How to turn your Blog into a Mobile Web Application
How important is mobile for a blogger? This is the main question I’m asking every time I’m talking with a blogger and this was still the case back in April when I met Andy and Bernie at the Music, Blogging & Social Media meet-up.
Obviously being mobile is a big thing today and almost anybody can confirm that, but how does it translate to a blogger or a small publisher? Is it enough to just have a mobile-friendly site on top of your blog? Most CMSes (including WordPress) certainly think so, but I believe that being mobile is not just about the device, is also about the verb.
If you have a cooking blog, you have to think about how your mobile readers would actually use your blog. Chances are they’re using it while they’re in the kitchen in which case, a companion mobile web application (not a mobile-friendly site!) that works across modern mobile & tablet devices, directly in the browser, might be the perfect choice for your blog. Imagine your mobile readers landing on http://recipes.your-blog.com from their iPhone/iPad and immediately being able to navigate through their favorite recipes.
Or you’re a blogger passionate about racing and you’ve just decided to cover the 24 Hours of Le Mans. How cool it would be to combine messages from your blog with your Youtube channel and a hashtag search on Twitter into a companion mobile web application that can be accessible at http://lemans.your-blog.com
Creating the mobile web application would be just a matter of using the RSS/ATOM feeds of your blog or connecting to different cloud services that already have your content (Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc.). This would be awesome since you wouldn’t need to learn new skills and you would keep blogging the way you have always done.
That’s in essence what we’ve set out to do with Appticles.com – helping small and medium publishers (including bloggers) to better reach and target their mobile audience by creating, distributing and monetizing mobile web applications.
How do mobile web applications differ from mobile-friendly sites, you might ask? Well, the simple way to put it is that with the help of HTML5 we’re able to mimic the native environment of mobile applications, having that look & feel we all love (going beyond that into the functionality, for example offline mode capabilities), but without the constraints of having to download and install the app.
Everything is happening in the browser, thus benefiting from a more efficient distribution model based on the Open Web: just imagine how your friends and followers can just tap on a link and immediately have access to the application without having to go through an App Store and install it. This is truly powerful!
Anxious to see how the mobile web application for LondonBloggers.net looks like? Creating it was just a matter of adding the RSS feeds for each category of articles and the end result is here: http://app.appticles.com/jubr00 You can use your iOS(iPhone,iPad) or Android (smartphone, tablet) to try it out. We’re currently working on supporting Windows Phone 8/RT, BlackBerry 10 and FirefoxOS.
Appticles.com is in public beta (and FREE) and we’re looking to get as much feedback as possible from bloggers just like you so we’re happy to invite you to start creating your companion mobile web application here: http://publish.appticles.com/london-bloggers-create-your-app.html We believe in customer happiness and constructive feedback, so do not hesitate to send us your questions or suggestions at . We are updating Appticles on a monthly basis, with respect to the feedback we’re receiving from beta customers just like you!
