According to eMarketer.com mobile apps are set to do better than social apps in 2010 with the iPhone being the platform of choice followed by Android. I find mobile apps especially useful when travelling and, keeping this in mind, I’ve decided to look at a few apps that might be useful to visitors to South Africa during the FIFA World Cup.

ShoZu

Share content easily with Shozu to a wide variety of social websites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Twitpic to name a few. This app is available for many different types of handsets, check here if the app is compatible with your phone.

A virtual cellar: Drync Wine

Whether you are a wine newbie or connoisseur Drync Wine for the iPhone is the perfect wine partner. Drync acts like a virtual cellar with reviews and ratings for over 800 000 wines. With integrated Twitter access, you can easily share your wines of choice with your followers. Buy Drync from iTunes for $3.99 and add all your favourite wines to your virtual cellar list. This is the perfect app for foreign visitors who want to try out the Western Cape’s famous wine routes.

Pano

This app for iPhone allows you to take “beautiful, seamless panoramic pictures” straight from your phone. Panoramic photos are created by taking multiple shots and then stitching them together in the app. No additional software is required. Pretty cool!

fring

Perfect for staying in touch with family and friends while you’re away, fring is an instant messenger mobile app. Social networks that work through fring include Skype, Google Talk, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM and MSN Messenger. You can also use fring to make affordable local and international calls via Skype.

amAze GPS

amAze GPS offer users turn-by-turn navigation and the latest, most detailed maps. Additional features include a 3D bird’s eye view over detailed satellite imagery in major cities. The app is available on a number of handsets and subscriptions are either $3.99 on a monthly basis or $33.99 per year.

Any favourite apps you would like to share?

Many Facebook users have complained in the past about Facebook’s limitations on picture size and many have asked Facebook to upload photos near full resolution. Users will be happy to hear that Facebook announced yesterday that they are slightly increasing the size allowance for photos that are uploaded. On the other hand, they are decreasing the size of profile pictures.

The roll-out of the new features will start today (Wednesday, 20 January) and according to Facebook all users should have access to these features within the next three weeks. The size of the largest photo a user can upload will increase from 604 pixels to 720 pixels and the dimensions of profile pictures will be decreased from 200 pixels by 600 pixels to 180 pixels by 540 pixels. However, even though the size of the images has increased, they will still be too small to print decent quality photos.

What does this mean for developers?

If you developed a Facebook application that queries the photo FQL table or are using photos.get to return information about photos you will need to update your styling to suit these new sizes.

 

What do you think about these changes?

Do you know who your website’s target audience is and did you keep them in mind when your website was developed?

The main function of most websites is to generate new leads and business. Further goals can include providing useful content (perhaps through a blog) and becoming a thought-leader in the industry. Before determining your goals it is important to identify and research your target audience. Once you know who you’re speaking to, you can develop goals for your website.

About.com defines a target audience as “a specified audience or demographic group for which an advertising message is designed.” This holds true for websites too as they are, in essence, a business’ advertising “brochure” on the Internet. As such a business’ website needs to be enticing and easy to navigate to ensure visitors have a favourable experience and convert in leads or new business.

It is important for your web development agency to have a thorough understanding of your brand’s target audience in order to cater for their needs. Hence, your target audience has to be defined and researched long before the website is developed. Now the question: How do you define your target audience?

Firstly, think about the aim of your website. As an example, a travel operator might want to increase their sales by convincing visitors to book tours online or increase their leads through the number of visitors who download a brochure or fill out a contact form.

Secondly, what group of people would make use of your website? Determine how big your audience is and what their interests are. Based on this create different personas within the target audience. The target audience and personas can be determined based on demographic information like:

- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Location
- Job
- Interests

For instance, a persona for a tour operator could be the middle-aged breadwinner of a family interested in family holidays. The second persona could be an individual that is a regular traveller interested in a packaged group tour. Try to come up with as many personas as possible to ensure you take in consideration all visitors to the website. Based on these personas determine what they would want and how they would interact with the website. This information will help the web developer to determine:

- The overall look and feel of the website
- How the navigation should be laid out to ensure smooth usability
- The number of pages that need to be included in the website

Thirdly, think about what other interests each persona might have. What other websites might they frequently visit? How will they find your website? Also consider:

- The speed of their Internet connection
As a rule of thumb use lower resolution pictures on websites to ensure that the website’s loading time is kept to a minimum.
- The type of browser they will use
The website should be compatible with all browsers but make sure that it works perfectly in your target audience’s favourite browsers.

And finally, think about the goals you want your target audience to complete. For the tour operator, goals could include things like downloading a brochure for a packaged group tour, an online booking for an activity or requesting more information about a bespoke travel package.

Now that you have an idea of what each type of persona would like to derive from your website, you can ensure that the information they are looking for is easily accessible.