For the last month or so, I’ve been playing with the developer build of Wanderful Media’s Find & Save iPhone app. Today the app launched, just in time for the barrage of shopping holidays that the online and retail worlds continue to seemingly invent (Home Appliance Tuesday!).

In seriousness, the app addresses a unique use case at the intersection of local product search and deals. There are a handful of apps in this category each with different combinations of features. Find & Save differentiates on search & browse usability and depth of local shopping content.

The latter comes from Wanderful’s longstanding position of distributing circular content. This gives the company a comprehensive user experience, rather than the “cold start” challenge of many local shopping apps. And if we need to say it again, data will make or break mobile shopping.

Oft-underrated push-alert functionality is also included — key for the mobile use case developing around location based discovery. That will be pushed forward (no pun) in local shopping by things like iBeacon and Google Glass. Until then,push alerts are key (see Valpak app).

The free app joins Find & Save’s iPad app with a similar feature set, but more tailored for on the go use (Read: higher buying intent). There are also lots of personalization features to save items or retailers, in order to be alerted later when nearby…back to push alerts.

More on the feature set can be seen in the bullets below provided in today’s release. You can also download the iOS app in the App Store.

–All sales nearby. Shoppers will receive a list of all nearby stores with their latest sales based on up-to-date retail circulars and their current location. The app provides a map view of stores in the area and details like phone number, address and directions.

— Browse weekly ads. Whether they are browsing through the latest holiday circular while in the store, or checking out weekly ads of stores nearby, shoppers can browse sales across all retailers in one app.

— One shopping list across all devices. Instead of carrying around a bundle of circulars, or having to multiple lists scattered around a purse, Find&Save for iPhone brings the shopping list to the back pocket. Shoppers can access, create and/or edit the same shopping list on FindnSave.com, Find&Save for iPad, and Find&Save for iPhone.

— New sale alerts. Shoppers can follow their favorite stores and opt-in to get notified whenever there’s a sale.

— Share deals with friends. Whether shopping alone or with friends, the app comes in handy for shoppers who want to quickly share finds via text or email.

The post Find&Save iPhone App: Just in Time For Shopping Blitz appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The post Happy Birthday, iPhone appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Sometimes you see something so compelling you just know it’s the start of something big. The 7-iCollection iPhone app recently launched by Green Tomato for 7-Eleven Hong Kong fits that bill.

Simply put, it uses the phones “augmented reality” feature (if you haven’t seen this, the easiest way to understand it is look at “Monocle” within the Yelp app) to collect items hidden in 7-Eleven stores. So the user walks into a store, holds up his/her phone until a “collectible” (in this case teddy bear) shows up, and then captures it by jiggling the phone. You can then exchange items with your friends, and once you get a complete collection, receive a prize.

This is the modern-day version of the Pepsi bottle cap promo of my youth, where each had an NFL team helmet and you got some huge prize if you collected all 28 (the NFL of the late 1970s). We all bought Pepsi whenever we could and traded with our friends in a mad pursuit.  Pretty soon it turned out all of us had 27 teams and none could get his hands on that elusive Baltimore Colts (before Peyton Manning) cap — rumor was that only five of those were made in the entire country.   Some Pepsi marketer should get a gold star — this campaign is still remembered by at least one kid 30 years later.

The power of campaigns like this 7-Eleven Hong Kong implementation may be similar:

— Most important, it’s fun and addictive, and so will drive downloads and usage. This isn’t another “store locator” app; instead it gives the user a real payoff for downloading it.

— It drives traffic to multiple locations.

— The Collectibles/Prizes can be tied into whatever a retailer is trying to push.

— Collaboration among friends builds brand awareness.

— Users download the marketer’s app (e.g. 7-Eleven), not a third-party app like Foursquare or Gowalla.

— And unlike the Pepsi version of the 1970s, the retailer has the option to promote additional products/coupons through the app.

Certainly there will be many iterations/improvements on this concept — but for marketers interested in location-based campaigns, this is surely an approach worth considering. This app might just be a little glimpse into the future.

_____

Tobias Dengel is CEO of WillowTree Apps Inc., a mobile applications developer. He is also BIA/Kelsey’s new technical editor and will be posting regularly on mobile-related topics. The views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BIA/Kelsey.

The post A Glimpse Into Next-Gen Retail Apps appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Yesterday Apple updated various pieces of its developer rules/requirements. The change that got the most press was that Apple was “opening up its popular App Store to products made using Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) Flash program,” according to The Wall Street Journal. That description is somewhat misleading — there is clarification later in the article, but the casual reader might assume that iPhones/iPads now support Flash. They don’t. All that happened is that Apple is now allowing apps to be compiled from non-Apple software.

