Mobile website or mobile app? Differences worth waiting for?

OK, on this one I am soooooooooo not the expert here, just learning quickly as I can, so forgive my ignorance. After attending many webinars about the mobile wave, it sounds like putting any money into mobile websites will be overshadowed by how people are actually using mobile technology and that mobile apps for businesses would be the better forward-thinking way to spend their time and money, at least to last them through the next 5-6 years.

I know this sounds like apples and oranges, but is it really? Can someone explain the difference and uses of the two a bit better, as maybe I’m missing something here.But when SMS messaging came out, I was thinking woo-hoo, how cool, but the cost was prohibitive for most and mobile apps with PUSH notifications are quickly running right over them with their cost effectiveness.

So mobile website or mobile apps… room for both… different or the same… another paradigm shift? … or am I just missing the big picture … or making too much of their differences?

 Thanks, yall!

Robin Carlisle

@hmmarketing Thanks, Martyn. That was my understanding about the costly entry barrier to apps, until today. Now I understand that all that has changed. That cross platform apps will now be much cheaper to build and approve and distribute virally… both the app and PUSH notification messages… making mobile websites seem like an interim project at this point.

If what I heard was true today, I think mobile websites may go the way of SMS messaging… too costly an interim fix, but not a longterm solution.

If the price of entry of creating and distributing apps has reached that critical cost-affordability point, where would that leave mobile websites at this point?

@hmmarketing Be glad to… but I’ll have to go hunt it down. Actually, that would be a good thing as you can tell if it’s just hype or fiction or, lol, if I just don’t know what the heckledoodles I’m talking about. If I saw the vid on one of my private member sites, I’ll have to figure out how to let you see. I’m thinking it was a guest webinar through Occupy MainStreet… maybe. I’m thinking it was John Mills and Jonathan Green who did the webinar, but not sure. Let me go check.

Robin

One big thing about it though… I watched them create a beautiful mobile app for a restaurant, with every menu and price included on it, in ONLY 17 minutes flat!!! No kidding. This is easy peasy and a 10 year old could do this. There is NOT talking to some designer and developer who takes forever and must make incessant changes for one platform or the other. Nope, 17 minutes and you are done! A few weeks to go through Google’s approval process and a few more weeks to get through Apple’s approval process, but that is it. They’ve turned the tide for building apps. At least that’s what I saw. And these apps do everything a website does, except it sits right in someone’s phone, instead of merely being accessible via the web. Truly innovative and more targeted for local businesses, at least that’s the way it appears to me.

Robin

@atlantarobin  @hmmarketing

I’m not sure if you understand what the differences are between an app and mobile website. Here is an article that I think will help you evaluate the benefits of mobile website vs. an app

http://hswsolutions.com/services/mobile-web-development/mobile-website-vs-apps/

@atlantarobin

You are very kind, I am a techy geeky girl, but hardly a hero…. well maybe to my two pups, but then dogs see the their people through rose colored glasses—so lucky for us “people”

Here’s what I’m talking about… at least this is the orginal app builder, as I had seen a webinar presented by a white label reseller selling this at exorbitant prices. They’ve made this stupid simple and the price is very affordable. (No affiliate link, just info).

http://www.biznessapps.com/index.html

Jules, I’d be especially interested to hear your opinion of this app builder.

@juleswebb I may be a newbie here but Im ‘pretty sure’ I understand the difference between an app and a website!!! the clues are in the names!!

@juleswebb no worries, I was just starting to get worried that I had missed something

I personally think for small businesses, that a mobile website is the way to go.  I mean, if you create a native app, whos going to download that, so they can see your business? (not many).  So, its going to be very important to take the next step and create a mobile version of your website… (Im building an app to do this) ha, because last time I checked, the stats say that approx 50% of website views are through mobile… and many websites are not viewable on small screens…. and there will always be small screens (i,e mobile phones).