I was down in Charleston recently to visit a client, and we got into a wonderful discussion about websites and PDAs. Basically, someone had asked him whether the site we were developing was going to be optimized for delivery via PDAs. Short answer, not in the current project scope. Long answer, he and I both had something more sinister planned.
The little light went on for me when I bought the iPhone 3G several weeks ago and started downloading applications like a drunken sailor in a rum bar. One app keeps my grocery list, another app tunes my guitar … and then there’s Facebook.
If you haven’t seen the iPhone app for Facebook, you need to check it out. It’s what web-content-delivered-to-PDA is in its best incarnation. Namely:
1. Optimized visually for the screen. It just looks beautiful! I remember the misery of surfing the web on my Blackberry and being horrified by the experience. iPhone’s Safari does significantly better by allowing you to shrink and grow the display, but Facebook’s app delivery is so clear and so easy to use without the need to play with the resolution of the display.
2. Streamlined to deliver the most-wanted/most-used features of the main site. You don’t get everything that the main site provides, but you do get most of what you want and need.
3. Personalized. It’s not just basic RSS feeds, but tailored content and the ability to update your profile and status, as well as to chat and email.
And it’s not just Facebook. LinkedIn, Flickr, and the Obama ‘08 campaign all have customized iPhone apps with varying degrees of success.
So what would this look like for a university targeting a prospective student with an iPhone app? Well, to start:
1. Photo galleries and videos
2. The ability to schedule a tour of campus
3. The ability to chat with a student or faculty member
4. An application status checker
5. News & events feeds
6. Tie-ins to university-related Facebook and YouTube sites
7. Personalized next steps and checklists
Excuse me, please, I have a client and a developer to call …
Voltaire Santos Miran EVP, Web Strategy I've developed and implemented communication strategies in education for more than 20 years now. I think my team at mStoner is the smartest, funniest, and coolest group of colleagues ever, and I can't imagine being anywhere else. Except Barcelona. Or Paris. Or Istanbul. To quote Isak Dinesen, "the cure for everything is salt ... tears, sweat, and the sea."