@marksbren

Highlights

Searching apps

My weekend Twilio project

I have been really interested in what Twilio has been doing. After hearing about the SMS API, I had to give it a try. The result: my own SMS assistant. 

I have noticed that the largest fraction of my cell phone communications revolve around a few simple questions: 

Where are you? 
&
What are you doing tonight (or near future)?

Many times, I miss calls or texts from friends asking these questions, resulting in missed opportunities to hang out or socialize. So, I decided to remove myself as the bottleneck. Now, if I miss a friend's call, instead of an old voicemail prompt, my SMS assistant (complete with personal greetings) will ask if they want a text with my location and plans for tonight. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Give it a try (call me). If you get routed to voicemail it is because you aren't in my contacts or it is broken. Either way, let me know and I can add your number or fix it.

Hello?!?! Can we talk to our customers?

Iphone_fail

One thing I have found very lacking in the app stores is ability to communicate with users. I read reviews in the Apple Appstore, Android Marketplace, and BlackBerry App World and cannot help users with their problems. It is quite frustrating. Why can't developers contact users? If someone leaves a comment that the app is crashing I should be able to easily message them and help out. It seems like the current method communicating with users is collecting email addresses on signup or dropping a "contact us" link in the application. Both methods introduce friction. Why not allow contact through the marketplace similar to how users get notifications of updates?

Discovering mobile applications

With so many applications in the iPhone appstore discovery is becoming more of an issue. There are just too many. It is becoming such an issue that applications are being created to help you find applications. These include Chomp (iTunes link) and Appolicious (iTunes link). 

So, how do you increase discoverability? On the web, the search engines helped discoverability. Google's brilliant move was to use links as a ranking system. Also, Adwords helped smaller sites buy their way to discoverability. What are the equivalent data structures for mobile applications? With such a scattered marketplace (Apple, Google, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Verizon and other carriers are all making application stores) how will apps be discovered across platforms? 

Or will the appstores continue to be cluttered with thousands of applications? Maybe the next step is making applications for finding applications that help you discover applications. For some reason, I doubt it.

Apps on my iPhone

I have been jumping between phones lately, but mostly using the iPhone. I love using the iPhone to discover, read, and keep up with tech content on the web. There are 3 apps that I use for this:
  1. Tweetie (iTunes link) - I look through my feed on the way to work to see what is happening. Anything that looks interesting I will save for batch reading later using my second app:
  2. Instapaper (iTunes link) - I love this app. I can save articles from any computer and read them on the train or plane (even without an internet connection). For the articles I would like to keep as a reference I use the third app:
  3. Del.icio.us (iTunes link) - I love having my bookmarks wherever I go.
These three apps help me filter my feeds and stay on top of what is happening.