[arn]

I don't think the easy answer is "all such things suck". You spend the time and money developing an app, and you want your visitors to know about the app. The prime candidates are those who visit your site on that device. So, the targeting is right, but the execution is what typically sucks.

From my own personal experience, if I'm visiting a specific article on the site, my immediate interest is getting the information from the article. Downloading an app is not going to take priority, even if I do ultimately want the app.

We had mocked up a "email me a link to this app" link for our site, in order to give the reader an option to email themselves an iTunes link for later, without taking them outside of the scope of reading the specific article they are looking at. In the end, we switched over to Apple's HTML banner thingy, which gives the opporutnity for people who have already installed the app the ability to open the specific article in the app itself.

[notatoad]

> You spend the time and money developing an app, and you want your visitors to know about the app

The problem is that you're thinking about what you want, not what your users want. Your users want to view whatever content they came to your webpage to view. stop getting in the way of that with your wants. the answer really is that all such things suck, your position just seems to be that you don't care how much they suck because you have an agenda to push.

[arn]

Here you are just projecting your own underinfomed feelings about it on everyone else.

Is there no situation where you see an app as being superior to the website?

For AppShopper.com, yes the app is the superior experience to the mobile web. There were overwhelming requests for an app. We made the app to serve our users. Our goals and user goals are not always mutually exclusive.

[notatoad]

If you maintain an app that offers the same core functionality as the website, and the user can accomplish their Immediate goal on the website, adding the unnecessary step of transferring over to the app is never a superior experience. Simple as that. The only valid case for prompting a user to open your app is when their goal can't be accomplished on the web. Anything else is promotion serving your goals, not the user's.

[arn]

Again, I agree. Read my original post.

[Evbn]

Don't accuse parent of projecting for taking your words at face value. You stated development budget as a reason for wanting users to download your app. That has no relevance to any user's needs.

[arn]

Not really. It was a pratically throwaway phrase that people can't seem to get past to read the point of my message.

If i say that you spend time and money on your startup, and you want people to see it, it does not mean that the reason I want people to use my startup is primarily for budgetary reasons.

In retrospect I should have left the word money out of it because it gets people worked up.

[dpe82]

> You spend the time and money developing an app, and you want your visitors to know about the app

These popovers/nags/redirects are typically annoying because the apps do little to nothing to add to the content or user experience. Just because the company spent time and money developing them doesn't make them useful. Why burden users with the company's poor decision?

[arn]

There is no scenario where a mobile app could be superior to the web app?

[alexqgb]

Of course there are scenarios where the app could be better. That's not the point. The point is that nag screens suck, people strongly dislike them, and if you actually do have a mobile app that's much better than the web app, there are better ways of promoting it.

Because here's the thing: when people see a pop up of any kind, they reflexively think "fuck you". And it doesn't take a marketing genius to realize that priming people in this fashion isn't the best opening move. It's like stroking a cat backwards; the simple rule is "Don't do this."

The correct approach is to start by provide people with what they want, the the form they request, without interruptions, redirects, etc. Make them happy before you try to sell them anything. Not until they're satisfied should you insert a plug for your mobile app. Knowing that you'll be taking up valuable screen space, make sure the app really is much better than the web app. Then tell people that it's much better, and that you think they'll really like it for this reason. And that's it.

Give people what they want, don't be a dick, and you're golden.

[arn]

We aren't disagreeing. I agree, current execution sucks. READ my original post.

I was just calling out dpe82's absurd absolute statement that they suck because all apps "do little to nothing to add to the content or user experience"... Implying that if they the app did offer substantially more, then it would all somehow be acceptable.

[dpe82]

Not if the content is standard text/images/video and the app gets in the way of consuming the content - which is what a user wants to do when they click on a link to an article.

Can an app be superior because it allows other types of content that can't be done well via web technologies? Perhaps. Can an app help with content discovery? Perhaps. But when a user clicks on a link to standard text/images/video they're not looking for either of those.

If you want to advertise your app because it provides other features that a user may find valuable, that's fine. Advertise it like any other product that runs against your content. If nobody uses it there's likely a good reason. Don't force it on them.

[arn]

My point being is that your original opinion seems entirely predicated on the fact that Apps are worse experiences than mobile web. I think this is clearly wrong. For web-apps, I think native-apps can function much better. I guess we'll never ever see a Vidmaker app?

But that's all beside the point... you are so quick to argue against me, you don't even see that we agree. Re-read my original post. As I said, the execution sucks. You want to inform your audience that there's an app option, but most of the implementations suck and are too intrusive.

[dpe82]

You're right, I shouldn't be so absolutist. Most of my strong reaction is to sites that abuse users by getting in the way and pushing them into an app that doesn't add anything. I guess I'm crabby about it. Don't take it personally.