Earlier this year country pop sensation Taylor Swift teamed up with Mobile Roadie and Brightcore to design and create an interactive mobile application for Android and iPhones. Big Machine, Taylor Swift’s record label, launched the app in March 2010 for Taylor’s so-called “super fans.” They saw an opening in the market whereby fans want to be able to interact with the artist and enhance their experience when downloading music, buying concert tickets or merchandise and watching music videos via mobile web.

The application is highly interactive and sends notifications directly to fans whenever Taylor tweets, update her status on Facebook or updates the application, or pages linked to it, in any way. It contains tour information and allows fans to upload photos of themselves at Taylor’s concerts and share it with fellow fans. It is available in 10 different languages, features video streaming and even gives you the option to choose between various downloadable ringtones. Convenience is the name of the game when you are able to stay informed while on-the-go!

The main target group for this app is mobile-savvy super fans whose favourite form of communication is via mobile devices. Big Machine Records focused mainly on word-of-mouth advertising for the app, believing that the app is a “marketing tactic within itself”. They wanted to give artists the option of packaging and delivering their music to fans in new ways. The app gets updated regularly, which keeps fans interested.

The app seems to be a huge success with a positive impact on Taylor Swift’s career. Interaction on her website increased, past albums are still experiencing growth in sales because of the application, her fan base increased and she is now, with the help of her fans and Big Machine Records, the best selling digital artist of all time!

With thousands of mobile apps on the market it may be difficult to decide which apps to install on your smartphone to personalise your mobile experience. Below are a few mobile apps that we find useful.

Evernote
Think of Evernote as the ‘moleskine diary 2.0.’ In short, the app allows you to make notes wherever you go. Just had a great idea? Write a text message and save it in Evernote. Saw an interesting billboard? Take a photo and save it in Evernote. You can even keep track of your expenses by capturing your invoices in Evernote. This app really allows you to “remember everything.” Visit Evernote.com for more information or to download the app.

Trapster
Trapster uses your phone’s GPS capabilities to alert you whenever you approach speed traps, police checkpoints and so forth. The app relies heavy on its users’ contributions to make a success of the app and it seems to have a strong following in South Africa. Visit Trapster.com for more information, it’s worth checking out.

Gravity
Gravity is, in my opinion, the ultimate Twitter app for Symbian-powered smartphones. I have mentioned this app in a previous post but it deserves another mention. This is a paid-for app but well worth the money. If you tweet on the go this app is perfect as it allows you to easily schedule tweets, draft tweets, respond to @ replies and DM’s.

Google Goggles
Google Goggles is a visual search app for Android phones. It allows users to search using an image taken with your mobile phone. Don’t know a logo? Take a photo and submit it to Google Goggles and by using a number of image recognition back ends Google Goggles return relevant results. Pretty cool!

Are there any apps that you can’t live without? Let us know in the comments!

The use of augmented reality to enhance users’ experience of their surroundings has not really been adopted in South Africa – yet. The video below is an example of how real estate agencies can utilise augmented reality to help them improve their lead generation process among others.