The most common will likely be Flash CS5, where developers can export programs as iPhone apps. The theoretical advantage is that programmers can work in CS5 and build apps for a variety of platforms. That said, there is a long way to go yet in proving this model, especially for high-functioning apps. What’s interesting is that while Apple is relaxing these constraints on one end, on the other it released its first ever “Store Review” guidelines. Historically, when we submitted apps to be approved, we didn’t have much to go on except Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, which are typically very focused on UI and certain technical/design attributes. Now for the first time, we are getting much broader guidelines.

Apple’s guidelines, available at TechCrunch, start off with a bang — the second bullet says “We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps.” Further down in the intro, “if you’re trying to get … into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.” Cheeky stuff. But as developers, we agree with Apple — the more “trash” gets into the App Store, the worse for everyone. One of the things consumers love about the App Store is that most of the stuff there is good, unlike surfing on the Web or the blogosphere, where the opposite is often true.

Apple then gets serious with seven pages of small print rules. There are a few highlights that matter to any business considering an app:

— Lots of duplicate apps will be rejected — this confirms the day of every SMB having its own app is probably never going to happen — not that it would have made sense anyway.

— Apps that enable additional features/functionality outside of the App Store will be rejected — so you cannot send someone to a Web site to pay for new levels of a game, for example, thereby circumventing Apple’s system (and 30 percent revenue share).

— You MUST use the In App Purchasing API to purchase content, functionality, or services within the app — so you cannot use a credit card to sell anything that is part of the app.

–You CANNOT use the In App Purchasing API to purchase goods or services that exist outside the app — so you cannot sell your old record collection using in-app purchasing (presumably because Apple has no interest in getting into the messy chargeback world, among other reasons).

— Subscription sales must last at least 30 days and be available on all iOS devices.

— Apps need to inform users before collecting location information (this is not new) and obtain user consent for push notifications.

— And finally, “We will reject Apps for any content or behavior we believe is over the line.” And yes, that’s defined as “I’ll know it when I see it.”

At the end of the day, on the content side, Apple is giving itself lots of wiggle room to reject virtually any app it doesn’t like. What’s really interesting is how e-commerce is evolving in the apps — the divide between what MUST and what CANNOT be done through Apple’s In App Purchase is becoming clearly drawn. That’s where the money is.

_____

Tobias Dengel is CEO of WillowTree Apps Inc., a mobile applications developer. He is also BIA/Kelsey’s new technical editor and will be posting regularly on mobile-related topics. The views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BIA/Kelsey.

The post The Skinny on the New iPhone Guidelines appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Classifieds haven’t been especially enhanced by mobile apps — although it is nice to have them on the go when shopping for a car or a house. But Oodle keeps pushing the envelope with its effort to bring the world of social media to classifieds.

The classified site, which also acts as a platform for clients such as Facebook and Walmart, has now added an iPhone app that CEO Craig Donato says is less about search than it is about making it easier to post items. “We’ve made it really simple. You post an ad, take a picture and you’re done,” he emphasizes. The iPhone isn’t just a phone, he adds. “It is a wireless camera.”

The app also makes it easier to see what your friends (and friends of friends) are looking for via Facebook Connect. Roughly 70 percent to 80 percent of the site’s traffic is via Facebook Connect, says Donato. “Mobile and social are very interrelated.”

Friends who have too many friends (i.e., 2,500 friends) kind of water down the exclusivity on this. Their friends could be just about anybody. But it still interesting. “Classifieds exist as a second degree of connectiveness,” says Donato. “The amount of want ads is very high,” especially for items such as tickets.

Donato notes that other efforts at Oodle have been moving along, including its Oodle Pro reputation management and classifieds placement program, which has just gotten its 1,000th customer. “People [especially Realtors] use Pro to get leads and to focus on taking advantage of other social features.”

The post Oodle’s iPhone App: Mostly About the Camera appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Realtor.com has gotten 1.3 million downloads of its iPhone app, which launched in January. “It is the fastest growing app in the category,” President Errol Samuelson told Inman Real Estate Connect attendees in San Francisco last week. “The content is free; the attention is priceless,” he added, riffing on the MasterCard ad campaign.

The iPhone app also provides real leads. People using it make 10 times as many phone calls to agents as e-mail. But there is a dark side to that as well. “Seventy percent of voicemail leads are unanswered,” he said. That points to a real problem if agents don’t figure out a way to answer their phone soon, he said.

While Realtor.com has had success with the iPhone, it is also focusing on Android because it supports many more devices. Whether iPhone or Android, agents have got to not only focus on their apps, but also on their Web sites. “People click on an app, then go to a Web site that is not optimized,” said Samuelson.

The post Realtor.com: IPhone App Boosts Phone Calls to Realtors appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Some speculation (and new details) about Apple’s pending and well-expected reboot of Apple TV found its way last week into The New York Times just before the holiday break. My guess is that the new and obvious name will be iTV and the functionality will mimic other Apple devices running its OS — iPod Touch, iPhone, iBook and iPad.

