Opportunities in Emerging Platforms - You're Too Late To Be First

Thoughts on how developers should view new and emerging platforms such as Android and (more appropriately) Windows Phone 7.

Oh if only all of us could have ridden the Fart-App Wave.  In 2008, fart apps were selling to the tune of $10,000 a day.  You read that correctly.  Recording and playing back a medley of fart noises was making someone $10,000 every day!  Had I'd been so lucky, today I'd be dictating this blog to my assistant while trying not to spill my Mai-Tai.

I'm happy for those titans of flatulence. Honestly, more power to them! The rest of us, however, need to move on.  We need to move on and fully acknowledge the fact that those days are long gone.

It's tempting to look at a new emerging platform and think 'Hey, I bet that new doo-hickey doesn't have a truck-stop inspired fart collection yet'.  Maybe it doesn't, but that doesn't change the fact that there is an army of 'entrepreneurs' thinking the same thing.  The fart app was a hit because since Alexander Graham Bell, no phone in the history of phones has ever farted before. As stupid as it was, it was novel, and you can't recreate novelty simply by porting it to a new platform. 

In the last three years, hundreds of thousands of apps have been deployed.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that all the simple novel ideas have been bled dry.  While the evolution of our devices can trigger a new surge of next-generation fart apps (for example, iPhone 4's new gyroscope or LED light), those opportunities are very rare.  Your best bet, then, is to take an existing, non-trivial, proven-successful application and add some form of new value.  And you do that by rethinking feature sets, improving quality, and crafting superior user-experiences.

If you're thinking that this contradicts conventional thinking, you're right, it contradicts conventional thinking.  How can someone re-create something that already exists, slap on 5-10% new value on top and expect people to jump ship and swim their way? The answer is that app purchases are made with virtually zero commitment in mind.

If you purchase a new TV only to later find that same TV, at the same exact price, but with a much nicer remote-control, you will more than likely not be buying another new TV that day.  A TV purchase -- given it's cost and the thought you put into deciding which TV to buy -- is a commitment that you won't quickly abandon.  The same hold true for smaller purchases as well -- say, anti-virus software going for $50.  Apps, on the other hand, are 'expensive' at $9.99.  The typical one runs $0.99.  There's no commitment there.  If you're not 100% satisfied with an app you own and something somewhat better comes along, you'll give it a whirl.  So, as a developer, it makes sense to find something with a large user base and build something that is (at the very least) somewhat better.

So in the world of mobile device platforms -- new, emerging, busting at the seams with buzz -- none of that matters.  In my opinion, appropriate considerations are

1. Which platform best enables developers to create an app with new or improved value and superior user experiences.
2. Which platform best enables consumers to discover and acquire those applications. 

Perhaps you think Android is that platform or maybe you think Windows Phone 7 will outshine the others. Maybe iOS, the reigning champion, will remain the reigning champion.  I have my opinions on which platform makes the most sense, but none of them have anything to do with NEW.