Twitter is one of the hottest mobile applications around. Twitter is basically a social updating and networking site. Twitter’s basic premise is that it allows people to keep up with each other by regularly exchanging the answer to one basic question, “What are you doing?”
Twitter users connect with friends and make friends, exchanging updates often frequently throughout the day. Twitter is designed to be a business and personal tool, noting that status updates are not only fun and social, but can be helpful too. For example, you can use Twitter to let your boss know you’re running late in the morning or use it to let your friends know that a group is meeting at your favorite bar in an hour for a drink.
Twitter users create their own Twitter page, where they post their most recent updates. Each Twitter update is limited to 140 characters, so it’s designed to keep the experience simple, rather than creating another blog. Once you’ve discovered which of your friends are Twitter users, you can follow them via the too, which means that each of their updates appears on your Twitter page whenever you visit. If they’re following you, they’ll see your updates too. You can access Twitter via your desktop and mobile web browser for viewing content. However, you can also post your own Twitter updates via your mobile phone’s text messaging service, making it simple to keep your friends informed.
Twitter may seem insignificant, but it’s actually one of the most popular and fastest growing applications of all time. Once initiated, many people find that they love keeping up with the tiny happenings of their closest friends.
Twitter is a free service, and despite its popularity, has not generated much revenue. Advertising services are just beginning on Twitter, primarily through a new company called Twittad. Today, users can sell re -skins on their home pages to advertisers. So far, takers have been pretty insignificant. Since most users of Twitter rarely visit their friends’ home pages, advertising this way is not very productive. The basic premise behind Twitter is that you see the updates of the friends that you have chosen to follow on your own page – not by having to visit each friend’s page individually.
In spite of the fact that this first attempt at advertising on Twitter has been slow, we’re convinced that, in the near future, advertising on Twitter, in some form, will be extremely popular.
MAPS AND GPS OPERATED DEVICES
Today, Google Maps is one of the most popular mobile applications available, and advertisers currently can place ads on the Google Maps page. But, it is believed that we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg with GPS enabled devices on mobile phones.
For example, there is currently a program called NextBus, which literally tells you when the next bus is arriving. By entering the bus route you’re interested in taking, Nextbus can give you up to the minute arri val and departure information as tracked by a GPS device. In the future there are likely to be many more applications using GPS technology and many advertising opportunities created by these applications.
CREATING YOUR OWN APPLICATIONS
Now that you’ve read through the applications presented in the previous chapter, it’s likely that you’ve come up with some ideas for methods you can use to bring wireless customers to your business. And, of course, there are many more applications available in addition to the ones we’ve described, and there are new ones coming every day.
But, what if you have an idea for your own unique application? Well, it certainly is possible to create your own applications targeted to your business and your customer base. It takes some know how, but it happens every day. Many of today’s hottest wide use applications began as a simple idea by a single user targeted to his specific need. Twitter is a great example. The creator of Twitter simply wanted a way to know what his best friends were up to and to keep them abreast of his activities. He likely had no idea that his little application would become one of the hottest on the web.
This book is certainly not intended to provide technical specifics and coding details for creating wireless applications. But, if you have the interest in creating your own application, hopefully the data provided in this chapter will give you some direction on where to start. Here are some basics about creating wireless applications.
