch period. The more complex the project, the more support you should expect and request.

Mobile RFP Requirements for the “Engage and Monetize” Phase

In the “Engage and Monetize” phase of the mobile application lifecycle, you map out how you intend to keep app users engaged and drive revenue through your mobile efforts. There are many options—from a simple download charge or subscription model for your app to in-app purchases, in-app advertising, driving sales and foot traffic via contextually relevant messaging and more. And all of it generates troves of valuable data that you’d be foolish not to leverage.

To identify a prospective partner who can appropriately support this phase, your mobile RFP should ask that bidders describe their background in supporting:

• In-app monetization with various ad formats as well and a top-quality network (if relevant)
• In-app purchases and loyalty program integrations
• SMS-based marketing campaign planning and execution, as well as the features and capabilities of any contextual marketing tools offered
• Leveraging contextual data to impact marketing, operations and other business-critical initiatives

As you can see, the earlier you start planning for all phases of your mobile application lifecycle—particularly by addressing them up front in your RFP—you not only streamline the process, but increase your chances of driving real returns on your mobile investment.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on how to position your organization for success across the mobile application lifecycle—in essence, get your head right, get your team right and get your RFP right so you can find the right mobile partner. The mobile space is inherently partner-driven and collaborative, but there’s nothing worse than being stuck with a mobile provider who can’t (or won’t) act as a strategic partner.

For more tips and insights, feel free to get in touch. In the meantime, why not learn about the ins and outs of the mobile app lifecycle? Download our eBook on the subject below.

DOWNLOAD THE eBOOK

The post Best Practices for Writing a Mobile RFP appeared first on Phunware.

If you haven’t noticed, the way Americans consume TV and video content is changing wildly. While some of us are upgrading our internet broadband connections to take advantage of every level of resolution offered by a 4K/UHD TV, the younger among us would argue that Wi-Fi and a minimal 4’’ iPod screen are all one needs to enjoy TV (they’re all we need to watch our Netflix shows, after all).  The situation is complicated, involving new and legacy programming models, the expectations and habits of different generations, hardware that never existed before…the list goes on.

First, there are the content providers:

• Traditional cable and network TV
• Subscription services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime
• TV Everywhere services like HBO Go and CW Seed
• User-generated content like YouTube, Periscope and Meerkat

Then, the devices:

• TV
• Desktop / laptop
• Tablet
• Smartphone
• Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast…

With all of these options available, Americans are beginning to divide into three camps:

• Cord nevers have never subscribed to a multichannel video service like a traditional cable channel lineup and have only consumed video content via subscription services, TV Everywhere or user generated content
• Cord cutters subscribed to cable TV at one time, but have since cancelled
• Cord shavers have one foot in both worlds, subscribing to a reduced number of traditional cable channels and binge-friendly services like Netflix and Hulu

According to a recent study by Digitalsmiths, the number of  cord cutters in North America is growing. In 2014, 8.2% of former pay cable TV subscribers cut the cord—a 1.3% increase over the previous year. At the same time, awareness of and loyalty to cable alternatives is on the rise. The Digitalsmiths study also found that 54.4% of respondents used monthly subscription services like Netflix and Hulu, and they were willing to pay more for these subscriptions than they had been in previous years.

So what’s driving this trend away from traditional TV? The study looked into that, too. Unsurprisingly, cost, customer service and content viewing flexibility were top influencing factors.

Engagement Opportunities for Media & Entertainment

For media and entertainment companies, this is definitely a case of “when one door closes, another one opens.” Viewers might be migrating away from traditional media—but in doing so they are creating a whole new realm of engagement opportunity for brands.

TV Everywhere is a great example of that: as viewers increasingly consume content on handheld devices, TV networks are meeting them there, offering subscription-based programming to be consumed anywhere (under controlled network conditions), from computers to tablets and smartphones to streaming boxes. The projected ad revenue from TV Everywhere and other “over-the-top” (OTT) services is on the order of $40 billion by the end of 2020.

To understand your audience, you need to understand their digital habitat. Here’s some insight into what viewers are thinking about as they deliberate which camp to join (cord nevers, cord cutters or cord shavers):

• There isn’t a perfect alternative. You may need to combine several services to guarantee access to your favorite show.
• Are streaming alternatives really cheaper than cable? Monthly subscriptions are cheaper for sure, but after combining your services a la carte, you may spend just as much (or more) as you did on your old cable bill.
• Oh, live events! Live events are not easily transmitted via services like Netflix and Hulu, so your only options for viewing your favorite games live may still be on a local / cable channel or at a sports bar.
• Do you have the power? You may need to upgrade your bandwidth to ensure that your household has access to high-def content.