The time is certainly right for someone to make sense of the TV, which is perhaps the most important information and entertainment device. Just imagine if the next version of Apple TV (a.k.a. the first version of iTV) offered the consumer a user interface as simple and elegant as the iPhone. The iPhone would function as the remote, and we’d do away with the current morass of clickers and remotes that dot the living room landscape.

Of course, Google is not going to sit idle and watch this happen. It is pushing its own Android-like model to counter the much anticipated reboot of Apple TV working with Sony and Intel — two of the most important names in consumer electronics.

And then there’s Microsoft. It would probably like to forget its 1997 acquisition of WebTV for several hundred million dollars. That was 13 years ago — and to date consumers have seen little evidence of the potential of IPTV. Rather, most of us just sit and hope and pray that someone will come along and make the process of watching TV as intuitive and pleasurable as it is to buy and listen to music on iTunes.

The post Apple Zeroes In on iTV appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Lisa Bishop at Gray Television took a few contrarian views when discussing mobile strategies, during an afternoon DSB session on “New Ad Revenues for New Times.” Taking issue with the app craze we’ve seen dominating the media world over the past two years, she’s seeing better engagement and returns with SMS and WAP strategies.

“WAP is more widely available to a larger consumer base,” she said. “The iPhone makes up 2 [percent] to 4 percent of devices and our developers were spending 80 [percent] to 90 percent of time reaching this smaller share of end users.”

This flies in the face of News Over Wireless’ Sam Matheny’s point yesterday about greater growth and rich media capabilities of iPhone apps. There is also the argument that what the iPhone lacks in device share, it makes up for in engagement share, holding the vast majority of mobile Web traffic in the U.S.

The mobile products and features that Gray has focused on include WAP sites for each of its stations and SMS alert service for weather, news and sports alerts (monetized with sponsored messages). Next up are coupons, local search functionality (working with Local.com) and social sharing features.

Also somewhat of a contrarian take from Gray was its recent decision to go it alone when it came to building and managing its WAP product. This was a risk at first because it lost on-deck traffic it previously enjoyed by virtue of the carrier relationships held by the vendors it worked with.

But given more smartphones in the market, Bishop argues there are more users going off deck to search the mobile Web, thus mitigating this lost traffic. Bringing the platform in-house has also allowed Gray to have better control over the dynamic nature of its content, site design, ad serving and perhaps most of all, cost.

“Selling mobile [advertising] was difficult because costs were so high,” said Bishop. “We were selling $20 to$25 CPMs for our WAP sites. But we’ve been able to lower that and see greater returns.”

The results speak for themselves: Gray has cut mobile costs by $0.5 million and increased revenues by 90 percent over the past year. With SMS, it has seen a 20 percent increase in sponsored alerts and has run 130 SMS campaigns in the past month alone — more than it did all of last year.

The post DSB2010: New Mobile Revenues for New Mobile Times appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Multiplied Media has announced that its flagship Poynt mobile search application is available now for the iPhone. The app so far has planted its stake on the BlackBerry with 2 million users — indeed the top mobile local app for the platform.

New features of the iPhone version include:

— Setting a Location: Poynt will detect your current location to begin a search or you can manually enter an address to use as your search location.

— Map View: Rotate the device to map a single or full set of search results.

— Augmented Reality: From within the map view, users can access a directional view of search results.

— Call Gesture: From a search result, hold the phone to your ear to automatically place a call.

— Address Book Integration: Add frequently accessed listings to your contacts for convenient future lookups.

When we talked to Multiplied CEO Andrew Osis in October, he told us there’s considerable expansion on the horizon. This will include smartphone platforms, geography and content sources. The former clearly pertains to today’s announcement and we’ll see more platform launches soon.

New Ground

Multiplied’s challenge will be replicating its BlackBerry success with a different user base and a decidedly more competitive local app marketplace in Apple’s App Store. To do this it will apply the other growth objective above: more content sources.

The BlackBerry app mostly covered local search categories such as business, people, restaurants and movie information. This is fitting to BlackBerry user demos, but as it expands to other platforms, Osis expressed a need to broaden its appeal to more of an uber local search utility.

This will include categories like gas prices, coupons, retail and other verticals whose use is growing among mobile users. But most notable in the iPhone launch are the features that not only fit its user base, but also the technical capabilities of the device itself (touch screen, etc.).

Chief among these (listed above) is augmented reality. This is becoming more and more of a popular value-add to mobile local apps (see Yelp’s “Monacle”). As we’ve argued, there are lots of moving parts such as local data and device compatibility (iPhone 3GS required in this case), but there is a lot to look forward to.

The post Multiplied Media Poynts to the iPhone appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.