Almost 15 years ago I headed up the effort to build outdoor retailer Patagonia's first online retail store. About 20 minutes ago the company released its first native iPhone app, offering a full branded retail experience on the world's coolest smartphone. Best of all, the app was built by the rockstars at Sprella, a mobile marketing + retailing platform run by some good friends here in Seattle. The craziest thing about it is I'm as fired up about the interplay between brands, commerce and technology as I was 15 years ago, and it still feels like the best is still ahead. What a great place to be messing around... iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ Read More
...to main | skip to sidebar Crash Dev Seeking useful patterns wherever they appear Friday, July 9, 2010 Google Open Spot for Android: If I still lived in SF I'd be all over this app! Android apps at AppStoreHQ Just spotted on Hacker News: Google Labs has just released an Android app + game cal... Read More
Two-thirds of the Urbanspoon team dropped by Founders Co-op for our weekly all-hands lunch this week, fresh on the heels of their acquisition by IAC. They shared the story of their journey from struggling Facebook app developer to iPhone app superstars, including some of the best (and worst) decisions they made along the way. Urbanspoon did a *lot* of things right, but one in particular stuck in my head as relevant to our latest company: AppStoreHQ. Long story short, Urbanspoon made it possible for any blogger to get their restaurant reviews featured on Urbanspoon just by including a little widget they called a "Spoonback". The presence of a Spoonback allowed Urbanspoon to sift through the sea of food-related blog content and zero in on just those posts relevant to the restaurant in question. Urbanspoon got the benefit of including the freshest and most original review content on their site, while participating bloggers got exposure, traffic and links from one of the hottest restaurant review sites on the web. We just completed an iPhone developer survey and one of the most-requested kinds of marketing advice sought by developers was how to get their app reviewed by influential bloggers. As soon as I heard the story of the Spoonback, I realized that we could help iPhone developers get reviews by creating a similar value proposition for bloggers who review iPhone apps. I sat down with Ian after lunch, and late yesterday he sent me a link to this page - our version of the Spoonback, but for iPhone apps instead of restaurants (you can see the badge in action at the top of this post). Congratulations to the Urbanspoon guys on a great outcome for all their hard work and innovation, and thanks for sharing the story of the Spoonback. Read More
Crash Dev: Google Open Spot for Android: If I still lived in SF I'd be all over this app! - Crash Dev