As complex as the situation is, we may need to add a fourth consumer type here: the smart viewer. These folks know their options and have chosen the best one to meet their lifestyle needs and preferences. The availability of content, providers and mobile technology is forcing this change—now it’s up to brands to keep evolving in ways that clearly benefit their viewers.

The post Cutting the Cord: What the Shift Away from Cable Means for Media and Entertainment Companies appeared first on Phunware.

Here’s the problem: You’re not in the business of building and scaling mobile apps. Neither is your IT department—they have plenty of other issues to address.

What usually happens: mobile app mishmash

Many live-streaming mobile apps are simply cobbled together with in-house content, along with streams from various live stream, media on demand, live replay and highlights vendors. The problem is, these solutions generally don’t perform to the organization’s standards—or the audience’s expectations.

• 1. Scalability capabilities and cost
• The scalability issues come down to capabilities and cost. The fundamental challenge is that scaling streaming content simply isn’t a core competency for most vendors—or for most media / sports / entertainment companies either. Most do not have the necessary expertise, architecture, resources and infrastructure stability. In many cases, they’ve never actually done it before. Launching a streaming mobile app isn’t the time to “try things out,” with fingers crossed that everything works as promised.
• Plus, when you ask multiple vendors to scale for you, you pay multiple vendors to scale for you. Therefore, your costs spike exponentially. For example, let’s say your app home page features five different streams in a carousel. In this case, a simple “get home page” request translates to five different requests—one for each feed vendor. One million requests X five vendors X the cost per request = your budget goes out the window.
• 2. Poor fault tolerance
• In our cobbled-together scenario, whenever a vendor changes something in its code—such as the object structure or rules in a single replay stream—the app is likely to fail. This change actually requires a change in the app’s code, which means the developers will have to submit updates to the app marketplaces (the App Store, Google Play, etc.). Then, you either have to hope that people download the update or force them to update in order to continue using the app (a last resort which generally irritates users). There is no built-in failsafe to prevent small issues from becoming big ones.
• 3. Too much client-side burden
• When you develop a live-streaming app with multiple different data sources, there’s no standardization in the meta-data about the video. Each vendor does it differently. Handling all of this variation demands a lot of client-side logic. That’s okay when you’re dealing with a multi-core personal computer or digital TV, but mobile devices are not designed for heavy logic processing. Performance will suffer.
• 4. No centralized manageability
• When you’re wrangling multiple stream vendors, each vendor has its own approach to management. To edit which content appears within a home page carousel, for example, you might have to log into each different vendor’s management interface, make changes, and then make the related changes to your own content. In other words, one change can be multiplied by the number of vendors.
• All of these manual steps are exceedingly painful, time-consuming and inefficient. Your team has to be trained on every different interface and management approach, and they must remember what to do each time. Plus, the more steps involved, the more opportunities there are for someone to make a mistake.

The solution? Get it all together.

For maximum results (and minimum pain), turn to an expert development team that has deep experience with live streaming. At Phunware, we’ve learned a lot from working with the world’s largest media and sports properties. Our unique approach eliminates the challenges of dealing with multiple vendor streams by integrating and regularly caching everything in the cloud. Essentially, the Phunware platform makes multiple disparate content sources play nice with each other and with mobile devices. It transforms all of the inputs into one consistent normalized format, available to the app from a single cloud-based source.

Phunware’s approach delivers:

• 1. Affordable, proven scalability
• Our platform was built specifically for scalability, with all the necessary infrastructure and resources. It has proven successful across worldwide streaming apps with millions of requests.
• And because the Phunware cloud integration layer acts as a proxy user, our live streaming apps make significantly fewer requests to the different vendors, thereby dramatically reducing cost.
• 2. Maximum fault tolerance
• Live event delivery systems can and will fail from time to time. With Phunware’s integration layer in place, this failure does not have to break the app. In the case of failure, an automatic alert is sent to the appropriate people who can fix it. In the meantime, the app simply serves the most current functioning stream as a fallback. The user would never even know there was a problem. One of our most successful worldwide sporting event apps experienced 99.9 percent uptime, even with different live feeds failing roughly ten times per day.
• 3. Minimum client-side burden.
• Phunware’s cloud-based approach enables our apps to be much thinner in terms of logic by removing the need to maintain state and knowledge of upstream service layers. For example, in the event that a configuration or structure changes in a critical service, our cloud solutions allow that change to be absorbed by the middle tier and not introduce breaking changes to the client layer. In not so many words, the middle tier acts as a levee for the application from the many upstream services. When issues arise that would normally have resulted in a client-side failure and an app update, all of that can be handled at the service layer in a graceful manner that is invisible to the end user.
• 4. Robust, user-friendly, centralized manageability
• Again, thanks to Phunware’s integration layer, all of the different content feed can be managed with one workflow. Our team can also build customized management interfaces with a convenient dashboard, automated processes, and point-and-click simplicity.

Predictions indicate that video content will make up two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic by 2018. Now’s the time to develop a clear and comprehensive strategy for mobile live-streaming—so you won’t get left behind.

The post Live-Streaming Mobile Apps: What We’ve Learned Working with the World’s Biggest Media and Sports Properties appeared first on Phunware.

The AMC Story Sync Phunware team, including Liz DeMartino, Amy Garrett, Michael Vo, Mamta Bakliwal, Andrew Nunez, Ben Kettle and Jeff Dickey have been working hard to fight off walkers and submit weekly updates.

The application is now featured in the Microsoft Store Spotlight and AMC showed their enthusiasm by sending our team some awesome swag, like The Walking Dead t-shirts, trading cards, action figures and comics!

The AMC Story Sync for Windows is available to download at the Windows Store.

The post Are You Caught Up On The Walking Dead? appeared first on Phunware.

Whether you’re on the go with your mobile device or computer, WATCH TCM is now available when you want, where you want, and with the same great attention to detail and passion around the history and legacy of movies you expect from Turner Classic Movies.

Features:

• Two Live Streams: a East and West Coast feed of Turner Classic Movies. Watch 2 different movies LIVE at any time, UNCUT and COMMERCIAL FREE.
• Hundreds of On Demand Moves! That’s right, nearly every title playing on TCM is available to watch On Demand. Includes our introductions from TCM hosts Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz. UNCUT, COMMERCIAL FREE, and presented in their original aspect ratios, preserving the film’s presentations the way they were meant to be seen.
• Gorgeous, responsive design, featuring a slate black color approach to enhance viewing on portable devices.
• Interactive Schedule: 2 month schedule (!) to help you plan your viewing, with information accessed from TCM’s critically acclaimed Movie database. Also includes listings for Short Films playing on TCM. Look for Movie Shorts coming to On Demand soon!
• Movie Alerts and Actor Subscriptions: Subscribe to Movie Stars you love and get notified when they are available in WATCH TCM. Get alerts on films in our upcoming schedule when they are available to play ON Demand.
• Watchlist: Add any movie to your queue to watch later
• Browse by TCM Themes: quickly access On Demand films by popular themes such as THE Essentials, Star of the Month, Silent Sunday Nights, and more. Sort films with additional helpful filters.
• Fan Feed: Sign in with Twitter or Facebook and leave your comments on any film playing On Demand! Add to comments from others, or just enjoy viewing the fan comments on the film yourself – it’s whole new exciting way to experience classic movies.
• Access 1000s of short form clips and trailers to preview titles and see what’s playing or upcoming
• Stunning, exclusive, many never-before-seen image galleries from titles playing on TCM in the month. Post them to Instagram!.
• Share Images and other content via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
• Introducing the TCM BLOG READER: explore great blog writing from across the web featuring the latest news and great writing on Classic Film, personally selected from TCM staff writers.
• In-Depth information on every title playing on TCM right at your fingertips: feature length articles, cast & crew, stunning image galleries, background information, complete synopsis and more.
• Shop.tcm.com highlights and features. Get movies playing on TCM in our store and more.
• Search across the entire 2 month schedule for favorite stars, films, clips. Access titles and set Reminders.
• Retro TCM Clock

Watch TCM is free. To view LIVE broadcasts and On Demand titles, you’ll need to login with your cable or satellite provider user name and password. Please note: not all cable and satellite providers are currently available with Watch TCM.

iTunes
Google Play

The post Launch Announcement: Turner Classic Movies appeared first on Phunware.